Bevo out

[Lex22]

Honey, best you don't bring up previous seasons. You have no chance of beating me on this subject.

...but while we're on it, let's have a bit of reflection:

From 2008-2010, we had three consecutive top 4 finishes and three consecutive prelims. Following that up in 2011, we missed the finals, which resulted in the sacking of Rocket, the hiring of Brendan McCartney, and the start of our rebuild. We had 3 years from 2012-2014 under McCartney, never really looked that good, but Dalrymple picked up some ripper players in the draft during that period. McCartney got sacked at the end of 2014, and Griffen, Cooney and Higgins abandoned ship. As if all that weren't bad enough, our reigning best and fairest winner Tom Liberatore tears his ACL in the pre-season. We are now at what appears to be our lowest point when Beveridge comes in. To his credit, against all expectations, we make unbelievable strides and improve drastically in 2015. The drab, uninspired football we played under McCartney was replaced with this fast, dynamic, exciting brand of football, and a lot of players found new levels to their game. We proceed to finish 6th before being knocked out of the finals by Adelaide in extremely disappointing fashion.

In 2016, if you actually judge us on our performance throughout the home and away season, we actually regressed. Sure, losing Robert Murphy to an ACL in round 3 didn't help, but overall we were just less exciting, less consistent, less impressive, and had some really uninspiring losses like Fremantle in the final round of the season. Then the post-season bye came, and what followed was one of the most magical 4 weeks we will ever see as Bulldogs supporters. Keep in mind though, as amazing as we played in that finals series, it did not reflect our form for the 2016 season.

At that exact point, the bubble burst. The new ruck rules were brought in, which proceeded to expose Beveridge's biggest weakness in his matchday tactics: his complete lack of respect for the ruck position. To say it all comes down to the ruck would be disingenuous though, because this is only one of many idiocies that come with having Beveridge as our coach. Sure enough, we spend the next two seasons, 2017 and 2018 at the bottom end of the ladder.

Then 2019 happens, we actually start the season pretty poorly, retaining many of the same problems that have plagued us for the past two seasons (actually, believe it or not, we've had these exact problems since Beveridge started!), but found some really strong form in the second half of the year. It turned out we probably had the best midfield trio in the league with Bontempelli, Macrae and Dunkley, and those three alone were in unbelievable form for the second half of 2019. Couple their form with a somewhat rejuvenated forward line lead by Bailey Dale's breakout purple patch, we got ourselves into the finals, only to be immediately knocked out by GWS in a thrashing.

Now some of you ladies and gentlemen might be wondering why I bothered to summarize 9 years worth of history in a thread about our coach, and that's precisely what I'm about to address: you might notice I bolded a very specific part of an earlier paragraph; the part that says "the start of our rebuild" - to briefly recap, we started our rebuild at the end of 2011. What does that mean?

Well, let us reflect on everything I've written in the context of that statement: We began our rebuild about 9 years ago, and since then, we have only made the finals three times: 6th in 2015, 7th in 2016 and 7th in 2019. If you judge us by our form for the last 9 years, we can very easily conclude that we've been a complete and utter disappointment, and completely failed our rebuild. To counter this point, you might think to bring up the flag we won in 2016, after all, the whole point of a rebuild is to build a list for a flag!... but doesn't this follow into my point from an earlier post? That flag was an anomaly; it was the product of an unbelievable purple patch of form, combined with a number of other factors going our way. It did not reflect our performances from the rest of our 2016 season, and it certainly did not reflect our form in any of the forthcoming seasons.

Taking that into account, can we really say Beveridge has done a good job? Can we really say he's the right man for us? Not once since he was appointed as our senior coach have we ever looked like a consistent, top 4 team. Every single season we've had under him has been marred by the same problems: neglecting the ruck, inefficiency going forward, horrible set shot conversion, among many other things. For all the flack Chris Scott gets from Geelong supporters, at the very least they're a consistent team; they have only missed the finals once since he took the reigns, and has convincingly made top 4 in four of the last five years (including 2020).

In this poster's humble opinion, based on what we saw in the second half of 2019, this current Bulldogs list is the best list we've had in a long time. I would argue it's very much better than the list we had under Rocket for all those prelims, where we were very much a consistent top 4 team. Here we are in 2020: not only are we outside the top 4, we're looking unlikely to even make the 8 this year. At times, we look like a million bucks, at other times we look like a joke. This whole season sums up the nature of Beveridge's tenure as our coach: an eternal enigma, forever inconsistent, forever plagued by the same issues.

Forgive me if I'm a little too negative for your liking, but I'm honestly done with him as our coach. This is his 6th year, in charge, ours 9th year following the start of our rebuild, and we're still on the merry-go-round. The worst part is, we're not getting off that merry-go-round any time soon, because we chose to sign him up long term last year. With the pandemic absolutely mutilating the economy and the AFL suffering its worst financial hardship in decades, we're in no position to pay out any big money contracts, so we're stuck with this obnoxious, egotistical, arrogant coach, still stridently applying the same ridiculous, unreliable, inconsistent match day tactics, all during a period where we might have the most talented list we've had for half a century. It's all so tiresome.

Certainly agree with most of that which is really well put together, however, our 2016 season was far better than you’re giving it credit for.

We won 15 games (gets you into top 4 most years) and I have no doubt we would’ve another few if we didn’t have a injuries at real key times (Hawks & Cats games by memory we lost just from injury/horrid luck).

