The Northern Bullants have exited the past two finals campaigns one week shy of the big one – the end of season report card will help explain why the Ants fell short again, and what needs to be done to go that extra step to reach premiership success.Excuses first: Injuries to key players on both the Carlton and Bullants lists throughout the season and deep into the finals didn’t help their cause, but they still managed to dominate the VFL home and away season.Carlton’s Troy Longmuir, Ian Prendergast, Josh Kennedy, Luke Blackwell and Adam Hartlett missed games with injuries at different stages this season, with Longmuir the hardest hit all season, re-surfacing with Ian Prendergast to join the Ants finals campaign and both players looked underdone.Bullants skipper Frankie Raso missed too much footy, including the finals, along with important midfielder Ross Young. Anthony Franchina and Josh Vansittart also had their share of injury problems during the home and away stages.Even with such a spread of injuries, it’s hard to fathom how such a dominant team fell away in a Preliminary final for the second year in a row. Here is a break down of the Bullants usual line up for 2006.The Bullants defence: The Ants boasted the tightest defence all year, with resident defenders Josh Vansittart and Justin Crow leading the way. The Ants achieved the highest ever percentage recorded by the club, thanks mainly to the super efficient Ants backline, which had terrific support from Callum Chambers, Jordan Russell, Paul Bower and David Teague.The Bullants midfiled: Led by veteran Daniel Harford, with strong support from Ross Young, Trent Sporn, Luke Blackwell and Jesse Smith, who was promoted from the Blues rookie list late in the season. The Ants midfield clinically cut their opposition open through the middle with fast and smooth transitions of the ball.The Bullants Forward zone: Digby Morrell topped the goalkicking for the Ants, and he had plenty of help from Carlton big boys Chris Bryan, Ian Prendergast, Adrian Deluca, Dylan McLaren and Josh Kennedy. Such was the imposing height up forward whenever three or more of the big Carlton boys played, Barry Mitchell was forced to rotate them.Now we can move on to where it all went wrong. The VFL’s 12 / 10 rule only allows twelve AFL listed players to take part during the finals. This meant that coach Barry Mitchell couldn’t use the weaker VFL listed inclusions to rotate on and off the bench in short bursts to give the Carlton players a quick rest. He had to leave them out there for as long as possible, resulting in too much from too few.Last year Sandringham and Werribee exposed the Ants during the finals as having a shallow pool of VFL talent. This year, Sandringham again exposed the Ants, even though the Bullants seemed to have a much stronger VFL list this time.The addition of Daniel Harford, Josh Houlihan, Anthony Franchina and ex-Blue Digby Morrell boosted stocks immensely on the VFL list. With established Bullants Josh Vansittart, Justin Crow, Ross Young and Frankie Raso welcoming the extra support.But from there, the Ants list gets very thin. However, Bronnik Davies did particularly well, especially in the finals, and Nick Fallu and Anthony Hickey made some contributions during the finals also.The solution is quite simple; the Ants must now chase some more VFL talent. Big bodies would be high on the agenda as Sandringham rag-dolled the Bullants in the Preliminary final, leaving the Carlton contingent to fly the flag physically. Perhaps some recently retired AFL players might come under consideration, adding more experience to the playing group.The shining lights for the Ants were Daniel Harford, David Teague, Trent Sporn, Callum Chambers, Josh Vansittart, Justin Crow and Digby Morrell. Although, every one of them would rather forget their finals campaign, with the only highlight being a cameo best on ground performance from Setanta O’hAilpin in the Semi Final against Frankston.Sandringham showed how a VFL club is run, with a perfect blend of VFL and AFL talent (from affiliate Melbourne), and how to get the most out of its playing group.The Bullants don’t want to fall away like St.Kilda at AFL level (two Preliminary final exits in a row), and the solution is well within reach. Good recruiting should see another two or three talented VFL players enter the fray, which would bring the Ants closer than ever to realizing their Flag dream in 2007. The Carlton boys will hold their end of the bargain and play well, so there is every reason to be optimistic about the future for the mighty Bullants.