Analysis Beveridge - where to from here?

[Dog 36]

Nah, just needs a senior assistant who he listens too. Much like Ratten at St Kilda and Caracella at Tigers. Get a quality assistant with a game plan and Bev will be right. The question is whether Bev will want a equal working with him or just sheep following him. I think he likes to be Top Dog and likes sheep following who will never question him.

Sums it up well. If he wants to be top dog and everyone following then the club needs to find the b***s to say no this is not on.

 

[Optimistic Dog]

I am a Bevo fan so I do not support the Bevo's time is up call but some of the selections, drafting/ trading since the flag is mind boggling.

Team Selection

The structure of the team and selection is unbelievable and came to ahead of Sunday. Three talls:

Ruck
English 94 klms in his third year promising but well beaten in the first 4 games plays solo again with Dunkley as a back up who did not even contest some ruck contests because of size-Unbelievable We get belted in the clearances we know Cripps is the best clearance player in the league and we give him a leg up surprise surprise.

Forward Line
Naughton is only tall forward in his second year and a converted defender - unbelievable. We have no lead up forward to kick down the line and continually get out marked surprise surprise.

Backline

Cordy the only remotely tall player in the backline and not that tall at all. Gives away height and weight with no aerial support and gets belted surprise surprise.

On top of that we pick two first gamers one would have been o/k Hayes. Yet we play Young in an undermanned back line who is clearly not ready and he was directly responsible for 2 goals at critical times.

Other consequences of going small is Gowers should be the third or 4th option in the air and is forced play as 1 or 2. Wood should be left play the intercept role of 2016 not the second tall playing on the Casbolts and Buddy's. As a result they having poor seasons.

Trading We trade in fringe players and the worst selection was we get Trengove on 4 year contract for big $ and lose Roughy exactly the same type of player.

I think our list is average but I would like Bevo to put his hand up and say we have got team selection wrong and fix it.

 

[redmania]

Get rid of the bont FFS.

As for a coach I would go for Brett Ratten or Scott Burns....just saying.

 

[Dogsman16]

I’m still behind Bev but if I could ask him one thing it would be this.

“No other team in the competition has a revolving KPP structure in the way we do. These clubs collectively have the smartest minds in the sport, yet not one club attempts would attempt to play one ruck and a solitary KPP at either end (unless a major injury crisis).

Bev why do you believe it’s going to work for us?

 

[robbo07]

I’d like to ask the coach the following questions:

1. Why is Josh Dunkley your second ruckman and Trengove not getting a game? You get slaughtered out of the middle yet you play a midfielder as your second ruck!!!! Why??????
2. You drop Josh Schache (199cm) and play a forward line full of short people and your only method to enter forward 50 is to bomb the ball inside forward 50. Why????
3. You play short people in the back line when you know the opposition are very tall and you make players such as Levi Casboult look like Wayne Carey. Why??????

 

[maddog37]

If I had one question I would ask if he still cuts his own hair while skateboarding?

 

[TheBont]

Brett ratten call up soon.

 

[footyfan000001]

Lol no. Back to basics though please and stop the whole versatility garbage. Today’s game a good example.

 

[TiAn_]

Nah, just needs a senior assistant who he listens too. Much like Ratten at St Kilda and Caracella at Tigers. Get a quality assistant with a game plan and Bev will be right. The question is whether Bev will want a equal working with him or just sheep following him. I think he likes to be Top Dog and likes sheep following who will never question him.

Alternatively, many of the crap suggestions could be coming from his lieutenants.

Either way, Baby Bev doesn’t need to go out with his Bathwater Assistants.

 

[Anja_Nees]

No, Bevo led us to a flag in the most ridiculous of circumstances. Unless it’s Clarkson it’s an absurd suggestion. He’s a known quantity and things would have to get diabolical to reconsider and right now they’re just bad (for two of five weeks).

That said, the following things bother me a bit:

1. Falling out with players. When Bevo decides you’re done, you’re done (see Minson, Talia, Stringer, Roberts, Trengove? etc and reported unrest with Rough and Dahl). Might be an issue.
2. No change of assistants for a long time.
3. Changing the roles of all assistants after we won a flag.
4. Chopping and changing the side too much.
5. Winning a flag with a very conventional setup then going with an unconventional one every week.
6. Lack of fruitful mature age recruiting (Crozier the only clear win since the flag).

I remember Buckley saying on 360 after the flag that what you observe outside the club is only about 5% of what happens behind closed doors. There’s probably a lot happening we don’t know about.

There could be behavioural issues, conflict etc we know nothing about. What I hope is that there is someone with a clue giving Luke independent feedback and that he is receptive to it.

Someone has to be able to fix our f’ing forward line issues after all these years though and we need a settled and reliable best batch of players.

 

[Cousin Ben]

Just time to go back to basics, can’t keep trying new things for versatility when it clearly hurts us too much.

