RODNEY Eade was, literally, miles away the day his coaching career was reshaped and his card harshly and publicly marked by the Western Bulldogs president David Smorgon.

The four-time premiership player and experienced coach had spent the day on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, Austria, with his wife Wendy and 10-year-old daughter Meggan when calls came in from a couple of Bulldogs players, journalists and officials from other clubs to say that Smorgon had announced a shake-up of his football department, having described it as "dysfunctional" and "out of control".

Eade smiled this week as he reminisced about that dramatic day seven months ago when Smorgon pointed the finger — albeit not exclusively — at the coach's apparently ordinary performance at the helm of the Bulldogs' apparently shambolic football department.

The coach, who turned 50 in April, insisted he is not only older but also wiser than the less compromising 44-year-old who left the Swans job mid-season, in 2002, after falling out with another club president, Richard Colless. It was said he comprehensively lost the players back then, but that has never been suggested at the Whitten Oval.

"In Sydney, I was fighting a war I couldn't win," Eade said. "I guess I could have started a war here but what was the point? If you don't do well, you'll get the sack anyway and this is a group I believe can achieve something.

"My wife was really upset about what was said. It hits you with a sledgehammer when you first hear it, I suppose, and I don't mean to be smart about this but I knew there were reasons we weren't playing well and why we fell away last year.

"Wendy said, 'I can't understand how calm you are being about this'. I knew no one wanted to hear my excuses, so I just chose to get on with coaching. The review was all about the administrative side of it. I honestly don't think I'm coaching any differently than I was last year and I heard Scott West say the same thing the other night."

Eade reflected while sitting in the comfort of his expansive new office alongside an elite training and conditioning facility that, he said, has banished the battler image that hovered over the Bulldogs, and is keeping both coach and players at the club for longer each day. His team is sitting equally comfortably in clear third position on the ladder.

The parallels with Geelong's dramas of 2006 and the subsequent review that so insulted Mark Thompson seem remarkable, although Eade insisted he was never embittered by Smorgon's damning assessment of his administration of the football department. What did offend him was the president's decree earlier this year that Eade would cut his professional media appearances and — specifically — the reference to him earning "a few dollars on the side".

Smorgon is unrepentant about his public decrees. He said the decision to allow Eade to focus on coaching and disregard the distractions of administration and media had been more than justified.

"There's no doubt this year Rodney is spending more time at the club," said the president yesterday, "and is not running off feeling he has to push our brand outside, which he does do well. There are only so many hours in the day and now Rodney has more time and he is more focused.

"This was never about pointing the finger at Rodney or about, 'Get Rodney', but the difference this year is that we are all working together. His relationship with (chief executive) Cam (Campbell Rose) has improved enormously."

Like Geelong, the Bulldogs have enlisted the work of the consultancy group Leading Teams. The coach describes the leadership changes among the group as remarkable.

"It actually enhances your coaching when your players start to have more input," Eade said. "When I first arrived here, we had a conversation as a group and I talked to them about empowerment.

"I made the point that eventually I wanted the group to take over and make the big decisions. I could see they were not particularly impressed. They just wanted to be told."

Three days ago, Eade called his senior group of 14 players into a match committee meeting to tell them the coach and the assistants could not agree on certain match-ups for tonight's MCG clash against the Brisbane Lions. While some players remained unwilling to put in their two bob's worth, a robust discussion ensued.

"We spent a bit of time on Simon Black and Travis Johnstone," admitted the coach, "and we had Matthew Boyd on about four different players."

Where has the Bulldogs' improvement come? For a start, they're fitter — notably Jason Akermanis, whose body appears transformed, while Robert Murphy and Mitch Hahn appear fully recovered from their injury woes of 2006. Ryan Griffen, who struggled last year in the midfield, and Adam Cooney have risen to another level, ditto Tom Williams in defence, while Ben Hudson and Scott Welsh have proved inspired pick-ups from Adelaide.

In Sydney, Eade said, his initial mantra was to build up the team's defensive skills. At the Bulldogs, he spent his first two season working on their running and attacking strengths. Now the Bulldogs are playing more defensive, accountable football but they're also faster.

Two more wins should guarantee a finals berth, which is what Eade aimed for at the start of the season. And after that, who knows?

Despite the Bulldogs' prospects, Eade, who is contracted until the end of 2009 and does not expect any renegotiation this season, has fallen well below the radar that caught him so often last season.

Eade said now he should never have taken on the job as head of the club's football department — a responsibility he undertook, he said, to help the club financially. It was a position that forced him to deal with the bureaucracy surrounding footballers and football staff, paperwork and the often brilliant but unpredictable Rose. The two men clashed, and depending on whose version you believe, Rose was either shut out by paranoid football staff or — and this did not come from Eade — behaved like an erratic, overbearing micromanager.

Either way, Eade no longer is head of the Bulldogs football department. He had no say in his replacement, former Adelaide recruiting chief James Fantasia, and Eade's sidekick Matthew Drain has moved to St Kilda after feeling uncertain about his future at the Whitten Oval. Rose now attends weekly football meetings and enjoys — all agree — a solid relationship with Eade.

Three assistant coaches left at the end of last season but Eade insisted that outsiders joined the dots and completed an inaccurate, exaggerated picture of disharmony. Chris Bond and Jason Mifsud were simply offered positions that better enhanced their careers in the game.

He did allow that Sean Wellman, who wanted to return to Essendon to work with new Bombers coach Matthew Knights, might have had enough of him, or at least the situation at the club, which Smorgon last year described as, "things going on in the football department that, as it turned out, we were not comfortable with".

"I was given too much responsibility," Eade said. "I thought I was coping OK but I was worrying about things like players not turning up for charity work, AFL rules and budgets. I'd never run a business and I should never have agreed to the extra responsibility."

What Eade is proud of the list he and Scott Clayton and the football staff have developed after what he described as a recruiting dearth that created the age gap between Chris Grant, Luke Darcy, Rohan Smith, West and Johnson and the next group.

"We won't be barren when the new teams come in and, of course, I would like to be part of that going forward. We are set up well and right now, I believe we are capable of beating any side.

"Of course I'd love to win one (a premiership). That's why we do this, but I'd love to win one with this group. The group I had at Sydney was a great group but these are a fantastic bunch of players.

"I've been at five clubs in various roles but there's a unique passion here, a sense of belonging. If my footy career stopped now, I'd probably be remembered as a Hawk but I think I'd like to go on and when I finish be remembered as a Bulldog person."