List Mgmt. Off Season Changes

[lachy]

One of the young guys that hasn’t played might get the chop too

Who??

 

[TheScriptorWL]

Just listened to her on the Danny Boyd podcast. Said they re-signed bevo due to his relationship with the players and not KPIs on wins/ losses. Don’t think we are a serious club sometimes

The People in charge of this club are still downing cans like It's October 2016. I'm sick of championing mediocrity. The fans are Hungry and the President is perfectly content.

 

[lachy]

The People in charge of this club are still downing cans like It's October 2016. I'm sick of championing mediocrity. The fans are Hungry and the President is perfectly content.

The president that has overseen the largest growth in Revenue in our club to the extent when we were exposed to a multi million dollar payout we were able to absorb it. The President who oversaw the development of league leading facilities.

Never new a President overseeing us moving from a bottom club to now a medium club aiming to become a successful on field club was championing mediocrity. Forgot that success takes no time

 

[Generation West]

Plus Bont couldn’t have done anymore v Freo. Talk about Herculean performances, that was right up there with his best.
Unfortunately the other pansies won’t go on the same journey with him.
Embarrassing

Mate l, like everyone on here am in absolute awe of our captain.
He was amazing in the second half against Freo and attempted to drag us over the line himself.

But…………In the first half, the great man was directly opposed to Hayden Young, who absolutely torched us half a dozen times out of stoppage, particularly in the second quarter and was a big part of their run on.

The skipper played well - he was our second best player behind Rhyley West. Far from The Bonts best ever performance.

 

[grassman75]

Who??

Not sure, we’ve done that before…might happen again was all I was saying

 

[grassman75]

Mate l, like everyone on here am in absolute awe of our captain.
He was amazing in the second half against Freo and attempted to drag us over the line himself.

But…………In the first half, the great man was directly opposed to Hayden Young, who absolutely torched us half a dozen times out of stoppage, particularly in the second quarter and was a big part of their run on.

The skipper played well - he was our second best player behind Rhyley West. Far from The Bonts best ever performance.

Few with Bont coloured glasses on

 

[bigdog54]

Mate l, like everyone on here am in absolute awe of our captain.
He was amazing in the second half against Freo and attempted to drag us over the line himself.

But…………In the first half, the great man was directly opposed to Hayden Young, who absolutely torched us half a dozen times out of stoppage, particularly in the second quarter and was a big part of their run on.

The skipper played well - he was our second best player behind Rhyley West. Far from The Bonts best ever performance.

Thought it was just me but at the game I was thinking where is the bont and libba in the first half?! He ended up having a good game overall though but he had little influence when were opened up.

 

[lachy]

Not sure, we’ve done that before…might happen again was all I was saying

Last 2 years drafts looks very promising. Highly doubt it

 

[DueWest]

The People in charge of this club are still downing cans like It's October 2016. I'm sick of championing mediocrity. The fans are Hungry and the President is perfectly content.

Good post feel the same way, are we wasting a generational list ?

We are in an incredible position off field and need to cash in

 

[Chalky White]

Mate l, like everyone on here am in absolute awe of our captain.
He was amazing in the second half against Freo and attempted to drag us over the line himself.

But…………In the first half, the great man was directly opposed to Hayden Young, who absolutely torched us half a dozen times out of stoppage, particularly in the second quarter and was a big part of their run on.

The skipper played well - he was our second best player behind Rhyley West. Far from The Bonts best ever performance.

Must’ve done something right he was the highest rated player on the ground

 

[lachy]

Thought it was just me but at the game I was thinking where is the bont and libba in the first half?! He ended up having a good game overall though but he had little influence when were opened up.

Inadvertently you have hit on an issue. Play both Bont and Libba in the same midfield stoppage who is defending or sitting out to protect the spread if the opposition win it

 

[lachy]

Just on the topic of the thread the changes required are not dramatic just multi faceted

Continue the development of this years 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th year players at the same level of the last 2 years we improve 10% to 20% immediately. Have we got enough resources and want in the coaching structure to ensure this?

Only trade in on obviously recruit players that will generally improve the team at least 5%

Improve our game plan, particularly across the ground defending by 10% and have we got the coaching structure to achieve this?

