Opinion Luke Beveridge's Five Biggest Jobs

[fronkalicious]

He was ranked 20th in the league for effective disposals and 9th in the league for effective disposals per game.

I'd consider him pretty good. His action can look a bit lacklustre but he finds the target more often than not.

Takes the safe option too often though. We need to take more risks as a whole. The best teams do it. Geelong, hawthorn, port. That's a confidence thing as much as anything that has to change.

Plough and rocket lifted our skill level immediately when they took charge. Beveridge needs to do the same.

 

[Dry Rot]

Takes the safe option too often though. We need to take more risks as a whole. The best teams do it. Geelong, hawthorn, port. That's a confidence thing as much as anything that has to change.

Plough and rocket lifted our skill level immediately when they took charge. Beveridge needs to do the same.

What's your view of the nature/nurture argument i.e. how much of skills levels is a player "born" with, and how much can be taught?

 

[fronkalicious]

What's your view of the nature/nurture argument i.e. how much of skills levels is a player "born" with, and how much can be taught?

Agree with you dr that decision making is far more important than skill level, and that can be taught. Cohesion and familiarity make players look more skilful as well. You know where a guys going to run, it's much easier to kick it to him.

With a few exceptions (Talia, Casboult, Dunkley), everyone who comes into the afl system can kick. Yes, we need to improve our individual skill levels, but team cohesion and decision making are even more important overall.

 

[ivan rassmussen]

I think Bev needs to teach Dannnnnnnn to post 300 words or less. I'm an avid reader of books, but on an Internet forum, I like to read short, sharp posts. Sorry Dannnnnnnnn, but the OP made my eyes glaze over...,

 

[giblj]

Agree on what's been said about the team selection, hopefully a fresh set of eyes in Bevo will be able to select players based on merit a lot more than was going on last season. Actually having some sort of team structure and getting a couple of tall guys in there occasionally would be nice, too.

One of my big expectations that I'm looking forward to is him sorting out the defence and, to a certain extent, reproducing the sterling work he did in that area with Hawthorn. He's showed that he can get the job done down there with a makeshift lineup at times, skills that will certainly be required with us.

 

[Super Hans]

Get Grant Birchall.

 

[JTCWBFC]

http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl...rss&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Not sure if this has been posted, but he specifically highlights the need to fix the backline. This will be in his top 3 biggest jobs come Monday.

Finding the right mix of players, what to do with Roughy, how to manage Moz, how to give Fletch, Talia, Cordy experience while minimising the collateral damage from other teams.

 

[JTCWBFC]

I think Bev needs to teach Dannnnnnnn to post 300 words or less. I'm an avid reader of books, but on an Internet forum, I like to read short, sharp posts. Sorry Dannnnnnnnn, but the OP made my eyes glaze over...,

Come on Ivan, Dannnnn puts a tremendous amount of thought into his posts and always make for good reading. Maybe take a coffee break half way through in future

 

[yebiga]

Dannnn I luv your posts
1
The continuous non selection of height infuriated me last season. We effectively wasted a year of development of Tallia/Fletcher. As you state we played way too short down back but also up forward. Someone quoted Beveridge being perplexed by our selection policy last year so we should see this problem evaporate immediately.

2
Something else I think we all noticed as the 2014 season progressed, was the creativity, spark and excitement to take the game on dropped for a number of players - I.e. hunter, & Dahlhaus in particular but also crameri, JJ, Minson, Boyd. Even Murphy who I believe had a wonderful year, became less adventurous towards the tail end of the season.

3
Aside from the lack of talls in selection, BMAC did not seem to have a clear philosophy on the second ruckman. Throughout the 2014 season far too many players found themselves in the role of a second ruckman on ocassion a Jones, Redpath, Roughead, stringer, Austin Bontempelli And of course Campbell. Yet for all of that assistance I would guess Minson spent more time in the ruck than any other player in the afl. I expect Minson will be spending a little less time in the ruck in 2015 and a clearer 2nd ruck philosophy to become apparent immediately.

4
I expect the new regime will Whittle down the number of players used from virtually the entire list down to 30 odd. Although necessary when in development phase, I believe it is difficult if not impossible to keep harmony and a team spirit when so many don't know when and if they are going to be selected. Eade had a favourite 25 and it was nigh impossible to get a game if you were outside of that group. When you did, you often had a single chance to impress or out you went. BMAc created the opposite proble, it was nigh on impossible for so many to feel they belonged.

5
Is an extension of the previous point. Decisions will need to be made fairly quickly about the future of some fringe players and how much faith is put into them: jong, Grant, Redpath, Dickson, Talia,and Roberts. Are they in the 25 or are they fringe or even for delisting come the end of 2015.

