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What They're Saying - The Bulldogs Media Thread - Part 4
- Thread starter ExRoyboy
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Team Captain
- Nov 19, 2016
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My favourite bit of nonsense “People at the club have regularly walked on eggshells around him, whether they have realised it or not,” how can you walk on egg shells without realising it?
- Oct 9, 2014
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Messy kitchen and thick soled shoes?
Yep one of many lines in that article that belongs screwed up in a waste paper bin.
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- Apr 4, 2006
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Much like the (alleged) author.
- Sep 7, 2015
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If the egg shells are from mice eggs so they would be so small you wouldn't feel them or hear the little crunch?
- May 25, 2014
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If Barrett was even a barely competent footy journalist he’d be able to speak to consistent on-field failings across the past three seasons that can at least be partly attributable to coaching. He’d speak to the holes on our list that have been there for a number of years and still are issues. He’d question team selection and the continuous moving of players into/out of the team and around the ground. All of these can be gleaned from a decent google search and/or a few hours reviewing this board.
Instead it’s all opaque, inside the footy club, relationship breakdown speculation. He obviously sees Caro will be retiring soon and sees his future as the lead muck raker who could not give a shit about actual footy analysis.
It makes no difference what he writes, I can’t imagine any footy supporter with a functional IQ takes any notice. The club sure as hell don’t give a shit. But it does continue to be incredibly disappointing that the AFL’s own website allows him the space to spout his shit.
Instead it’s all opaque, inside the footy club, relationship breakdown speculation. He obviously sees Caro will be retiring soon and sees his future as the lead muck raker who could not give a shit about actual footy analysis.
It makes no difference what he writes, I can’t imagine any footy supporter with a functional IQ takes any notice. The club sure as hell don’t give a shit. But it does continue to be incredibly disappointing that the AFL’s own website allows him the space to spout his shit.
Dogs_R_Us
Space Traveller
Barrett and the other person should never be quoted.
Unless people are into masochism.
Unless people are into masochism.
_Mike_
Super Moderator
- Aug 10, 2009
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Leigh Matthews says the current Western Bulldogs list is no better than average.
His comments come on the back of the Dogs’ loss to Hawthorn on Sunday, which puts them in a precarious position heading into Saturday night’s crunch clash against Richmond. When rankings their list in comparison to the AFL’s 17 other teams, Matthews said he grouped them in the middle six tier in the competition.
www.3aw.com.au
His comments come on the back of the Dogs’ loss to Hawthorn on Sunday, which puts them in a precarious position heading into Saturday night’s crunch clash against Richmond. When rankings their list in comparison to the AFL’s 17 other teams, Matthews said he grouped them in the middle six tier in the competition.
Leigh Matthews' frank comments on state of Western Bulldogs list
Leigh Matthews says the current Western Bulldogs list is no better than average. His comments come on the back of the Dogs’ loss to Hawthorn on Sunday, which puts them in a precarious position heading into Saturday night’s crunch clash against Richmond. When rankings their list in comparison to...
www.3aw.com.au
Libbaaaa
Norm Smith Medallist
- Jun 1, 2021
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"Hey Siri, cobble together everything I have ever written before bagging the Dogs into one article please".
BARRETT: Nothing's certain for under-fire Dogs after shock loss
Eight games after an off-season review, the future is more clouded than ever at the Western Bulldogs, writes Damian Barrettwww.afl.com.au
KYLIE Watson-Wheeler came within hours of being anointed the AFL's chief executive officer during a whirlwind weekend of meetings in Adelaide in mid-April last year.
With the backing of key powerbrokers, Watson-Wheeler had effectively come from nowhere to nearly land football's highest executive management post, ultimately falling short of filling the Gillon McLachlan-held post, which eventually went to Andrew Dillon.
Watson-Wheeler clearly knows how to run big businesses and to negotiate ways through office politics, egos and traditions.
Hers is a professional skillset the envy of many in football. She is managing director of the Australian arm of The Walt Disney Company, and sits on the boards of other big organisations, including the Australian Ballet. And now, as president of the Western Bulldogs, she knows she is going to need to draw on every facet of that business nous in the next two months to fix many current problems in order to present a clear future.
While Watson-Wheeler and her Bulldogs board, after negotiations that concluded 10 days before Christmas in 2022, have Luke Beveridge on contract as coach through to the end of 2025, their union has entered a holding pattern.
Watson-Wheeler and the Bulldogs declined to speak to AFL.com.au for this article, but in a carefully worded assessment of the club during a semi-regular commitment on ABC radio on Monday, she said it was "too early in the season for us to panic or for us to make rash decisions".