Dunkley & Wallis are the prime examples right now if you think back to the last month of 2018. Dunkley was in the middle carving it up, Wallis was an accurate & effective forward. This season the roles are reversed, Wallis is a liability in midfield & Dunkley is an ineffective forward. Whhhyyyyyyyyyyy

I believe you're onto something here. It's unlikely to be the master stroke to turn our entire season around but these two have shown what they can do in roles they're currently not being allowed to perform. Dunkley is not a forward, Wallis is a little slow for the middle. They can always go there for short stints but for now the present system isn't working.

 

[WBFC2013]

His time was up Rd 3, 2018 but the premiership bought him enough rope to see out the remainder of his contract.
With no clear or discernible game plan, the inability to deal with large personalities, doubled down with idiotic team selections, but most importantly, the absolute regression of basic skill execution and player development of nearly every player on our list for nearly 2 and half years - there’s only one conclusion

 

[Anja_Nees]

One thing that drives me mental is people suggesting x untried assistant from another club to replace Bevo.

Neeld, Watters, McCartney and McKenna were all highly rated assistants who were seen as ready. So were Bevo, Clarkson and Hardwick of course.

Bevo has won a flag ffs. He’s a known quantity. People assume that because Ratten didn’t have a horrible record and has been an assistant under Clarkson that he’s a guru. He might be terrible.

Any random assistant is probably more likely to be like the above rogues gallery than a premiership coach.

Maybe Bevo has some issues to address but to be honest, after the performances against Sydney, Hawthorn and Collingwood he was probably justified in backing himself in.

It didn’t work but if our midfield and forwards had pressured like they were meant to and if our forwards had kicked regulation set shots it would be a different story.

It’s not a nuclear scenario at all.

To be clear, there would be circumstances in which I would be happy to see Bevo go, but while we’re developing a very young side and we’re competitive in all but one of five games we are lot there at all.

 

[St_Laz]

Alternatively, many of the crap suggestions could be coming from his lieutenants.

Either way, Baby Bev doesn’t need to go out with his Bathwater Assistants.

Richo had to eat a little humble pie I think and makes some pretty big changes to accommodate Ratts and Lades input, ultimately for the good of the club (and himself). Now saints have made vast improvement on the back of it.

Can Bevo do the same? Or is his long board only big enough for one big dog?

 

[TiAn_]

Richo had to eat a little humble pie I think and makes some pretty big changes to accommodate Ratts and Lades input, ultimately for the good of the club (and himself). Now saints have made vast improvement on the back of it.

Can Bevo do the same? Or is his long board only big enough for one big dog?

It’s time to give a gnarly kahuna the chance to peacefully drop in on his tube.

 

[Dry Rot]

Why did Montgomery leave? Jumped or pushed?

 

[Leon]

I do not want to read suggestions that we get rid of Bontempelli.

I do not care if you are trolling, drunk, on drugs, or delirious from a fever.

Never, ever suggest that again.

Do you understand?

 

[Leon]

I seriously wonder sometimes why I still post in this forum.

I’ve seen some bizarre posts on here but getting rid of Bontempelli....**** me.

I do not mind some negativity at the moment as it is warranted but getting rid of Bontempelli...**** me.

Tell you what, let’s put you people in charge of list management and you can announce that you’re putting Bont up for trade tomorrow.


Now, when you do this, just be careful and watch for the stampede of 17 other clubs offering money, draft picks, houses, cars, keys to the city, investment portfolios and their own grandmothers trying to get their hands on him.

**** me.

 

[Leon]

In percentage terms, premiership coaches are incredibly difficult to find, especially at club's like ours. I reckon the chances of getting someone better with the same money would be about 10%-20%.

He, the footy department and match committee have made significant mistakes on and off the field, but to get rid of him now would be one of the dumbest decisions in the club's history.

We occasionally play an ultra young squad - some of it is due to injury, some of it by (silly) design like this week, but I genuinely think we're at where Brisbane was in 1997-1998 (ignore their coach sackin lol) before going on a run of knocking the door down for 8 odd years. Half a dozen older heads in the top 22, but mostly an elite group of 12 future AAs that sit at between 18-24. They need games together, but the price you pay for that is that players at that age can be up and down, and sometimes you get terrible results like yesterday.

There's issues in match day selection, they can be addressed without sacking a premiership coach.

There's issues in match day decisions, they can be addressed without sacking a premiership coach.

I would address the assistants situation with a full review - an early article on Beveridge went into detail on his philosophy of assistants having long term assurance of their role. The intent in having his assistants back no matter what is to be commended, but in practice we've gone a few years without any new ideas, voices or IP. One or two trusted super long termers is fine, but you always also need to be improving.

Nailed it.