It’s not like we scraped in and peaked out of nowhere.

Spot on regarding everything else.

 

[XQC08]

Certainly agree with most of that which is really well put together, however, our 2016 season was far better than you’re giving it credit for.

We won 15 games (gets you into top 4 most years) and I have no doubt we would’ve another few if we didn’t have a injuries at real key times (Hawks & Cats games by memory we lost just from injury/horrid luck).

It’s not like we scraped in and peaked out of nowhere.

Spot on regarding everything else.

Look, maybe you're right. I don't exactly have 2016 at the back of my mind, probably because I skipped a lot of games from being bummed by round 3; Hawthorn stealing it in the last second with Murphy simultaneously tearing his ACL at the same exact moment.

That being said, 7th is still 7th. We still had some particularly disappointing losses against North Melbourne, St. Kilda and Fremantle. We nearly lost to Collingwood too, who were a trainwreck that year.

Compare and contrast this to our 2008-2010 years, where losses against rubbish teams were a much bigger rarity. This is why I was making a big point about consistency, something we will never have under Beveridge.

 

[Del203211]

Genuinely annoyed we dropped Cavarra. Was starting to finally show something too.

 

[Lex22]

Look, maybe you're right. I don't exactly have 2016 at the back of my mind, probably because I skipped a lot of games from being bummed by round 3; Hawthorn stealing it in the last second with Murphy simultaneously tearing his ACL at the same exact moment.

That being said, 7th is still 7th. We still had a number of particularly disappointing losses, like North Melbourne, St. Kilda and Fremantle. Nearly lost to Collingwood as well, who were a trainwreck that year.

Compare and contrast this to our 2008-2010 years, where losses against rubbish teams were a much bigger rarity. This is why I was making a big point about consistency, something we will never have under Beveridge.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m agreeing with what your saying & wild momentum swings/lack of consistency is borderline just tiring now.

2016 wasn’t a real 7th, though. We were technically closer to first (2 wins off) than 8th (3 wins clear) which is pretty well unheard of.

With 15 wins and that sort space with the compression at the top, we were effectively a top 4 team.

 

[ScottyDogg]

Honey, best you don't bring up previous seasons. You have no chance of beating me on this subject.

...but while we're on it, let's have a bit of reflection:

From 2008-2010, we had three consecutive top 4 finishes and three consecutive prelims. Following that up in 2011, we missed the finals, which resulted in the sacking of Rocket, the hiring of Brendan McCartney, and the start of our rebuild. We had 3 years from 2012-2014 under McCartney, never really looked that good, but Dalrymple picked up some ripper players in the draft during that period. McCartney got sacked at the end of 2014, and Griffen, Cooney and Higgins abandoned ship. As if all that weren't bad enough, our reigning best and fairest winner Tom Liberatore tears his ACL in the pre-season. We are now at what appears to be our lowest point when Beveridge comes in. To his credit, against all expectations, we make unbelievable strides and improve drastically in 2015. The drab, uninspired football we played under McCartney was replaced with this fast, dynamic, exciting brand of football, and a lot of players found new levels to their game. We proceed to finish 6th before being knocked out of the finals by Adelaide in extremely disappointing fashion.

In 2016, if you actually judge us on our performance throughout the home and away season, we actually regressed. Sure, losing Robert Murphy to an ACL in round 3 didn't help, but overall we were just less exciting, less consistent, less impressive, and had some really uninspiring losses like Fremantle in the final round of the season. Then the post-season bye came, and what followed was one of the most magical 4 weeks we will ever see as Bulldogs supporters. Keep in mind though, as amazing as we played in that finals series, it did not reflect our form for the 2016 season.

At that exact point, the bubble burst. The new ruck rules were brought in, which proceeded to expose Beveridge's biggest weakness in his matchday tactics: his complete lack of respect for the ruck position. To say it all comes down to the ruck would be disingenuous though, because this is only one of many idiocies that come with having Beveridge as our coach. Sure enough, we spend the next two seasons, 2017 and 2018 at the bottom end of the ladder.

Then 2019 happens, we actually start the season pretty poorly, retaining many of the same problems that have plagued us for the past two seasons (actually, believe it or not, we've had these exact problems since Beveridge started!), but found some really strong form in the second half of the year. It turned out we probably had the best midfield trio in the league with Bontempelli, Macrae and Dunkley, and those three alone were in unbelievable form for the second half of 2019. Couple their form with a somewhat rejuvenated forward line lead by Bailey Dale's breakout purple patch, we got ourselves into the finals, only to be immediately knocked out by GWS in a thrashing.

Now some of you ladies and gentlemen might be wondering why I bothered to summarize 9 years worth of history in a thread about our coach, and that's precisely what I'm about to address: you might notice I bolded a very specific part of an earlier paragraph; the part that says "the start of our rebuild" - to briefly recap, we started our rebuild at the end of 2011. What does that mean?

Well, let us reflect on everything I've written in the context of that statement: We began our rebuild about 9 years ago, and since then, we have only made the finals three times: 6th in 2015, 7th in 2016 and 7th in 2019. If you judge us by our form for the last 9 years, we can very easily conclude that we've been a complete and utter disappointment, and completely failed our rebuild. To counter this point, you might think to bring up the flag we won in 2016, after all, the whole point of a rebuild is to build a list for a flag!... but doesn't this follow into my point from an earlier post? That flag was an anomaly; it was the product of an unbelievable purple patch of form, combined with a number of other factors going our way. It did not reflect our performances from the rest of our 2016 season, and it certainly did not reflect our form in any of the forthcoming seasons.

