What They're Saying - The Bulldogs Media Thread - Part 4

[_Mike_]

Yeah, a very unimpressive article

The HS in a nutshell

 

[Fossie 32]

Sen Article

Less than two months out from the Opening Round of the 2024 AFL season, the Western Bulldogs are yet to release the findings of their external review, supposedly conducted last November.

It was announced prior to the National Draft that the club would take a look at the football department following their 9th placed finish and shock finals absence in 2023.
Notable critic of the club and their coach Luke Beveridge, Kane Cornes called for a deep review mid-way through last season and is now growing impatient with the lack of emerging information, given their promise to share findings in due course.

He addressed the situation this morning on SEN Breakfast with Sam Edmund, asking “When’s due course? The season starts in 59 days.”

“Half-way through the year I went on footy classified and said ‘the Western Bulldogs need the most forensic review out of any club in the competition,'” Cornes said.

“I would think it’s pretty important to have these findings… to be sharing those with your members by now.

“It’s pretty difficult to implement these changes when the season starts essentially in six or seven weeks.

“I think it’s late and I think Dogs fans would be itching to find out what has been found in the review.”

Granted, substantial changes have been made to the Bulldog’s football department, as Sam Edmund highlighted in response.

“They’ve changed their entire football club from basically all the assistant coaches down,” Edmund said.

Welcoming Matt Egan, Daniel Pratt and Jarryn Geary to the coaching ranks leaves the spotlight on senior coach Luke Beveridge and footy boss Chris Grant, being the last notable coaching members yet to face the music.

With the external review seemingly still ongoing, Cornes believes pressure must be building on these two if the club are resolute on making significant improvements.

“It’s clearly focussed on Chris Grant and Luke Beveridge… it has to be,” Cornes said.

“It doesn’t make sense to focus on people who haven’t started yet.

“I’m sure the Western Bulldogs will get to sharing that information and findings with their members shortly."

The Bulldogs’ season kicks off Sunday, March 17 when they take on Melbourne at the MCG.

Ooh Kane is getting impatient, no good!

 

[Libbaaaa]

His ruck craft is actually pretty good, at the very least he gives us another option.

Regardless of how well Tim is going we need to change it up throughout the game. For someone who preaches flexibility Bevo's reluctance to change things up in the ruck until the 2nd half of the last game of the year was not good enough.

 

[_Mike_]

His ruck craft is actually pretty good, at the very least he gives us another option.

Yep, what is needed until Darcy gets up to the required standard to play a swing ruck KPP role.

English shouldn’t be rucking solo

 

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

I'm not as optimistic as Lobb. At every turn we've seemingly found a good partner for English, and at every turn the coaching staff opt to have Tim ruck for 80+% of the game. The only exception to this is the start of Martin's tenure (which featured some of the best footy I've seen us play), but we quickly abandoned this once Stef started to break down. I'm not holding my breath that anything will change. English will continue to dominate the ruck in most games, with Lobb reserved for specific matchups.

 

[TiAn_]

I just hope they’re quicker on the trigger to pull English out of the ruck and put Lobb in when English is being uncompetitive, and are prepared to leave it for longer. He’s not a kid anymore and there aren’t any new lessons to be learned from leaving him in there when he drops his head and starts being a pushover. It’s just who he is at this point and we need to work around it as best we can for the team.

 

[Whoyagot]

I just hope they’re quicker on the trigger to pull English out of the ruck and put Lobb in when English is being uncompetitive, and are prepared to leave it for longer. He’s not a kid anymore and there aren’t any new lessons to be learned from leaving him in there when he drops his head and starts being a pushover. It’s just who he is at this point and we need to work around it as best we can for the team.

Agree and hopefully English can spend some more time forward. He’s demonstrated he’s capable of working opponents over with his endurance and can take marks kick goals effectively.

 

[hutchy31]

I'm not as optimistic as Lobb. At every turn we've seemingly found a good partner for English, and at every turn the coaching staff opt to have Tim ruck for 80+% of the game. The only exception to this is the start of Martin's tenure (which featured some of the best footy I've seen us play), but we quickly abandoned this once Stef started to break down. I'm not holding my breath that anything will change. English will continue to dominate the ruck in most games, with Lobb reserved for specific matchups.

There are still a few of us (maybe a decreasing number, tbf) who think English should be playing a lot more KPF/second ruck and splitting ruck duties more evenly to get the best out of him.....

But you're spot on on both counts - the best footy this club has played in recent history was when Martin was rucking and English was playing that forward/2nd ruck role, but that also doesn't seem to matter now as English seems cemented into effectively a solo ruck role. Rightly or wrongly (wrongly imho).

If Darcy can come on like we hope next year, at least that will give us quality depth and/or in-game options to mix it up.

 

[Golden_6]

Yep, what is needed until Darcy gets up to the required standard to play a swing ruck KPP role.

English shouldn’t be rucking solo

I wonder if this Lobb ruck time is a ploy to fit in Darcy to the side. We could run with 2 KPD (instead of the three dinosaurs we regularly used last year) and give English to license to roam the ground and help out behind the ball.

Could we see Tim take the centre bounce and then float back behind the footy with Lobb taking the stoppages?

 

[dergert]

Watched highlights of 2021 on YouTube yesterday.

English complimented the forward line set up well.

 

[dogwatch]

Watched highlights of 2021 on YouTube yesterday.

