List Mgmt. Off Season Changes

[Chalky White]

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

How do you know he’s an issue as a coach? You may be right but maybe Bevo is the issue or Spangher.
Unless you’re in the box and at planning meetings we will never really know.

 

[my plums]

Need to look at Adelaide’s key position defensive development system and try emulate. They always seem to be able to develop good keys back there. Even when they lose one to another team or injury, another players steps in.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

Need to look at Adelaide’s key position defensive development system and try emulate. They always seem to be able to develop good keys back there. Even when they lose one to another team or injury, another players steps in.

Except don't look at Fisher McAsey who they took at pick 6!

 

[doggy_dog]

How do you know he’s an issue as a coach? You may be right but maybe Bevo is the issue or Spangher.
Unless you’re in the box and at planning meetings we will never really know.

Obviously none of us have any actual insight but personally I look at what they’ve achieved in the role/previously. Lade has been an Assistsnt at Essendon, St Kilda, and now the Dogs, and at all 3 stops has had no notable success in terms of overall team performance or direct line performance. Maybe I’m talking out of my rear end but I don’t know what he brings

 

[my plums]

Except don't look at Fisher McAsey who they took at pick 6!

Was trying to remember his name! The only miss I suppose

 

[dogwatch]

Was trying to remember his name! The only miss I suppose

Yes McAsey was a flop. The point is they recognise the need and keep giving it a crack.

Our drafting of tall defenders dropped off markedly after about 2016. Coincidence?

We selected Naughton in 2017 but Bevo thought he was wasted as a defender. He is certainly now one of the best KPFs in the league so in that sense he was justified. But it does form part of a bigger picture.

After Naughton there was nothing in the ND until 2022 when we drafted Busslinger. He was perhaps a slight reach at about pick #13. We did that because the evidence could no longer be ignored that we had no KPD stocks for the future. I'm hoping he will still turn out to be a long term player for us.

We had filled up the intervening years with trading for tall defenders at the back end of their career (some were FAs) - Keath, O'Brien, LJones, Trengove, along with the rookie Gardner. We got only 1-2 years of decent football out of each of them. And we converted Rory Lobb in his early 30s to a KPD in a Hail Mary move that came off. Hardly convincing evidence of a commitment to developing KPDs.

We are now paying for it.

Who is to blame for this? Our recruiters? Or were they acting on directions from Bevo? Was it bad luck that "best available" was never a KPD? Or was it just bad luck that some pre-2017 picks didn't turn out (eg Lachie Young, Marcus Adams, Kieren Collins, Michael Talia)?

I'm of the view that it's not just bad luck. It's poor list planning & management based on conscious choices we've made.

 

[Sentinel]

List of things Bevo allegedly doesn't rate:

• Tap ruckmen
• Key defenders
• Defence in general
• Tagging
• Practicing goalkicking
• Reviewing grand finals
• Plan Bs
• Michael Talia
• Kane Cornes
• Tom Morris

 

[dogwatch]

List of things allegedly Bevo doesn't rate:

• Tap ruckmen
• Key defenders
• Defence in general
• Tagging
• Practicing goalkicking
• Reviewing grand finals
• Plan Bs
• Michael Talia
• Kane Cornes
• Tom Morris

He gets a 3/10 from me.

 

[MaxiBont]

Practicing goalkicking

We had the best goal accuracy in the league this season to be fair.

 

[dogwatch]

You forgot to add :

• Dissenting opinions
• Turds in lockers

I'm sure we could get the list up to 20 with a bit of reflection

 

[Sentinel]

• Turds in lockers

I did add in Michael Talia but he was more of a turd in a lockerroom than specifically in a locker.

 

[DannyB4]

You forgot to add :

• Dissenting opinions
• Turds in lockers

I'm sure we could get the list up to 20 with a bit of reflection

Is the 2nd one part of the discourse in 2017/18 involving a couple of premiership players we moved on to other Victorian clubs?

Or is this another incident I am unaware of?

 

[Guido]

List of things Bevo allegedly doesn't rate:

• Tap ruckmen
• Key defenders
• Defence in general
• Tagging
• Practicing goalkicking
• Reviewing grand finals
• Plan Bs
• Michael Talia
• Kane Cornes
• Tom Morris

Purple..

 

[dogwatch]

Is the 2nd one part of the discourse in 2017/18 involving a couple of premiership players we moved on to other Victorian clubs?

Or is this another incident I am unaware of?

Naah, it's the old one - a package from a Package.

 

[Struggle]

We had the best goal accuracy in the league this season to be fair.

The goals finally took care of themselves

 

[SPower]

The goals finally took care of themselves

We got that crap in 2014

 

[Proffessor]

Yes McAsey was a flop. The point is they recognise the need and keep giving it a crack.

Our drafting of tall defenders dropped off markedly after about 2016. Coincidence?

We selected Naughton in 2017 but Bevo thought he was wasted as a defender. He is certainly now one of the best KPFs in the league so in that sense he was justified. But it does form part of a bigger picture.

After Naughton there was nothing in the ND until 2022 when we drafted Busslinger. He was perhaps a slight reach at about pick #13. We did that because the evidence could no longer be ignored that we had no KPD stocks for the future. I'm hoping he will still turn out to be a long term player for us.