Taking that into account, can we really say Beveridge has done a good job? Can we really say he's the right man for us? Not once since he was appointed as our senior coach have we ever looked like a consistent, top 4 team. Every single season we've had under him has been marred by the same problems: neglecting the ruck, inefficiency going forward, horrible set shot conversion, among many other things. For all the flack Chris Scott gets from Geelong supporters, at the very least they're a consistent team; they have only missed the finals once since he took the reigns, and has convincingly made top 4 in four of the last five years (including 2020).

In this poster's humble opinion, based on what we saw in the second half of 2019, this current Bulldogs list is the best list we've had in a long time. I would argue it's very much better than the list we had under Rocket for all those prelims, where we were very much a consistent top 4 team. Here we are in 2020: not only are we outside the top 4, we're looking unlikely to even make the 8 this year. At times, we look like a million bucks, at other times we look like a joke. This whole season sums up the nature of Beveridge's tenure as our coach: an eternal enigma, forever inconsistent, forever plagued by the same issues.

Forgive me if I'm a little too negative for your liking, but I'm honestly done with him as our coach. This is his 6th year, in charge, ours 9th year following the start of our rebuild, and we're still on the merry-go-round. The worst part is, we're not getting off that merry-go-round any time soon, because we chose to sign him up long term last year. With the pandemic absolutely mutilating the economy and the AFL suffering its worst financial hardship in decades, we're in no position to pay out any big money contracts, so we're stuck with this obnoxious, egotistical, arrogant coach, still stridently applying the same ridiculous, unreliable, inconsistent match day tactics, all during a period where we might have the most talented list we've had for half a century. It's all so tiresome.

So spot on! I would suggest that the broader leadership of the club and football department are also to blame as they should have brought in Senior Assistant coaches to counter Bevo but otherwise this absolutely sums it up!

 

[josh the gent]

Honey, best you don't bring up previous seasons. You have no chance of beating me on this subject.

...but while we're on it, let's have a bit of reflection:

From 2008-2010, we had three consecutive top 4 finishes and three consecutive prelims. Following that up in 2011, we missed the finals, which resulted in the sacking of Rocket, the hiring of Brendan McCartney, and the start of our rebuild. We had 3 years from 2012-2014 under McCartney, never really looked that good, but Dalrymple picked up some ripper players in the draft during that period. McCartney got sacked at the end of 2014, and Griffen, Cooney and Higgins abandoned ship. As if all that weren't bad enough, our reigning best and fairest winner Tom Liberatore tears his ACL in the pre-season. We are now at what appears to be our lowest point when Beveridge comes in. To his credit, against all expectations, we make unbelievable strides and improve drastically in 2015. The drab, uninspired football we played under McCartney was replaced with this fast, dynamic, exciting brand of football, and a lot of players found new levels to their game. We proceed to finish 6th before being knocked out of the finals by Adelaide in extremely disappointing fashion.

In 2016, if you actually judge us on our performance throughout the home and away season, we actually regressed. Sure, losing Robert Murphy to an ACL in round 3 didn't help, but overall we were just less exciting, less consistent, less impressive, and had some really uninspiring losses like Fremantle in the final round of the season. Then the post-season bye came, and what followed was one of the most magical 4 weeks we will ever see as Bulldogs supporters. Keep in mind though, as amazing as we played in that finals series, it did not reflect our form for the 2016 season.

At that exact point, the bubble burst. The new ruck rules were brought in, which proceeded to expose Beveridge's biggest weakness in his matchday tactics: his complete lack of respect for the ruck position. To say it all comes down to the ruck would be disingenuous though, because this is only one of many idiocies that come with having Beveridge as our coach. Sure enough, we spend the next two seasons, 2017 and 2018 at the bottom end of the ladder.

Then 2019 happens, we actually start the season pretty poorly, retaining many of the same problems that have plagued us for the past two seasons (actually, believe it or not, we've had these exact problems since Beveridge started!), but found some really strong form in the second half of the year. It turned out we probably had the best midfield trio in the league with Bontempelli, Macrae and Dunkley, and those three alone were in unbelievable form for the second half of 2019. Couple their form with a somewhat rejuvenated forward line lead by Bailey Dale's breakout purple patch, we got ourselves into the finals, only to be immediately knocked out by GWS in a thrashing.

Now some of you ladies and gentlemen might be wondering why I bothered to summarize 9 years worth of history in a thread about our coach, and that's precisely what I'm about to address: you might notice I bolded a very specific part of an earlier paragraph; the part that says "the start of our rebuild" - to briefly recap, we started our rebuild at the end of 2011. What does that mean?

Well, let us reflect on everything I've written in the context of that statement: We began our rebuild about 9 years ago, and since then, we have only made the finals three times: 6th in 2015, 7th in 2016 and 7th in 2019. If you judge us by our form for the last 9 years, we can very easily conclude that we've been a complete and utter disappointment, and completely failed our rebuild. To counter this point, you might think to bring up the flag we won in 2016, after all, the whole point of a rebuild is to build a list for a flag!... but doesn't this follow into my point from an earlier post? That flag was an anomaly; it was the product of an unbelievable purple patch of form, combined with a number of other factors going our way. It did not reflect our performances from the rest of our 2016 season, and it certainly did not reflect our form in any of the forthcoming seasons.