 

[Antares]

Ahh, the old dumb "it must be the assistants!" rubbish. Never mind that none of you actually know what the assistants are doing behind the scenes, never mind the fact that they're often credited with the extraordinary player improvement in 2015 (Bont specifically highlighted Corey as a huge influence on his development), it must be those dirty old assistants! It's even funnier when people say we should be chasing the apparent "gun" assistants like Caracella, like they'll leave their assistant post to come and be an assistant at the Dogs. A lot of these guys were around during the McCartney days, Beveridge retained them, and the team still improved drastically. The influence of assistant coaches is exaggerated to the extreme.

If the team isn't playing well, the responsibility falls on the guy at the top, that's that. Beveridge did an amazing job when he arrived, but the team just looks tired now, similar to how they looked tired in 2014 after 3 years of McCartney, or 2011 under Eade. Honestly, looking at our current list, I don't see us turning our fortunes around easily; our forward line is by far the worst in the competition, and there's no upside: guys like Schache and Boyd have been around for a while now, and they've never shown consistency at AFL level. Naughton is the only potential shining light, but I still think he'll play defence long term, or at least I hope so.

I think we're possibly due for a change. Not necessarily a complete overhaul like some people are crying for, but maybe a new coach who's got different ideas, but at the same time understands the club and what worked for us in 2015-2016. I don't think Beveridge leaves until the end of 2020, but when that time comes, I think Monty's the man.

 

[Bont2Bruce]

Nah, just needs a senior assistant who he listens too. Much like Ratten at St Kilda and Caracella at Tigers. Get a quality assistant with a game plan and Bev will be right. The question is whether Bev will want a equal working with him or just sheep following him. I think he likes to be Top Dog and likes sheep following who will never question him.

Agree 100%, good post.

Beveridge is usually a good thinking coach, he had Buckley's tactical measure one week earlier for instance. Sure he sometimes gets it wrong but he has gotten it tactically right a lot more often than not.

But our skills let us down time after time and all the tactics in the world aren't much use if you can't put the ball between the big sticks after all the hard work of getting to a scoring position.

Our most pressing need is to get some better skills coached into the players. Less focus on group playing tactics, more focus on basic skills.

 

[Norm De Guerre]

P

Problem with moving on Bont is we would lose 10k members right away

No the problem is not with the loss of members, the actual problem is that people are responding to a troll post.

Its a fine line between satire and stupidity.

 

[Bodicifer]

Geez there's some s**t being thrown about in this thread. "I'd move Bont on"...WTF??? I mean 18 AFL coaches can't be wrong can they? Get rid of Caleb Daniel...really? Yeah we are battling a bit at the moment form wise and effort, losing Morro before the season start hurt and I reckon they messed up not getting in a back up or number 1 ruckman, but the large majority of our list is under 25 years old, we need to be realistic. We are still getting games into players and probably paying the price for a flag that was probably out of step. A tweak of the assistant coaches is what I'm hearing may need to happen and that's fair enough, but getting rid of the president, the board, the management and more than half the list including your best player is absolute short sighted reactionary rubbish.

 

[Cookie]

Not trying to be funny. Just throwing out ideas. I don't think any players should be exempt from trade hypotheticals. There's no doubt that the Bont is a talented player but I do fear that he peaked in 2016.

Peaked at 20 years old.
Don't be so ******* stupid.

 

[Substance]

I think you need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in this case. We know, at his best, Bevo is probably only behind Clarkson, Simpson, and a couple of others as a coach. We need to figure out ways to overcome his flaws and get him back to that level.

It's said a lot lately, but we just simply have too many people who have been around the club for so long. Looking at the Coaches and wider Football Admin:
Coach: Bevo - 5th year at the Dogs, former player too
Snr Assistant - Steven King - 8th year as coach with us.
Forwards Coach - Ash Hansen - 7th year as coach with us.
Stoppages - Joel Corey - 6th year as coach with us.
Mids - Steve Grace - 3rd year
VFL - Gia - Literally 20 consecutive years as player and coach
Development - Jordan Russell - 5 years
Development - Jamie Maddocks - 3 years

Director of Football - Chris Grant - 4 years in that position, on top of as a player
Football Operations - Ben Graham - 6 years
Development Manager - Rohan Smith - 7 years, plus as a player
GM of Football = Chris Maple - 12 years in various roles

So in three year we haven't bought in a single new idea to the club, which is compounded by literally half of that group being involved with the club for at least 8 years.

At the end of the year I'd be moving on Steven King, Ash Hansen, Jordan Russell and Chris Grant at the very minimum. We need a strong person in Grants role who can pull Bevo in to line where needed. Then bring in an assistant from another club as a senior assistant, and look to bring in at least two good retired players into assistant roles too. Hodge, Kade Simpson, Richard Douglas, David Mundy, Roughy, Birchall, Burgoyne, Jordan Lewis, and Jarrod McVeigh are all around that retirement age and it would be amazing to get a couple of them into the club as assistants or development coaches.

It's a nice idea. Won't happen.