Ensure appropriate pre season programs for older players to ensure minimum if any drop off and the possible return of Trealor and Liam Jones

19

Liam Jones

Age

34

Ht

199cm

Wt

98kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

9.4

2star

K

6.5

3star

HB

2.9

3star

M

4.3

4star

T

2.0

4star

MG

134.5

2star

D

7.6

2star

K

6.1

3star

HB

1.4

1star

M

4.1

4star

T

1.4

2star

MG

116.3

2star

D

9.4

3star

K

7.4

3star

HB

2.0

2star

M

4.0

4star

T

2.2

4star

imrpoves us a minimum of 5%

Draft well

Do the above at a professional level and we are genuinely challenging next year (should be many years but at least move forward next year)

We were not quite good enough this year, results don't lie. Do most or all of the above inclusive of making sure we are properly resourced and most of us will not be as frustrated as we are this season for good reason.

Oh and lets start beleiving we are a middle power wanting to move up

 

[dogwatch]

Just on the topic of the thread the changes required are not dramatic just multi faceted

Continue the development of this years 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th year players at the same level of the last 2 years we improve 10% to 20% immediately. Have we got enough resources and want in the coaching structure to ensure this?

Only trade in on obviously recruit players that will generally improve the team at least 5%

Improve our game plan, particularly across the ground defending by 10% and have we got the coaching structure to achieve this?

Ensure appropriate pre season programs for older players to ensure minimum if any drop off and the possible return of Trealor and Liam Jones imrpoves us a minimum of 5%

Draft well

Do the above at a professional level and we are genuinely challenging next year (should be many years but at least move forward next year)

We were not quite good enough this year, results don't lie. Do most or all of the above inclusive of making sure we are properly resourced and most of us will not be as frustrated as we are this season for good reason.

Oh and lets start beleiving we are a middle power wanting to move up

I too think we are close to being a genuine threat next year. I think we're likely to see greater improvements in the younger players than natural decline in the older ones. But it's hard to know. Some players are ageless and others are cooked at age 30.

While there's definitely some good that can come from modified pre-season programs for the older players I doubt it is going to be able to prevent any age-related decline. The main benefit will be learning from last summer when some of our older players had their early season disrupted by soft tissue injuries that seemed to arise from the heavy running workload. It affected our two 2024 AAs (Bont and Treloar) in particular, but I think Dale was under a cloud for a while too. Losing Bont for that stretch probably cost us a finals spot.

You've asked the question that identifies the big IF though: Coaching.
We have had seemingly competent coaches for a long time but we see the same old tactical shortcomings every year.
I am not confident we're going to see any of the changes that we all think are needed.

But then what would we know?

 

[VitalDread]

Lade got a pretty good chance of joining Melbourne either as head coach or senior assistant coach

 

[Foxman98]

Lade got a pretty good chance of joining Melbourne either as head coach or senior assistant coach

Thank Christ for that don’t rate him

 

[Doggies7]

Lade got a pretty good chance of joining Melbourne either as head coach or senior assistant coach

I can't imagine he misses out on the head coaching gig and then settles to be that coaches' assistant? Rarely happens that way... But missing out could have him looking at being another club's senior assistant for sure if the right role was there.

We are supposed to be bringing in another one or two assistants this year if I remember correctly, who are some names floating around? I wouldn't be unhappy to bring Hansen back with most of the assistants at Carlton getting moved on. He was one of the hot candidates for future head coaching role, don't think the Blues issues are entirely his fault.

 

[Optimistic Dog]

The things we need to address

1. Defensive structures midfield and defensive unit.
2. Tackling
3. Defensive personnel

The most obvious defensive game plan change is in the midfield we need to prevent the number of fast breaks that result in scores by having an extra on baller or winger behind the ball. This ideally should be someone with speed and can tackle well.

Overall tackling needs to be better there so many missed tackles or broken tackles against Freo, maybe extra strength sessions.

We lost to many one on one battles in our defensive unit and this requires a change of personnel. Thinking Busslinger and JJ out for ??.

I think the forward line will be one of the best in the comp with Cody back, Sam, Crofty and Arty going to new levels.

Our midfield is fine. However, a fit ADZ or big gains from Sanders or Garcia would be handy.

 

[seaweed]

Lade got a pretty good chance of joining Melbourne either as head coach or senior assistant coach

Wouldn’t bother me if he did. Liked him as a player but don’t rate him as a coach

 

[Dry Rot]

From memory, senior assistant coach Williams got the boot from the Demons.

I thought he was pretty highly regarded there.

Would we have any interest in him?

 

[Guido]

From memory, senior assistant coach Williams got the boot from the Demons.

I thought he was pretty highly regarded there.

Would we have any interest in him?

I think he was "just" the head development coach. He seems very old school, but would be happy to have him as a development coach with us - not sure that's would be what he's looking for.