Taking that into account, can we really say Beveridge has done a good job? Can we really say he's the right man for us? Not once since he was appointed as our senior coach have we ever looked like a consistent, top 4 team. Every single season we've had under him has been marred by the same problems: neglecting the ruck, inefficiency going forward, horrible set shot conversion, among many other things. For all the flack Chris Scott gets from Geelong supporters, at the very least they're a consistent team; they have only missed the finals once since he took the reigns, and has convincingly made top 4 in four of the last five years (including 2020).

In this poster's humble opinion, based on what we saw in the second half of 2019, this current Bulldogs list is the best list we've had in a long time. I would argue it's very much better than the list we had under Rocket for all those prelims, where we were very much a consistent top 4 team. Here we are in 2020: not only are we outside the top 4, we're looking unlikely to even make the 8 this year. At times, we look like a million bucks, at other times we look like a joke. This whole season sums up the nature of Beveridge's tenure as our coach: an eternal enigma, forever inconsistent, forever plagued by the same issues.

Forgive me if I'm a little too negative for your liking, but I'm honestly done with him as our coach. This is his 6th year, in charge, ours 9th year following the start of our rebuild, and we're still on the merry-go-round. The worst part is, we're not getting off that merry-go-round any time soon, because we chose to sign him up long term last year. With the pandemic absolutely mutilating the economy and the AFL suffering its worst financial hardship in decades, we're in no position to pay out any big money contracts, so we're stuck with this obnoxious, egotistical, arrogant coach, still stridently applying the same ridiculous, unreliable, inconsistent match day tactics, all during a period where we might have the most talented list we've had for half a century. It's all so tiresome.

A great post.

I do think we were the real deal in 2016, yes only finished 7th, and yes disappointing losses at times (vs Saints when Wallis injured), but..... it always felt like we were in games - even vs Geelong away where we always get smacked.

I’d actually extend that to 2015 - late season we played an in-form West Coast (who finished runners-up) in Perth. We wore that red away jersey. Ended up losing by plenty, but deep in the game until 20 mins of quarter 3.

......

Fast forward to now.

Against anyone good we get smashed. Tonight included.

10 goals to 3 after q1.

The way we are going there are years of pain ahead...

 

[philmb]

Honey, best you don't bring up previous seasons. You have no chance of beating me on this subject.

...but while we're on it, let's have a bit of reflection:

From 2008-2010, we had three consecutive top 4 finishes and three consecutive prelims. Following that up in 2011, we missed the finals, which resulted in the sacking of Rocket, the hiring of Brendan McCartney, and the start of our rebuild. We had 3 years from 2012-2014 under McCartney, never really looked that good, but Dalrymple picked up some ripper players in the draft during that period. McCartney got sacked at the end of 2014, and Griffen, Cooney and Higgins abandoned ship. As if all that weren't bad enough, our reigning best and fairest winner Tom Liberatore tears his ACL in the pre-season. We are now at what appears to be our lowest point when Beveridge comes in. To his credit, against all expectations, we make unbelievable strides and improve drastically in 2015. The drab, uninspired football we played under McCartney was replaced with this fast, dynamic, exciting brand of football, and a lot of players found new levels to their game. We proceed to finish 6th before being knocked out of the finals by Adelaide in extremely disappointing fashion.

In 2016, if you actually judge us on our performance throughout the home and away season, we actually regressed. Sure, losing Robert Murphy to an ACL in round 3 didn't help, but overall we were just less exciting, less consistent, less impressive, and had some really uninspiring losses like Fremantle in the final round of the season. Then the post-season bye came, and what followed was one of the most magical 4 weeks we will ever see as Bulldogs supporters. Keep in mind though, as amazing as we played in that finals series, it did not reflect our form for the 2016 season.

At that exact point, the bubble burst. The new ruck rules were brought in, which proceeded to expose Beveridge's biggest weakness in his matchday tactics: his complete lack of respect for the ruck position. To say it all comes down to the ruck would be disingenuous though, because this is only one of many idiocies that come with having Beveridge as our coach. Sure enough, we spend the next two seasons, 2017 and 2018 at the bottom end of the ladder.

Then 2019 happens, we actually start the season pretty poorly, retaining many of the same problems that have plagued us for the past two seasons (actually, believe it or not, we've had these exact problems since Beveridge started!), but found some really strong form in the second half of the year. It turned out we probably had the best midfield trio in the league with Bontempelli, Macrae and Dunkley, and those three alone were in unbelievable form for the second half of 2019. Couple their form with a somewhat rejuvenated forward line lead by Bailey Dale's breakout purple patch, we got ourselves into the finals, only to be immediately knocked out by GWS in a thrashing.

Now some of you ladies and gentlemen might be wondering why I bothered to summarize 9 years worth of history in a thread about our coach, and that's precisely what I'm about to address: you might notice I bolded a very specific part of an earlier paragraph; the part that says "the start of our rebuild" - to briefly recap, we started our rebuild at the end of 2011. What does that mean?