Despite the contract, there is too much unknown early in the 2024 season for Beveridge to be guaranteed access to 2025. His own mindset is part of that unknown. The mood of the playing group, which last Sunday failed against lowly Hawthorn to finish round eight with a 3-5 scoreline, is another problematic facet. The now-burning desire of more than a few players on that list to contemplate a future elsewhere is part of the mix. The lack of a strong voice, apart from Beveridge, publicly presenting the club's position on all matters, also.
At the time of writing, the board was not considering anything other than backing him in to fulfill his contract. But Beveridge and the Bulldogs have been around the block enough times to know that situations can change dramatically quickly, and that at some stage change itself may present as best option for individual and club.
While those who preside in senior positions at the Bulldogs have always maintained their coach doesn't possess any more power than his counterparts at other clubs, in my mind his control has been at times overwhelming. People at the club have regularly walked on eggshells around him, whether they have realised it or not, and have often made decisions based on what they had pre-empted his reactions to be.
In many ways, Beveridge's power and control was well earned, and understandable. Walking into not just a broken team but fractured club at the end of 2014, days after the captain Ryan Griffen had walked out, which had led to the exit of coach Brendan McCartney, Beveridge immediately transformed operations.
He took the Dogs to the finals in 2015, narrowly losing an elimination final to Adelaide in a contest he still to this day believes was adversely impacted by an apparent information exchange between the Talia brothers (Michael was a non-playing listed Bulldog at the time, Daniel a senior player for the Crows).
The next year, 2016, he orchestrated one of the greatest ever VFL/AFL premiership successes, taking the club from seventh after the home-and-away season all the way to the flag, just the second in the Bulldogs' history.
His legacy, rightly, and power was unquestioned, and effectively remained that way until the 2022 season, when the board deliberated at length before extending him to 2025.
I was fully supportive of that extension, as at the end of 2021, his seventh year in charge, he had twice taken the club to a Grand Final.
Maybe Beveridge hasn't personally recovered from conceding 16 of the final 17 goals in the 2021 Grand Final loss to Melbourne, and the Bulldogs under his watch have never finished a home-and-away season higher than fifth, nor have they won a final outside of the 2016 and 2021 seasons.
The quality of the Bulldogs' list is regularly debated. In Marcus Bontempelli, Beveridge has had access to one of the all-time AFL greats. Tom Liberatore has long been established as a Bulldogs great. There is elite talent in Aaron Naughton, Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, Bailey Smith (injured), Tim English and Liam Jones.
Former top-line players Jack Macrae, Caleb Daniel and Bailey Dale have clearly deteriorated in opportunity and form. Rory Lobb, recruited at the end of 2022 largely on the urging of Beveridge, has been playing in the VFL this year. Very few people in football expect Bailey Smith, out for the season, to be a Dog in 2025.
Club CEO Ameet Bains clearly felt it was an underperforming list when he publicly said late last year that he believed the club had players which should progress to a top four finish.
The Bulldogs attempted to address some of the unknown around Beveridge late last year when they commissioned football's Mr Fixit, Peter Jackson, formerly a CEO at two AFL clubs and confidant to many in football, to conduct an external review of operations.
Depending on who you speak to and want to believe, at least 12 and up to 40 players were interviewed as part of Jackson's research, which resulted in a shuffling of responsibilities around the coach. Again depending on who you speak to and want to believe, Beveridge's position was either not for Jackson to scrutinise, or emerged from the Jackson review strongly intact.
Relationships around Beveridge have been strained for some time. After the Jackson review, Matthew Egan was catapulted into a position where Beveridge now reports to him, and he in turn reports to Chris Grant, effectively providing a working buffer between the coach and Grant, who clashed over the dismissal of long-serving assistant coach Rohan Smith at the end of 2023.
Watson-Wheeler and the Bulldogs board have not deviated in their support of Beveridge. Aware that they may have let him down with support staff in recent seasons, the board sought, after the Jackson review, to bolster that part of operations. The Bulldogs board will also never lose sight nor appreciation of him achieving in 2016 something only one other person, Charlie Sutton in 1954, had managed in the club's history.
The board has also watched other clubs find themselves in disarray for extended periods after choosing to part with good coaches, is choosing to look beyond the 3-5 scoreline to this point of 2024 and even see merit in a couple of losses, particularly in pushing Geelong to four points in round four and even Sunday's seven-point loss to Hawthorn, where nothing seemed to go right.
Beveridge is not wired to quit, and no one is sensing that in his thinking. But if the losses keep coming in a business which is rightly judged on match day outcomes, and after 10 seasons in charge, he would deep down know that a contract for 2025 is security only.
There are unknowns everywhere for Watson-Wheeler, her board and the coach just eight games after a review which was designed to create certainty.
