When Michael Ennis lined up Des Hasler a couple of months back, declaring that the Canterbury coach's time was up, the feisty player-turned-pundit insisted he was not driven by bitterness over his own departure from Belmore.
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Instead, he said, where the Bulldogs had got it horribly wrong was in others they had let go. The first he identified was Dale Finucane.
The 26-year-old Bega product was never a household name at Canterbury even while featuring in two grand finals but in the tail end of his third season with Melbourne the workhorse lock is certainly appearing like one that got away for Hasler and co.
Finucane had a deal that ran until the end of 2016 when he was released to join the Storm in late 2014. Stuck behind Josh Jackson, Greg Eastwood and Tony Williams in the back row pecking order he didn't believe his game could blossom any further in blue and white.
"I was still contracted at Canterbury for another couple of years. I was behind a fair few guys and my role wasn't really going to change over the course of that contract I didn't feel," Finucane said ahead of Friday night's grand final qualifier against Brisbane at AAMI Park.
"A lot of the guys that were there were still signed for that same period of time. I just couldn't see myself progressing as a footballer. That opened up the opportunity to come to Melbourne."
If circumstances had been different he could have made the switch even earlier. Craig Bellamy's courting of Finucane had been no overnight affair. As an under-20s player at Canterbury he was flown down to meet with the Storm coach and long-time football manager Frank Ponissi and nearly agreed to join them. The impression he made was a lasting one.
"I did give it some strong consideration," he said. "I was actually very close to coming down but I think at the time the Bulldogs were moving a few guys on which would have opened up a good opportunity for me to play some first grade at the Dogs, which I ended up doing the next year.
"At the time I thought my best opportunity lay at the Bulldogs to play first grade. Obviously the second time around I was really happy to come and again it was for an opportunity to play more minutes and to play in a starting role."
A couple of years on and the esteem in which Finucane is held at Melbourne is no better represented than by Bellamy's conclusion earlier this year that it would have been "disastrous" for the Storm not to have re-signed him. They had already lost Tohu Harris and Jordan McLean to other clubs next season and rammed home the importance of Finucane to their future by extending his contract until the end of 2021.
Finucane could have earned more at another club with interest from clubs such as Newcastle but as an important cog in the Bellamy machine and having risen at the Storm to the brink of State of Origin - he was brought into the NSW squad as injury cover this year - he couldn't see himself anywhere else. His addition to the Melbourne leadership group this year was another factor.
"The players that are here and the culture that the club has and our senior players have created, and Craig and the coaching staff have created, is just something that I wanted to be involved in long term," Finucane said.
"Obviously when those guys leave and we have our next crop of young guys coming through, I'd love to be involved in I guess maintaining the legacy that those guys have left at the club and continuing the culture."
If the Storm get past the Broncos on Friday night and reach another grand final that legacy will only be enhanced.