I actually don't think we've had an ex-AFL coach in any capacity during Bevo's tenure? I don't think it was by design, as aparently Leon Cameron was a chance and we were supposedly very close to wining the race for Dew.

If a good ex-senior coach is available and a good fit, I hope we make a play - I'm sure there's some wisdom and real world experience to be gained by getting one, for both playing group and coaches.

 

[Proffessor]

Just on the topic of the thread the changes required are not dramatic just multi faceted

Continue the development of this years 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th year players at the same level of the last 2 years we improve 10% to 20% immediately. Have we got enough resources and want in the coaching structure to ensure this?

Only trade in on obviously recruit players that will generally improve the team at least 5%

Improve our game plan, particularly across the ground defending by 10% and have we got the coaching structure to achieve this?

Ensure appropriate pre season programs for older players to ensure minimum if any drop off and the possible return of Trealor and Liam Jones imrpoves us a minimum of 5%

Draft well

Do the above at a professional level and we are genuinely challenging next year (should be many years but at least move forward next year)

We were not quite good enough this year, results don't lie. Do most or all of the above inclusive of making sure we are properly resourced and most of us will not be as frustrated as we are this season for good reason.

Oh and lets start beleiving we are a middle power wanting to move up

Agree with some of this lachy, particularly the general sentiment that we are trending positively in a lot of ways and a small amount improvement in a few different areas should have us right in the mix next year.

However, have a couple of minor quibbles.

Firstly, your use of improvement percentages. Player performances simply aren't quantifiable in that manner let alone resolution, so tossing around numbers like 5, 10, and 20%, might sound good but are ultimately a bit meaningless. We just need to try to improve.

Plus, whilst lots of people seem to be having melt downs over game plan, the fact that we finished with such an impressive % and our largest defeat was just 22 points, in a year hard hit by injuries and player unavailability, suggests our game plan wasn't working too badly at all. Again, a couple of tweaks regarding some players' positioning and\or guidance regarding their judgment of when to choose defensive discretion or offensive valor, could easily change some of our close loses into victories.

Clearly, we would benefit from improving our defensive stocks, but otherwise our list looks in great shape. Also worth noting we preemptively took some action in that direction already during the 2025 mid-season draft.

Overall, I'm actually more worried about us over cooking the efforts to solve that problem more than anything else. Hope we focus on quality over quantity this preseason.

 

[perro_loco]

No point in re-hashing this now. Its ancient history.

What does need to be looked at however are these three games at Marvel:

Loss to Hawks
Loss to Crows
Loss to Dockers

The similarities of these three games are very clear - outmuscled by a physically more imposing team, especially in the ruck and centre clearances, as well as general attitude and the ability to hunt and put tackle pressure on the opposition.

Above there is a post that says that the dogs had 10 players with less than 50 games. what you say is quite correct. what we really need to do is change our structure in the backline and also bring a couple of strong defenders to be able to do this. our backline has three really inexperienced players in Buss, JOD and Cleary. JJ is almost cooked. Lobb is a good intercept defender but not a monster killer. We really need a gorilla defender to match it against the likes of Thilthorpe. we also need a vlaustin type player to help and a gorilla like weitering. maybe jordon butts fits the bill from adelaide. but there should be others, maybe in the vfl who can come and play that role.

 

[perro_loco]

The People in charge of this club are still downing cans like It's October 2016. I'm sick of championing mediocrity. The fans are Hungry and the President is perfectly content.

Well said. We still have a culture of accepting mediocrity. The BoD is not aggressive enough and bloody well should.

 

[perro_loco]

The president that has overseen the largest growth in Revenue in our club to the extent when we were exposed to a multi million dollar payout we were able to absorb it. The President who oversaw the development of league leading facilities.

Never new a President overseeing us moving from a bottom club to now a medium club aiming to become a successful on field club was championing mediocrity. Forgot that success takes no time

Agree with all this. But given what transpired this year, we need to be more aggressive in recruitment of players. Bevo's amazing 2016 achievement is undeniable (also 2021), but his efforts of not making top four is nothing to be proud of. Missing this year's finals is mediocre.

 

[SPower]

Ok , we improve through the development of JoD and Jedd. Rory is essentially an interceptor although some may disagree.
We need a strong, key back to man up on the gorilla fwds, that, is one missing link we don't have, although Keith in his prime provided that man.
As many have mentioned our defensive system needs overhauling and updating.
I can see us still out of the top 6 in 2026 as others will be more competitive next year too.
Otherwise another wasted year of the greatest Bulldog ever.
PS Luke,
Listen and make the necessary changes now!