Dogs on the defensive. Matt Egan on Whateley this morning, off the back of KWW on ABC on Monday. They know supporter sentiment is starting to turn, and are getting on the front foot. At least when you compare this to other similar scenarios in the past, this is generally the first step of getting the wheels turning towards a coaching changeover.
- May 23, 2019
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Time for some more full support of the board
Leigh Matthews says the current Western Bulldogs list is no better than average.
His comments come on the back of the Dogs’ loss to Hawthorn on Sunday, which puts them in a precarious position heading into Saturday night’s crunch clash against Richmond. When rankings their list in comparison to the AFL’s 17 other teams, Matthews said he grouped them in the middle six tier in the competition.
Leigh Matthews' frank comments on state of Western Bulldogs list
Leigh Matthews says the current Western Bulldogs list is no better than average. His comments come on the back of the Dogs’ loss to Hawthorn on Sunday, which puts them in a precarious position heading into Saturday night’s crunch clash against Richmond. When rankings their list in comparison to...
This was a nothing discussion, Matthew’s kept referring to stats saying we are middle of the road and then just kept repeating an our win/loss in 2022 and 2023. Which isn’t exactly a stat it’s your record/result.
No discussion of players or coaching or anything of substance
- Apr 4, 2006
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I suspect this is more accurate than even most of us on here would believe.
We made the mistake at home this week of having Ch9 news on during dinner. Tony Jones, Tom Morris and Xander McGuire - f*** me I thought 9's morning show was the most vacuous collection of nincompoops on FTA TV! Alicia Locksley is a competent journalist, and used to be more than capable of reading the news herself - but 9 seems to think she now needs some bloke to help her out. One (competent, non-smarmy) person reading news is more than enough. Anyway, back to the ABC for me when I can be bothered watching a news service, and Bulldogs-supporting Tamara Oudyn...
(Sorry Libbaaaa took your post and went off on another rant yelling at clouds!
)
I thought Egan was good. He was matter of fact and frank in his responses. He was glowing about Bev’s relationship with/care for the playing group. Thought it was interesting the footy department when off-site yesterday for a higher level conversation about where they’re at and headed. He and the club are right to point out that it isn’t season over at 3-5.
Libbaaaa
Norm Smith Medallist
- Jun 1, 2021
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Also Luke Hodge is an idiot. Just took a shot at Bont saying he should have spoken up today, not Adam Treloar. FMD zero clue about how much Bont has done taking hits on behalf of the club.
- Jun 21, 2012
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Hodge is still bent out of shape that Bont absolutely torched him in the 2016 finals series.
That was the end of Hodge as a great footballer. No one feared him after that.
Dog 36
Norm Smith Medallist
One thing I have been thinking about is over the preseason we brought in Egan, Geary, Johnson and Pratt (is this correct? not sure if we appointed any others )
Most of these apart from Pratt seem to be to support Bev in areas off the field and work in the development space.
Not sure much changed in terms of providing things on the following front
- tactics
- ball movement
- game plan
- general connection of the backs mids and forwards
- etc etc
Yes Bev has more support but support in what area?
Oher clubs seem to have an abundance of resources on the actual areas of what happens on the football field.
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The majority of our issues come from the players more then anything,
Think it was something like 11 of their 14 goals came from turnovers on the weekend,
Realistically we have all seen that we aren't as big of a liability defensiviley this year compared to previous so we have worked on that it is our lack of forward structure that is hurting us.
Our VFL team is also top and undefeated suggests the developmental coaches are doing what is required
Genuinely struggling to tell if this was just a “full support of the board” moment or if the club seriously holds up that premiership almost 8-9 years ago as the reason why Bevo is the right man as he is evidently a great coach.
Is anyone with an opinion of significance actually saying he is a terrible coach? It’s clear his time is just up.
Is anyone with an opinion of significance actually saying he is a terrible coach? It’s clear his time is just up.
threenewpadlocks
Brownlow Medallist
I'd say a lot has changed in large part the likes of Vanderemeer, Gallagher, Bramble and Khamis, fringe players, have been selected for every game this year, in place of players who were getting games last year, remain on our list, but not getting games. Our defence has faltered more than this year but the statistics do indicate that the increased pace has helped our attack (a bit).
threenewpadlocks
Brownlow Medallist
We conceded 30+ shots from merely conceding 49 inside 50s so I would say that both the pure defensive stopping work and the quality of the defenders themselves moving the ball out of the defensive half was extremely poor. Our forward structure could always be better, but that wasn't he fundamental reason for the last loss and some of our recent losses.
Did you miss the part where the majority of them were from turnovers?
lachy
Norm Smith Medallist
When it was 11 plus goals to 1 from turnovers, not much to do with pure defending there
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