5A
Deciding Whether Roughead is a backman, a forward or a ruckman

 

[VitalDread]

1) Reward Efforts in the VFL, playing Talia, Roberts etc after great season in the VFL and with another pre-season they should be a lock in for top 22.
2) Manage older players mins and games, this is a youth movement and the club will need to focus on blooding the young ones but still keeping some older players to settle the tempo.
3) Pick a captain that fits the way we want to play and would be one of the ten year players.
4) Working out our forward entries, we cannot go Barry Hall style and bomb it on Boyd head every time, unleash Stringer and Crameri and watch the new big 3 kill the comp.
5) Solid match day decisions

 

[Libba39]

1. Instill confidence within individuals to back themselves as well as have faith in the club's ability to achieve ultimate success.
2. From day 1 create a 'style of play' that is coherent and that, if practiced and executed correctly, puts us in a position to win a flag. This is something Macca could not do.
3. Create a stable backline of 5-7 players that can hold things together while we build for the future.
4. Teach us how to play team defense and be a cohesive unit without the ball. My bugbear has always been watching on while 3 players try to tackle the one opposition player who then handballs off to a free man.
5. Select a team which is capable of matching the opposition for speed, height, and strength. Seems simple enough but this was something we failed to do most games under MacCartney and Eade.

 

[1961grandfinal]

4. Teach us how to play team defense and be a cohesive unit without the ball. My bugbear has always been watching on while 3 players try to tackle the one opposition player who then handballs off to a free man..

Amen to that, one of the most frustrating but expected occurrences for a spectator; still we all know, the best coaches are in the stands.

 

[stefoid]

1. Team defense: I'll only touch on this as I've been critical of it all year and I'm sure most have heard it all before. Put simply: we don't defend. We run forward of the ball in stupid situations. We have awful, awful defensive awareness. We don't support teammates. We don't gut run back. When you have a slow, plodding team that doesn't defend, two things happen: 1) you expend a shitload of pointless energy futilely chasing, and 2) you get scored against heavily. It's remarkable that a side that generates so little space can defend so poorly but we found a way to make it happen this year. Beveridge needs to instill defensive values into every single player and we need to understand the consequences of letting your man generate space on you

Is it that we dont know how/ didnt want to defend, or that we were too defensive? Being 100% defensive is so predictable that it ends up having the opposite to the intended effect. Like a boxer that stops throwing punches and just tries to cover up - no matter how well the guy covers up, if he is just letting the other guy tee off on him without fear of being hit back, its only a matter of time before one gets through.

 

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

Is it that we dont know how/ didnt want to defend, or that we were too defensive? Being 100% defensive is so predictable that it ends up having the opposite to the intended effect. Like a boxer that stops throwing punches and just tries to cover up - no matter how well the guy covers up, if he is just letting the other guy tee off on him without fear of being hit back, its only a matter of time before one gets through.

Overall, we played too many negating roles, but we were still poor defensively in my opinion. Boyd, Picken and Wallis all trying to shut down opponents (with Murphy also playing a pretty defensive role at times) is just ridiculous and, frankly, counter-productive. At times we were too defensive, like you've mentioned, but I felt as though we weren't defending at all most of the time. Our direct chasing (ie. "Oh s**t my man's got the ball, better chase him,") was alright for the most part, but we didn't run back to crowd our defense, we didn't support our defenders, we didn't try to block runs, and most of all, as soon as we got possession of the ball we lost sight of our opponents and let them do whatever they pleased. It may be that playing so many negating roles made too many players narrow in their focus (that is, they focused on only one player), thus stopping them from contributing to team defense, but I think on the whole, we didn't defend.

 

[Dogsman16]

Overall, we played too many negating roles, but we were still poor defensively in my opinion. Boyd, Picken and Wallis all trying to shut down opponents (with Murphy also playing a pretty defensive role at times) is just ridiculous and, frankly, counter-productive. At times we were too defensive, like you've mentioned, but I felt as though we weren't defending at all most of the time. Our direct chasing (ie. "Oh s**t my man's got the ball, better chase him,") was alright for the most part, but we didn't run back to crowd our defense, we didn't support our defenders, we didn't try to block runs, and most of all, as soon as we got possession of the ball we lost sight of our opponents and let them do whatever they pleased. It may be that playing so many negating roles made too many players narrow in their focus (that is, they focused on only one player), thus stopping them from contributing to team defense, but I think on the whole, we didn't defend.

