Is Aaron Naughton the saviour the Bulldogs have been looking for?

Last Saturday night is what happens when your favourite band gets discovered and everybody starts talking about them and wearing the t-shirts.

While it is, of course, great that more people have finally caught on to how cool your favourite band's sound is, there was always something so special about thinking you were part of a small group that truly understood how great they were.

The Western Bulldogs' Aaron Naughton’s breakout, platinum-selling moment arrived last Saturday night in a nationally televised game against the Tigers.

MATCH PAGE: Western Bulldogs v Brisbane Lions

Sure, it was quite a diminished Richmond lineup out on the field, with the absence of All Australians Alex Rance, Jack Riewoldt and Trent Cotchin, but as their coach, Damien Hardwick suggested, ‘we could have had Jesus Christ playing down there and he would have struggled.’

And had that wily, mature-aged former carpenter from Bethlehem been playing, he would have been dealing with a young man hungry for presents on Christmas morning.

By the time the evening was over, the Bulldogs had - unexpectedly - won by 47 points with Naughton kicking five goals and helping himself to 14 marks - nine of which were contested.

It was a truly thunderous performance by the young Bulldog, with his contested mark tally falling just one short of Wayne Carey’s all-time single-game record.

For those with an emotional connection to the Bulldogs, Naughton’s night out was indeed a delight, though not something they haven’t already been enjoying regularly throughout the young man’s 25 game career.

In fact, in Bulldog circles, the discussion had moved well beyond how brilliant this kid is, to whether he should actually be deployed as a defender, or indeed remain closer to goal.

After all, Naughton placed fourth in the Dogs’ Best and Fairest award last season as a rookie, while playing exclusively as a backman.

He was as brilliant in defense as he looks in the forward line, and shaped as a seamless replacement for club legend, Dale Morris, if and when the Bulldogs ever allow his battered body to retire from the game he loves.

In fact, it was only an eleventh-hour decision by the Dogs' coaching staff in the preseason to experiment with Naughton up forward which prompted the move in the first place.

Aaron Naughton, they figured, might be the only bloke capable of taking a mark down there.

And they were right.

In Australian Rules Football, there exists something of an obsession with the contested mark.

For decades the AFL has sold the skill as one of the game’s most unique and marketable features. And while there is something undeniable awe-inspiring about the sight of one professional athlete sitting high upon the shoulders of another, it’s even more special when he or she is taking said mark inside 50, to create or set up a scoring opportunity.

From a Bulldogs’ perspective, the club has been crying out for one such forward for a very long time. And it’s been an even more desperate search in season 2019 as so much of the team's excellent midfield work - topped by Brownlow medal candidate Marcus Bontempelli - has been squandered, having so little forward options nor imagination once the ball is down there.

The Dogs went into Saturday night’s game with an uninspiring 2-4 record, despite being second in the league in clearance differential at +4.4, and second to only Port Adelaide with 411 total inside 50s.

With so much of the Dogs’ excellent midfield work adding up to 'naught-in', the young defender-cum-forward made sure his career game would count for something.

As brilliant as Naughton’s performance was on Saturday night - and has been throughout 2019 - it really is a one-man show where the Dogs are concerned, with Naughton’s 23 contested marks this season comprising a massive 29% of the Bulldogs's contested mark total, with the next best return coming from Billy Gowers who has just seven. 

In Aaron Naughton, assuming the club wants to keep him in the forward line, the Bulldogs' decades-long search for a key forward may finally be over.  

Naughton has lit up the league and bought smiles to so many Bulldog faces, young and old alike. His contested mark extravaganza on Saturday night even bought up comparisons to the likes of Richardson, Riewoldt and Carey who are all, of course, pillars of our great sport.

And while it's cringe-worthy to bring a 25-gamer into discussion featuring an array of Hall of Fame type stars, it's a discussion Bulldog supporters have never had the ability to have, and which they're happy to wag their collective tongues off about.

'Air Naughton' has launched.

The only question is whether the Bulldogs need him kicking - or stopping - goals, more.

Drop a comment at the bottom of the page to participate in discussion with like-minded-sports-and-data-nerds 👇