Well, let us reflect on everything I've written in the context of that statement: We began our rebuild about 9 years ago, and since then, we have only made the finals three times: 6th in 2015, 7th in 2016 and 7th in 2019. If you judge us by our form for the last 9 years, we can very easily conclude that we've been a complete and utter disappointment, and completely failed our rebuild. To counter this point, you might think to bring up the flag we won in 2016, after all, the whole point of a rebuild is to build a list for a flag!... but doesn't this follow into my point from an earlier post? That flag was an anomaly; it was the product of an unbelievable purple patch of form, combined with a number of other factors going our way. It did not reflect our performances from the rest of our 2016 season, and it certainly did not reflect our form in any of the forthcoming seasons.

Taking that into account, can we really say Beveridge has done a good job? Can we really say he's the right man for us? Not once since he was appointed as our senior coach have we ever looked like a consistent, top 4 team. Every single season we've had under him has been marred by the same problems: neglecting the ruck, inefficiency going forward, horrible set shot conversion, among many other things. For all the flack Chris Scott gets from Geelong supporters, at the very least they're a consistent team; they have only missed the finals once since he took the reigns, and has convincingly made top 4 in four of the last five years (including 2020).

In this poster's humble opinion, based on what we saw in the second half of 2019, this current Bulldogs list is the best list we've had in a long time. I would argue it's very much better than the list we had under Rocket for all those prelims, where we were very much a consistent top 4 team. Here we are in 2020: not only are we outside the top 4, we're looking unlikely to even make the 8 this year. At times, we look like a million bucks, at other times we look like a joke. This whole season sums up the nature of Beveridge's tenure as our coach: an eternal enigma, forever inconsistent, forever plagued by the same issues.

Forgive me if I'm a little too negative for your liking, but I'm honestly done with him as our coach. This is his 6th year, in charge, ours 9th year following the start of our rebuild, and we're still on the merry-go-round. The worst part is, we're not getting off that merry-go-round any time soon, because we chose to sign him up long term last year. With the pandemic absolutely mutilating the economy and the AFL suffering its worst financial hardship in decades, we're in no position to pay out any big money contracts, so we're stuck with this obnoxious, egotistical, arrogant coach, still stridently applying the same ridiculous, unreliable, inconsistent match day tactics, all during a period where we might have the most talented list we've had for half a century. It's all so tiresome.

Other than the 'honey', this was a good post and offers more substance than your earlier posts which I took issue with. Like others, I do find issue with your take on 2016. Even if we 'have the best list we've had in a long time', they are still young with many of the more mature players recruited in. The second half of 2019 certainly shows when they click together, the potential is there. I think some of this year's inconsistencies can be psychological in the context of how COVID19 has affected the season and its perceived 'worth'. I would rather reserve judgement on Bevo on our 2021 results. I think our players respect Bevo and that certainly counts for a lot. I think it was Matt Dougie who suggested the issue with Bevo's perceived stubbornness in the coaches box is the lack of assistants willing challenge him, which perhaps has some merit to it. If that's the case, the 'Bevo out' line isn't the right one.

What I would like to see: (1) Bevo stays, (2) fresh assistant coaches, (3) players up their aggression (though I feel this can only be achieved with the recruitment of 'enforcers', (4) more time in the gym and seasons into English (one of the key players that definitely needs to up his aggression and 'want of ball' to Naughton levels).

 

[The Inbetweener]

I think we’ve known for a while that he’s a great motivator but not a good tactician.

last nights game a perfect example of that.

For the first time I’m really pissed off with him. If we miss finals in 2021 something needs to change. As a few have mentioned, he’s wasting the prime years of 2 A graders in Bont and Macrae and it’s really disheartening.

the worst spot you can Be is 7-12 and that’s literally where we have been since he has taken over.

 

[Dogs Rule]

Other than the 'honey', this was a good post and offers more substance than your earlier posts which I took issue with. Like others, I do find issue with your take on 2016. Even if we 'have the best list we've had in a long time', they are still young with many of the more mature players recruited in. The second half of 2019 certainly shows when they click together, the potential is there. I think some of this year's inconsistencies can be psychological in the context of how COVID19 has affected the season and its perceived 'worth'. I would rather reserve judgement on Bevo on our 2021 results. I think our players respect Bevo and that certainly counts for a lot. I think it was Matt Dougie who suggested the issue with Bevo's perceived stubbornness in the coaches box is the lack of assistants willing challenge him, which perhaps has some merit to it. If that's the case, the 'Bevo out' line isn't the right one.

What I would like to see: (1) Bevo stays, (2) fresh assistant coaches, (3) players up their aggression (though I feel this can only be achieved with the recruitment of 'enforcers', (4) more time in the gym and seasons into English (one of the key players that definitely needs to up his aggression and 'want of ball' to Naughton levels).

Other points fine, but please, please, do not blame COVID. Total cop out. All Victorian teams in the same boat.

Couple of months in a nice Queensland resort, the sun, the beach, getting paid to play footy, certainly sounds like a good deal compared to being in Melbourne right now.

 

[BarneyWB36]

I know the whole ruck fiasco has got the most attention (and rightly so), but the other area I find annoying is our KPD situation, and I am not just talking about Garners selection. Bevo seems to hate playing a lockdown KPD as much as he does a traditional ruckman. We recruit Keath whose strength is intercept marking (which is worth it’s it weight in gold) only to play him on the oppositions best KPF, effectively coaching him out of that strength. Geelong and Port got on top of us by patiently chipping the ball around and bombing it long to their gorilla Fwd when they got it close to the 50. Keath should be intercepting those kicks not trying to stop the person they are kicking it to.