Agree with all of this and I'll add to it by suggesting the amount of times we chipped the ball backwards and across field in defensive 50 only made this far worse. Too many players in the team playing a negating role who have plenty of heart and desire but lack skills made our defensive issues so much worse.

Too many times we broke down across the middle and across half forward purely because our forwards had to man too many opponents and the number of repeat entries teams could manage just destroyed whatever defensive setup we had. I'd rather say a jamie elliot type kick a couple more goals on a biggs/darley type through 1 on 1 skill, yet our offense become more damaging and forward structure would work better with guys like Biggs and Darley (good ball users) in the side.

Think Bevo will be pretty happy we got someone like a Biggs in the side who can almost become a 2nd quarterback (after murph) across half back. Give Woody the best small forward and back him in to come third man in (play like Josh Gibson) when he can against the tall forwards. He can also offer offensive drive in the back half and make the small forwards more defensively accountable. Picken to tag in the middle. Wallis to play as a regular midfielder. Probably means one of Koby/M.Boyd misses out and as Koby offers another marking target and goal kicker in the side I would be picking him. Midfield balance of inside/outside, big/small pacey-skillful/contested mids just needs to improve. Look to bevo to sort this balance out.

 

[Walsh Bay]

Five more for Wallan to consider:

1. Instilling realistic expectations in the supporter base.
2. Instilling realistic assessments of our playing list quality in the supporter base.
3. Keeping his head when everyone around him is running around like a chihuahua during fireworks.
4. Not looking bored or defensive when dealing with the media.
5. Keeping a sense of humour.

 

[Mofra]

Team selection - Following up on your point Dan, this was my greatest frustration in 2014. Minson floundered without rest or relief, while Tom Campbell went close to a JJ Liston Medal in the reserves. Despite our struggles in defence, Fletcher Roberts was left to chip away at Footscray while Jordan Roughead and Dale Morris were murdered each week. Tough love is not a bad thing, but players were left in the reserves despite a string of quality performances - Talia and Johannisen among them. We weren't often presented with a side that gave the club it's best chance of winning on any given Sunday, and given communication with the media and the supporters was so lacking, we had no idea why. I expect better in 2015.

I find it surprising that nobody is reading between the lines with our defensive selections in 2014.

We are a team with little outside run and not enough rebound - the MC would clearly be aware of this and know that sacrificing a runner for a tall in an era where contested marks inside the F50 are a rarity isn't the best way to combat this.
Our defensive team selections are a function of our lack of ability when it comes to run & spread - when the opposition has the ball, we need to have 18 defenders on the field not six. "Total football" has been the status quo for a number of years and a lack of mobile tall defensive options who deserve a game is a serious issue.

Bevo - our biggest problem is moving the ball. We have a positive handball differential against other sides in the competition that belies our ladder position, yet kick the ball less. Our side looks slow because we move the ball so slowly, and have a terrible habit of handballing to a stationary player so when we do have the ball, we are more likely to be disposing of the ball under pressure which has a huge impact on our DE.

If you can make inroads on our ball movement inside of one pre-season you will go a fair way into improving our performances.

 

[stmookeyj]

Agree with the team defence point, especially transition defence. The hallmark of this that especially stood out in year 1 of McCartney was the number of easy scores conceded after a simple turnover.

Koby's skills are actually pretty decent, its just his brain fades that hold him back, just takes the wrong option sometimes or doesn't hand off when he should/hands off when he should run and carry. That sort of thing. He's got quite a good kicking technique in my opinion, good hands too. Clay though, horrible kicking action.

His biggest problem is that every time he gets the pill he runs into trouble almost deliberately. Makes the simple task of moving the ball on 3000 times harder for himself.

 

[Dogs 13]

Our side looks slow because we move the ball so slowly, and have a terrible habit of handballing to a stationary player so when we do have the ball, we are more likely to be disposing of the ball under pressure which has a huge impact on our DE.

Usually straight at their feet or to someone standing right next to them.

 

[Mattdougie]

1- Lift the confidence of a lot of players that the last coach left at very low levels. Grant Hunter Cordy Talia Roberts Redpath and co
2- re train the team how to actually play modern football that involves a structure and game plan.
3- untangle the boys club coaching panel and get them thinking as individuals and not just puppets
4- reshape the list and chop the dead wood that many supporters actually think can play but simply arnt good enough
5- keep Boyds confidence up with the external pressure that will clearly be on him if he isn't tearing it up

 

[Floridog]

Five biggest jobs? (in a short sharp post)

1: STICK
2: IT
3: RIGHT
4: UP
5: "EM!!!