Opinion Luke Beveridge's Five Biggest Jobs

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

I don't think many of us disagree with the suggestion that our new senior coach faces a Herculean task to get this team playing excellent footy in the "short- to medium-term," as Beveridge put it. Despite possessing a raft of talented youngsters across most areas of the ground, our list is undisputedly young, inexperienced and unbalanced; and, arguably, they have been under-performing to date. The loss of experienced, best 22 talent in Ryan Griffen, Adam Cooney and Shaun Higgins, along with quality depth in Daniel Giansiracusa, Jason Tutt and Liam Jones is sure to make exceeding 2014's seven wins a difficult task.

Beveridge strikes me as a very driven man who wants this squad playing quality footy quickly, and as such, I imagine bettering last year's less-than-inspiring win total will be a goal of his. That said, before he can even think of improving such a win tally, there are an assortment of issues he needs to begin to fix to ensure that the side we put out on the field is performing at their optimum level. These are the five areas of concern that I think Beveridge most needs to address, in no particular order:

1. Team selection: From my point of view, many of the decisions of the match committee this past season have bordered on the indefensible. From consistently playing 1-2 tall players down (and actually choosing to do so) to giving some players (Cooney, Higgins, Austin) free passes during poor runs of games while others (Wood, Macrae) were dropped or reprimanded for comparatively minor 'incidents,' all the way to consistently playing out-of-confidence, clearly-injured players (Roughead), some of the calls this year have been baffling at best. The first is the biggest concern of mine and the one I think is most significant to turning around our form. We consistently played an undersized defense, with Morris being required to belie his years and play 5-10 centimetres taller week-in, week-out. It's simply not viable and it was proven time and time again that Moz is struggling a bit more against taller opposition than he has in past years. Early in the season, 186cm tall Easton Wood was playing as our centre-half back which is obscene. We rarely had good matchups and this combined with some average work up the ground to result in easy goals for the opposition. Our forward line wasn't much better (although it did improve later in the season), although Tom Boyd goes a long way to helping this situation. Overall, though, we just need to be playing a balanced lineup. At times with McCartney it would seem as though he'd prefer to play a team devoid of any reasonable matchups for the opposition than using well-performed players who would go some way to fixing our structural woes (Roberts and Talia say hi). Under Beveridge I expect to be using a proper structure wherever possible and I believe it will make quite a significant difference to how we fare.
2. Forward structure: This isn't so much something Beveridge has to 'fix' - he just has to actually introduce one. There are two major issues with our forward structure at present: 1) our talls consistently lurk in exactly the same area and spoil each other in the same marking contest, and 2) our smalls rarely get to the drop of the ball. When your talls aren't marking and your smalls aren't in dangerous areas it makes scoring so, so much harder than it needs to be. Beveridge needs to find a way to create space in our forward line and keep our key position players out of each other's way.
3. 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.
4. Skills: Many have suggested that we need to target foot skills in the next couple of drafts and, while I do agree, I don't think it's the solution. For me, our skills are so poor across the board that we need to see wholesale improvement in almost every single player on the list. Throwing a couple of good kicks on the wing isn't going to help a whole lot unless we run the play through them every single time - which is nigh on impossible. We simply need to see the foot skills of many of our players improve if we are to get anywhere. Too many (Wood, Wallis, Smith, Dahlhaus, Picken and Johannisen, just to name a few) have poor skills/decision making and are responsible for too many turnovers - this needs to change. We are never going to have a large number of elite kicks, but we need to see improvement.
5. Contested marking: We're one of the worst contested marking sides in the competition and Beveridge simply needs to find a way to turn that around. While part of it is due to the issues expressed above, many of our players are still continuously out-muscled and out-smarted in marking contests and it has to change. So many passages of play have unravelled because of an inability to take marks in contested situations and there's no way we can score efficiently enough without doing so.

This is not an exhaustive list; merely my top five areas I think Beveridge needs to address as soon as possible. What are your top five?

 

[BRWB]

Great post DANN. But his biggest challenge by far, will be team building that is to get the team to be a team and improve morale. That is to get everyone at the club to be singing off the same song sheet, that includes for example, Gordon, Monty, Minson, Stevens, Grant, Boyd and Boyd. You have a very diverse group of people who have just had massive turnover and disruption. I would suggest there will be more changes over the coming year. Bev I think was brought in primarily because of his great communication skills..he will need them.