 

[Freshwater]

I know the whole ruck fiasco has got the most attention (and rightly so), but the other area I find annoying is our KPD situation, and I am not just talking about Garners selection. Bevo seems to hate playing a lockdown KPD as much as he does a traditional ruckman. We recruit Keath whose strength is intercept marking (which is worth it’s it weight in gold) only to play him on the oppositions best KPF, effectively coaching him out of that strength. Geelong and Port got on top of us by patiently chipping the ball around and bombing it long to their gorilla Fwd when they got it close to the 50. Keath should be intercepting those kicks not trying to stop the person they are kicking it to.

That may change now Easton Wood is out. I think Easton had that role
And he’s been ok at it again this year. Not 2015 level but ok.
Agree with many here about 2016 being a huge year for us in home and away. I’ve had many arguments with people writing off our flag as just a flukey month of football because we were 7th.

 

[SlimShaddy]

That may change now Easton Wood is out. I think Easton had that role
And he’s been ok at it again this year. Not 2015 level but ok.
Agree with many here about 2016 being a huge year for us in home and away. I’ve had many arguments with people writing off our flag as just a flukey month of football because we were 7th.

The issues that most frustrate me are:
- team selections
- which then compromise match day flexibility (ie. all or bust game plan)
- strategy is horrendous - adopting a press which compromises the quality of our forward entries only to then give up soft goals is infuriating
- further, this press is o so easily picked a part by a team that can retain possession and hit up leads - there is no plan B
- there is no Plan B because we don’t have an actual FB or defenders who can defend 1:1 (I would have thought the priority would be to defend first, attack second)
- there is also no plan b because of the lack of a quality ruck - especially to a midfield like ours
- would be good to have Trengove locked in at FB and to have Roughead on the list - these have been our weaknesses for some time and still have not been addressed - this is Bev’s 6th year
- Gowers and Gardner acquisitions - it’s not so much about how bad they are, moreso how we can have any trust in the MC
- would be good not to also pick up washed up St Kilda players.

St Kilda is a great example. In 1 trade period they identified what they need and acquired those players. No surprises with their better performances this year.

There’s also the issue of a President who happened to enjoy a 2016 flag, a coach who won a 2016 flag and now board members made up of individuals who were involved in the appointment of a 2016 flag winning coach.

Talk about a safe space.

 

[SlimShaddy]

The issues that most frustrate me are:
- team selections
- which then compromise match day flexibility (ie. all or bust game plan)
- strategy is horrendous - adopting a press which compromises the quality of our forward entries only to then give up soft goals is infuriating
- further, this press is o so easily picked a part by a team that can retain possession and hit up leads - there is no plan B
- there is no Plan B because we don’t have an actual FB or defenders who can defend 1:1 (I would have thought the priority would be to defend first, attack second)
- there is also no plan b because of the lack of a quality ruck - especially to a midfield like ours
- would be good to have Trengove locked in at FB and to have Roughead on the list - these have been our weaknesses for some time and still have not been addressed - this is Bev’s 6th year
- Gowers and Gardner acquisitions - it’s not so much about how bad they are, moreso how we can have any trust in the MC
- would be good not to also pick up washed up St Kilda players.

St Kilda is a great example. In 1 trade period they identified what they need and acquired those players. No surprises with their better performances this year.

There’s also the issue of a President who happened to enjoy a 2016 flag, a coach who won a 2016 flag and now board members made up of individuals who were involved in the appointment of a 2016 flag winning coach.

Talk about a safe space.

Last nights game was entirely predictable.

Geelong asleep 1st quarter.
Geelong change style and personnel.
Bulldogs - Plan B is to play English in the ruck.
Our 1:1 defence is embarrassing. Naughton would kick 10 goals against the Dogs defence as opp forwards have free reign to launch at the ball.

The ladder doesn’t lie. We have only beaten teams beneath us.

 

[LondonBulldog]

Honey, best you don't bring up previous seasons. You have no chance of beating me on this subject.

...but while we're on it, let's have a bit of reflection:

From 2008-2010, we had three consecutive top 4 finishes and three consecutive prelims. Following that up in 2011, we missed the finals, which resulted in the sacking of Rocket, the hiring of Brendan McCartney, and the start of our rebuild. We had 3 years from 2012-2014 under McCartney, never really looked that good, but Dalrymple picked up some ripper players in the draft during that period. McCartney got sacked at the end of 2014, and Griffen, Cooney and Higgins abandoned ship. As if all that weren't bad enough, our reigning best and fairest winner Tom Liberatore tears his ACL in the pre-season. We are now at what appears to be our lowest point when Beveridge comes in. To his credit, against all expectations, we make unbelievable strides and improve drastically in 2015. The drab, uninspired football we played under McCartney was replaced with this fast, dynamic, exciting brand of football, and a lot of players found new levels to their game. We proceed to finish 6th before being knocked out of the finals by Adelaide in extremely disappointing fashion.

In 2016, if you actually judge us on our performance throughout the home and away season, we actually regressed. Sure, losing Robert Murphy to an ACL in round 3 didn't help, but overall we were just less exciting, less consistent, less impressive, and had some really uninspiring losses like Fremantle in the final round of the season. Then the post-season bye came, and what followed was one of the most magical 4 weeks we will ever see as Bulldogs supporters. Keep in mind though, as amazing as we played in that finals series, it did not reflect our form for the 2016 season.