We had filled up the intervening years with trading for tall defenders at the back end of their career (some were FAs) - Keath, O'Brien, LJones, Trengove, along with the rookie Gardner. We got only 1-2 years of decent football out of each of them. And we converted Rory Lobb in his early 30s to a KPD in a Hail Mary move that came off. Hardly convincing evidence of a commitment to developing KPDs.

We are now paying for it.

Who is to blame for this? Our recruiters? Or were they acting on directions from Bevo? Was it bad luck that "best available" was never a KPD? Or was it just bad luck that some pre-2017 picks didn't turn out (eg Lachie Young, Marcus Adams, Kieren Collins, Michael Talia)?

I'm of the view that it's not just bad luck. It's poor list planning & management based on conscious choices we've made.

With such a complex and convoluted history, it's hard to pick out clear patterns.

There were still quite a few good KPDs in that bunch that played some good games\seasons for us.
There were certainly players that were arguably mismanaged but also plenty of bad luck stories where it is difficult to point the finger of blame at the club for them not working out better in the long term.

I'd argue that Bevo's biggest issue has been his inconsistency in how he has handled certain players.
Over doing the faith\patience with some whilst potentially under doing it with others.
However, all coaches can be accused of such failings. Let's hope he is continuing to learn something from his failures and that we get better next year.

 

[perro_loco]

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!

Bevo is an ambivalent coach who is stuck in his own methods and does not change. Hopefully the disastrous result of 2025 provides insights and opens his mind to new methods and ideas.

 

[BallaratBulldog]

Bevo is an ambivalent coach who is stuck in his own methods and does not change. Hopefully the disastrous result of 2025 provides insights and opens his mind to new methods and ideas.

Bevo will say, 14 and massive percentage wins normally gets us top four. It is working just unlucky.

 

[Libbaaaa]

Bevo will say, 14 and massive percentage wins normally gets us top four. It is working just unlucky.

Same thing he was saying this year about how great our defence was last year bla bla bla.

 

[dogwatch]

More on the backline and/or defensive strategy ...

Does anyone have any stats on how many goals we conceded when there were say 1-3 defenders in our D50 and how many conceded when we had a whole lot of players back? And how that compares to other clubs, especially the finalists.

The eye tells me that we can probably defend pretty well when the ball and the throng are locked in the opponents forward 50. But that we are caught one-out too often against clever or more muscular forwards.

There have been some stats quoted indicating we rate well for limiting opponents to a small number of breaks out of the d50 to the f50 but very poorly for goals conceded when those breaks happen. They indirectly give an indication of what I suspect but I'd be interested in knowing if there are better stats.

 

[perro_loco]

Bevo will say, 14 and massive percentage wins normally gets us top four. It is working just unlucky.

I am reposting this from another discussion thread because I think my friend makes a good point. Now we maybe unlucky as you say, but see the following:


I wrote: "A good friend of mine wrote this in relation to season 2025 and prior seasons:"
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".
Time for a rant…
A review, new coaches, new direction - pretty good squad with 5 players in the All Australian squad and we don’t even make the finals.

Inability to influence what is unfolding in front of him (Bevo) during the game because he is anchored to a high press that only works against bottom teams.

Doesn’t listen to input from others, no plan B, no- innovation & a lack of balls to move players around when it is required.

The shite game plan when we are under pressure by good teams is found out time and again - slingshot football from our F50 into open territory & we are chasing one or two players into open space.

Ladder positions at end of home and away since 2015-
7 7 10 13 7 7 5 8 9 6 9.

What did Einstein say?

My comment and conclusion based on my friend's assessment : Bevo is not delivering on a consistent basis. A two year contract was a mistake.

 

[Bald Headed Flog]

More than anything, we need continuity in our team. Started seeing a bit of it this year, but there were a lot of fresh faces in the team compared to previous years. These were the average number of <50 gamers per side this year:

Richmond - 8.96
West Coast - 8.39
North Melbourne - 8.00
Bulldogs & Essendon - 7.39

The highest placed finalist on this list was Gold Coast in equal 8th with Carlton at 6.70 per game. Collingwood were the lowest with 4.39. Even Fremantle, a side known for being young, had 6.48 per game.

On the subject of Fremantle, they were an interesting one. They had the lowest average experience this year in terms of the 23 they were playing (93.7 games, just under Essendon on 93.8), but were middle of the pack on median games (9th place with 87.0 games, even ahead of us and Adelaide on 79.0 and GWS on 81.0).

What this means is that while Freo does trend towards being less experienced on surface level observations if you just use an average of their list, what's actually happening is they have very few "veterans" but also very few "developing" players in their side each week. This helps a lot in staying competitive, as it means they're less exposed by inexperienced players.

We ran with around 8 players in the 50-150 game range. Fremantle usually had 11. It's great to have debutants, but what we lack right now is a good spread of experience. Hopefully a couple decent, established recruits can help to address this

 

[grassman75]

List of things Bevo allegedly doesn't rate:

• Tap ruckmen
• Key defenders
• Defence in general
• Tagging
• Practicing goalkicking
• Reviewing grand finals
• Plan Bs
• Michael Talia
• Kane Cornes
• Tom Morris

Purple Barrett

 

[grassman75]

Naah, it's the old one - a package from a Package.

Tom Boyd categorically put this one to bed on the Danny Boyd podcast.

Didn’t happen apparently