 

[Hrovat24]

Beveridge needs to continue to develop our list and make sure it goes fowards not backwards , find players strengths and weaknesses , try players in new positions in the hope of unleashing someone like hunter or hrovat , protect boyd and Bonts , win us a grand final

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Number 3, Team Defense, was something Macca was trying to implement, but it backfired badly. Hopefully LB's approach will get the message through.

 

[David Schwarz]

Number 4: con-sis-ten-cy

 

[Dry Rot]

1. Skills: Many have suggested that we need to target foot skills in the next couple of drafts and, while I do agree, I don't think it's the solution. For me, our skills are so poor across the board that we need to see wholesale improvement in almost every single player on the list. Throwing a couple of good kicks on the wing isn't going to help a whole lot unless we run the play through them every single time - which is nigh on impossible. We simply need to see the foot skills of many of our players improve if we are to get anywhere. Too many (Wood, Wallis, Smith, Dahlhaus, Picken and Johannisen, just to name a few) have poor skills/decision making and are responsible for too many turnovers - this needs to change. We are never going to have a large number of elite kicks, but we need to see improvement.

Great OP.

After many years in the system for many players, how do you turn this skills deficit around?

Maybe many of them are just unskilful, and need to be replaced over the next few drafts?

 

[Gmod23]

1. Team selection is huge. More talls and more players in based on form NOT reputation.
2. Not so big deal for me, as it more relates to point 1 and point 4. Also, this relates to players being encouraged to be creative and attack with flair.
3. Without the 3 big outs, I think we will be better defensively. But a defensive structure is more important and having players in the team that a fast enough to cover back.
4. Second most important aspect behind team cohesive defense.
5. This has two aspects. Offensive and defensive. Offensive it is about skills (4) to kick to the right side of the contest, so that the mark can be taken. Defensive, shouldn't be as big a focus. We are generally better at this but a punch can be better.

Dannnnnnnn this is a good list and we agree on most things but in a slightly different way.

 

[Dav1d]

Forward structure is huge, a lot of the time last season we would win the ball and get the ball in the forward line, just not to a team-mate... or it would be turned over and an opposition player would come sprinting out of our defense with minimal pressure, because as the OP said
our players would get in the way of one another

I definitely agree with the OP & improving the contested marking
but I believe we need to improve in marking overall, too often the player with the ball
would have no other option other then to kick it long

 

[Yojimbo]

#1- Resist the pressure to play Tom Boyd every week because
it will come.
#2- Resist the pressure to go to Tom Boyd 100% of all entries
because it will come.
#3- Build relationships with the coaching group and avoid sharp
objects entering your back.
#4- Adopt a style of play that is not labor intense and painful
to watch.
#5- Learn from your mistakes and don't roll out cliches at the
press conference every week.

 

[VitalDread]

Game day tactics, stopping the other teams and create a fast tempo gamestyle that supports our kids.

 

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

Great OP.

After many years in the system for many players, how do you turn this skills deficit around?

Maybe many of them are just unskilful, and need to be replaced over the next few drafts?

It's an interesting one. I don't think we're going to see massive improvements to the point where Wallis is an elite kick/decision maker, but I'd argue that a variety of coaches have had an impact on their team's skills - Eade improved ours significantly, while the teams of Clarkson, Hinkley, Roos and Leppitsch have all developed their skills under their respective coaches. It may not be possible, sure, but I really think we need to see some improvement in existing players rather than needing to replace them with better kicks. I also think being better at generating space and having clearer targets will make our skills look a bit better, and that's part of it.

 

[Zgope1]

Great OP.

After many years in the system for many players, how do you turn this skills deficit around?

Maybe many of them are just unskilful, and need to be replaced over the next few drafts?

Who do you see as our worst skilled players DR?

I'd say Jong, Wallis, Clay and occasionally Koby

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Who do you see as our worst skilled players DR?

I'd say Jong, Wallis, Clay and occasionally Koby

I suspect Wallis's skills suffered with the role he had to play. Still not the worst, imo.

 

[Dry Rot]

Who do you see as our worst skilled players DR?