At that exact point, the bubble burst. The new ruck rules were brought in, which proceeded to expose Beveridge's biggest weakness in his matchday tactics: his complete lack of respect for the ruck position. To say it all comes down to the ruck would be disingenuous though, because this is only one of many idiocies that come with having Beveridge as our coach. Sure enough, we spend the next two seasons, 2017 and 2018 at the bottom end of the ladder.

Then 2019 happens, we actually start the season pretty poorly, retaining many of the same problems that have plagued us for the past two seasons (actually, believe it or not, we've had these exact problems since Beveridge started!), but found some really strong form in the second half of the year. It turned out we probably had the best midfield trio in the league with Bontempelli, Macrae and Dunkley, and those three alone were in unbelievable form for the second half of 2019. Couple their form with a somewhat rejuvenated forward line lead by Bailey Dale's breakout purple patch, we got ourselves into the finals, only to be immediately knocked out by GWS in a thrashing.

Now some of you ladies and gentlemen might be wondering why I bothered to summarize 9 years worth of history in a thread about our coach, and that's precisely what I'm about to address: you might notice I bolded a very specific part of an earlier paragraph; the part that says "the start of our rebuild" - to briefly recap, we started our rebuild at the end of 2011. What does that mean?

Well, let us reflect on everything I've written in the context of that statement: We began our rebuild about 9 years ago, and since then, we have only made the finals three times: 6th in 2015, 7th in 2016 and 7th in 2019. If you judge us by our form for the last 9 years, we can very easily conclude that we've been a complete and utter disappointment, and completely failed our rebuild. To counter this point, you might think to bring up the flag we won in 2016, after all, the whole point of a rebuild is to build a list for a flag!... but doesn't this follow into my point from an earlier post? That flag was an anomaly; it was the product of an unbelievable purple patch of form, combined with a number of other factors going our way. It did not reflect our performances from the rest of our 2016 season, and it certainly did not reflect our form in any of the forthcoming seasons.

Taking that into account, can we really say Beveridge has done a good job? Can we really say he's the right man for us? Not once since he was appointed as our senior coach have we ever looked like a consistent, top 4 team. Every single season we've had under him has been marred by the same problems: neglecting the ruck, inefficiency going forward, horrible set shot conversion, among many other things. For all the flack Chris Scott gets from Geelong supporters, at the very least they're a consistent team; they have only missed the finals once since he took the reigns, and has convincingly made top 4 in four of the last five years (including 2020).

In this poster's humble opinion, based on what we saw in the second half of 2019, this current Bulldogs list is the best list we've had in a long time. I would argue it's very much better than the list we had under Rocket for all those prelims, where we were very much a consistent top 4 team. Here we are in 2020: not only are we outside the top 4, we're looking unlikely to even make the 8 this year. At times, we look like a million bucks, at other times we look like a joke. This whole season sums up the nature of Beveridge's tenure as our coach: an eternal enigma, forever inconsistent, forever plagued by the same issues.

Forgive me if I'm a little too negative for your liking, but I'm honestly done with him as our coach. This is his 6th year, in charge, ours 9th year following the start of our rebuild, and we're still on the merry-go-round. The worst part is, we're not getting off that merry-go-round any time soon, because we chose to sign him up long term last year. With the pandemic absolutely mutilating the economy and the AFL suffering its worst financial hardship in decades, we're in no position to pay out any big money contracts, so we're stuck with this obnoxious, egotistical, arrogant coach, still stridently applying the same ridiculous, unreliable, inconsistent match day tactics, all during a period where we might have the most talented list we've had for half a century. It's all so tiresome.

Never underestimate our 2016 seasons, most injuries in the league and going into the final home and away round 1 win off top spot, swans win finish top we lose finish 7th. Also by the time the freo game started we couldn’t go up or down from 7th as all finalist won. Hence self preservation kicked in with that game meaning nothing. From 1st to 7th that year was so even no stand out team, hence helping our chances

 

[SonOfScray]

I think I'Ve woken up in the **** him off side of the bed.
He was the third hamstring that was pulled last night.

 

[Lindsay_Gilbee]

I’m not advocating either way, but I have a simple question for everyone...

Has Luke won or lost more games with his coaching since 2016? I don’t mean by the numbers, I mean with actual moves he makes. Because making moves like Dunkley in the ruck very rarely seems to actually be winners...

 

[SonOfScray]

I’m not advocating either way, but I have a simple question for everyone...

Has Luke won or lost more games with his coaching since 2016? I don’t mean by the numbers, I mean with actual moves he makes. Because making moves like Dunkley in the ruck very rarely seems to actually be winners...

Wood forward was a master stroke.

I am not certain, to answer the question. Let's go with 50-50.

 

[bresker]

I’m not advocating either way, but I have a simple question for everyone...

Has Luke won or lost more games with his coaching since 2016? I don’t mean by the numbers, I mean with actual moves he makes. Because making moves like Dunkley in the ruck very rarely seems to actually be winners...

Early on his tactical changes were brilliant - Bob as playmaker, Matty Boyd as a sweeper not bothering with a ruck due to the 3rd man up.....Picken reinvented as a forward

Now his cuteness isn’t working but he’s too stuck in his ways to see the truth. He actually used the words ‘edgy and different’ to describe our ruck set up in his presser last night. It’s more lame Middle of the road AOR shite than punk rock,

 

[Unorth]

I’m not advocating either way, but I have a simple question for everyone...

Has Luke won or lost more games with his coaching since 2016? I don’t mean by the numbers, I mean with actual moves he makes. Because making moves like Dunkley in the ruck very rarely seems to actually be winners...

(I apologise for a long post that pretty much doesn't relate to your questions but it got me thinking so...)

He's definitely made some terrible moves that have cost us. On the flip side you have to look at the adjustments he made last season which resulted in us going on an absolute tear in the second half. Unfortunately no lessons were learned, but it's not like he's incapable.

I'd say the biggest correlating factor is probably the age and experience of the team. I'd wager that, for how young and inexperienced in terms of games the team has been the last few years, he's probably had us winning more games overall than expected of a team of that profile.

It's not like we haven't identified as an issue. Duryea, Trengove, Bruce, Keath, Lloyd were all brought in to address it. We've got some decent mileage out of all of them except Trengove too, and Duryea has been a significant loss this season.

But as has been pointed out by posters here before, it's good and well to talk about how we're the youngest team most weeks like we're proud of breaking those kinds of records. I think how last season went summed it up. We overperformed for such a young team. Made the top 8. Then played one final and got absolutely ragdolled physically by gws.

I think the flipside of this is Bevo has this long term view in mind, and particular players are in that view, and so they must be played no matter what. Like we're trying to fastrack their development until they hit a magical games played number. Richards and English probably the two that come to mind. Vandermeer this season too. And we're naming Keath and Bruce every week, Lloyd has featured and Duryea would play every game if healthy.

And there is going to be a 'magic number' of games played. There was for 2016. Bont, Macrae etc were in their 3rd/4th seasons and were supported by mature players like Dickson, Picken etc. Next season we'll have Naughton in his 4th season, Baz in his 3rd and so on. With Macrae/Bont and co really starting to hit their primes. The time has to be next season to become at worst a lock for the top 8, if not top 4, and the season after we should have our sights set on top 4.

So tactically I will absolutely not deny mistakes have been made. In some ways this rebuild was forced on us (Clay, T.Boyd and Picken forcibly retiring early, Biggs and Roberts being one hit wonders, Boyd/Moz/Bob retiring) which kind of just left us with only Easton and Suckling as the two truly experienced guys regularly getting games. We made some moves but we're still proud to be the younger team on the park every week. It's like we're happy to use it to show how talented we are when we win but it becomes a kind of excuse when we inevitably lose to good teams. So in some ways - namely how we've handled the ruck situation - there's been some self inflicted damage. I can't help but think about what getting a big bodied campaigner like Mumford did for GWS when they were younger.

Essentially, more than anything tactical (in terms of game day stuff), I think age/experience might be the biggest hindrance to our success. Which is not to say that if we had every player on the list sitting at 150 games we'd be guaranteed top 4. There's obviously more at play. But I think the most tangible factor the average fan can at least talk about (that we know with certainty has bearing on results) has to be how we made the team so young and inexperienced most weeks.

 

[Del165892]

With that said he flew for a few more than he should've tonight.
If JJ's going to wear a spray so should Croz.

True, but I'd prefer he err on the side of flying for too many than for too few.

 

[Mutt]

Our performance since winning the flag in 2016 has been very ordinary. Beveridge has a losing win/loss record since the Flag.

	Wins	Losses	Total
2017​	11​	11​	22​
2018​	8​	14​	22​
2019​	12​	11​	23​
2020​	7​	7​	14​
	38​	43​	81​
	46.9%​	53.1%​

 

[Mattdougie]

I think it’s now a legitimate question to ask if Bev can actually coach or not?

It’s not popular but the reality is now we won a flag in 16 that was near a miracle and since the Bev has coached us backwards.

I’ve said it time and time again he smashed the togetherness of the group with his scapegoating of a few players and that was his greatest achievement that he tore apart.

Without that it comes to tactics and coaching and he has now proven 4 years in a row to be a less than 50% win coach which if he didn’t get 16 would most likely mean out the door.

A senior coach that isn’t able to formulate a plan B six years in isn’t good enough

 

[immortalmike]

True, but I'd prefer he err on the side of flying for too many than for too few.

He's a gun and absolutely love him. Just wish he'd have held on to them.

 

[VogonProsthetnic]

I think it’s now a legitimate question to ask if Bev can actually coach or not?

It’s not popular but the reality is now we won a flag in 16 that was near a miracle and since the Bev has coached us backwards.

I’ve said it time and time again he smashed the togetherness of the group with his scapegoating of a few players and that was his greatest achievement that he tore apart.

Without that it comes to tactics and coaching and he has now proven 4 years in a row to be a less than 50% win coach which if he didn’t get 16 would most likely mean out the door.

A senior coach that isn’t able to formulate a plan B six years in isn’t good enough

This ruck discussion reminds me of early 2015 when he dropped our AA ruckman for Ayve Cordy. Didn’t work then either. Both Minson and Cordy left/retired soon after. We haven’t hard a decent ruckman since.

Just recruit a decent ruckman ffs.

 

[cecil]

I'm more worried about his impact on our list management than his ability to coach.

There's been some bad luck (Toyd, Clay Smith, Picken, Duryea's injuries etc), but we really need to be aging as a team and we're not. An extra 30 games onto our average per player and we win an extra couple of games a year.