I'd say Jong, Wallis, Clay and occasionally Koby

I'd have to think about that. I'm not taking the piss, but may be it's easier to think of our highly skilled ones by foot and hand (including decision making).

Down back, is there anyone aside from Bob?

Up forward, there's Stringer and Grant.

After we lost Cooney, Griff and Higgins, only the Bont, the Rat and maybe Hunter in the midfield.

Not many, I'm afraid.

 

[Dry Rot]

I suspect Wallis's skills suffered with the role he had to play. Still not the worst, imo.

Still not the best either.

 

[Dazb86]

I'd have to think about that. I'm not taking the piss, but may be it's easier to think of our highly skilled ones by foot and hand (including decision making).

Down back, is there anyone aside from Bob?

Up forward, there's Stringer and Grant.

After we lost Cooney, Griff and Higgins, only the Bont, the Rat and maybe Hunter in the midfield.

Not many, I'm afraid.

Don't rate Macrae's ball use? I agree though. We have a lot of guys who aren't very good with ball in hand. It might also be the gameplan we were trying to play though. There might be more players in space under the new coach.

 

[Gmod23]

I'd have to think about that. I'm not taking the piss, but may be it's easier to think of our highly skilled ones by foot and hand (including decision making).

Down back, is there anyone aside from Bob?

Up forward, there's Stringer and Grant.

After we lost Cooney, Griff and Higgins, only the Bont, the Rat and maybe Hunter in the midfield.

Not many, I'm afraid.

I think we were more dangerous by hand from stoppages or after marking & playing on than by foot. Too many times we kicked long to a contest after we had chipped the ball backwards.

 

[Dry Rot]

Don't rate Macrae's ball use?

I wouldn't call it highly skilled. Not the worst though.

 

[Dry Rot]

I think we were more dangerous by hand from stoppages or after marking & playing on than by foot. Too many times we kicked long to a contest after we had chipped the ball backwards.

IMO our decision making, overall, is shithouse. The new coach will get a nasty shock after the silky skills of the Hawks.

 

[Dazb86]

I wouldn't call it highly skilled. Not the worst though.

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.

 

[TheHoneyBadger]

1. Unite the club, and build strong relationships - Everyone needs to be on the same page, or we're not going to get anywhere. While I was committed to his plan, as irritating as aspects of it were, McCartney's demise was a direct result of his inability to maintain genuine relationships (there's that term again) with the players, and his failure to unite the playing group (hindsight is a wonderful thing, admittedly). If industry insiders are to be believed, Beveridge is as tactically astute as they come - if he can have the boys playing for him and each other, the battle is half-won.
2. 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.
3. Disposal - So often, a player would win the hard ball, or take a mark, with the team in a position to launch an attack on goal, we'd turn it over almost immediately, and more often than not, we'd be punished at the other end. I want to see our players make more space for the ball-carrier, giving him more time and thus the best chance of disposing of it well, and in other instances, I just want to see more thought go into it - well before the umpire had called play on, there were panicky kicks and handballs, leading to a score for the other team. A couple of the worst culprits are gone, but we'll still rotate a lot of youth through the side, and unless otherwise educated/assisted, they'll be susceptible to this.

I won't bother putting my own spin on what Dan has said with regards to forward structure and team defense, as it's been said before.

While 2015 will be a tough year, if we can address a few of these issues in the short term (particularly forward structure, team selection and relationships with players), we'll improve dramatically. That won't necessarily translate to wins, given the absence of valuable experience in Griffen, Cooney and Giansiracusa, but it's a launching pad for the not-too-distant future.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

Seemed to me like Macca was willing to lose games for the sake of teaching lessons or to focus on a particular area, whereas I get the impression that Beveridge will be more about playing all aspects of the game equally. So in that respect I can see us potentially improving quite quickly in the short term at least.

 

[Kony Abbott]

Who do you see as our worst skilled players DR?

I'd say Jong, Wallis, Clay and occasionally Koby

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.

 

[fargy]

Skills and ball movement.

 

[Zgope1]

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.

I agree, he cops it unfairly for his disposal. Has been obvious in his progression towards taking his time to dispose of it. People think he has a lack of awareness but it's clear he is always trying to take car with his touch.