English complimented the forward line set up well.

(Moral: English is a bastard!)

 

[Libbaaaa]

I just hope they’re quicker on the trigger to pull English out of the ruck and put Lobb in when English is being uncompetitive, and are prepared to leave it for longer. He’s not a kid anymore and there aren’t any new lessons to be learned from leaving him in there when he drops his head and starts being a pushover. It’s just who he is at this point and we need to work around it as best we can for the team.

Could not love this more. English can be effective almost anywhere on the ground, so if things aren't going well with plan A (Tim rucking 90% of CBAs), move him around and let him impact the game in other areas.

 

[doggiesin08]

Maybe the outcome of the review is that we gave up on the 4 headed monster too quickly last year and we just don’t want to give away our game plan yet.

 

[gangsta deluxe]

That’s absolute nonsense, for starters afl aren’t going into the gym and doing what they want they have set programs. Getting abs has nothing to do with ab focused exercise, if you’re lean enough and are doing an all body gym program you’ll have a six pack how defined it is will be due to genetics. Smith isn’t strongly built but is quite good at breaking tackles and obviously runs very well, of all the criticism you could have of his none of them would be of a physical nature.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

I’m sorry, you are wrong.

Your diet and the type of exercise you do (especially heavy weights with a high protein diet) will stimulate muscle growth, as well as cause you to drop more fat than muscle when you are in calorie deficit (therefore getting a lower body fat percentage). Anyone with a low enough fat percentage will have visible muscles, but the volume of muscle mass will differ and be heavily influenced by the exercise you do and your diet. Suggest you ask any bodybuilder about that.

The players will have set programs but his muscle mass is clearly larger than most players and his fat percentage lower. You don’t get that without a high protein diet and an exercise routine that causes you to increase muscle mass. This is also something he has a stated interest in. I’m sure they’ll have a program that fits this for him along with meeting requirements as a footballer but saying it’s just genetic is absurd - you don’t look like that primarily because of genetics.

 

[doggies ftw]

That’s absolute nonsense, for starters afl aren’t going into the gym and doing what they want they have set programs. Getting abs has nothing to do with ab focused exercise, if you’re lean enough and are doing an all body gym program you’ll have a six pack how defined it is will be due to genetics. Smith isn’t strongly built but is quite good at breaking tackles and obviously runs very well, of all the criticism you could have of his none of them would be of a physical nature.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

Yeah Smith is strong as *, has routinely broken tackles with ease since the day he walked into the club. Was basically impossible to tackle at his best, needs that confidence back though which he’s lacking

 

[doggies ftw]

Regardless of how well Tim is going we need to change it up throughout the game. For someone who preaches flexibility Bevo's reluctance to change things up in the ruck until the 2nd half of the last game of the year was not good enough.

As good as Tim is he also was seriously worn out by the end of the year. He’s a specimen these days but still not overly big in ruckman terms and even the best & biggest can’t be expected to run out a season by themselves it’s such a ridiculously gruelling position running as many ks on the ground as anyone and backing up into physical contest after contest, always in the middle of marking packs etc.

Running a guy like Tim into the ground is just negligent, he hasn’t even had a proper training session so far this preseason - what’s the bet that’s because we ran him into the ground last year & he’s cooked? Especially considering how effective he is in other positions too it’s not like he’s a ruckman or nothing and needs to only play there. Use him to his strengths ffs and manage him so he can play at his best for a full season.

Our coaching is just so bullshit lmao, really hope things change this year

 

[stefoid]

English value has always been the 'extra midfielder' providing an option between the arcs - his teammates can expect him to do something useful with the ball if they give it to him.

Id like to see us use that advantage more, rather than hide his stoppage deficiencies less. This is not so much a 'time in ruck' issue, but how we play.

 

[geoffjennings79]

English value has always been the 'extra midfielder' providing an option between the arcs - his teammates can expect him to do something useful with the ball if they give it to him.

Id like to see us use that advantage more, rather than hide his stoppage deficiencies less. This is not so much a 'time in ruck' issue, but how we play.

Just to mix it up, maybe one or two CBs per game, through Lobb AND English in there!

 

[Mojorisin]

Just to mix it up, maybe one or two CBs per game, through Lobb AND English in there!

If Lobb is getting CBA's does that open a wing role for Darcy?

 

[geoffjennings79]

If Lobb is getting CBA's does that open a wing role for Darcy?

Or... a CBA with English, Lobb and Darcy! Maybe throw Naughton in there for defensive pressure!

Crazy Bevo would give it a crack... not sure Crazy Bevo is a 2024 starter though?

 

[Mr. Walker]

Crazy Bevo would give it a crack... not sure Crazy Bevo is a 2024 starter though?

If Crazy Bevo is a starter in 2024 he is a certain non- starter in 2025. ( and possibly takes Grant with him)

 

[dogwatch]

If Crazy Bevo is a starter in 2024 he is a certain non- starter in 2025. ( and possibly takes Grant with him)

Naah chances are there would be another nothing-to-see-here review followed by Kim Jong-Luke being made supreme honcho for life.

Hopefully it won’t come to that. I’m hoping there will be enough independent thinkers in this new draft of assistant coaches to keep Bevo from going too wacky.

 

[Proffessor]

The HS in a nutshell

Unfortunately, the quality of their football reporting department has been on the decline for some time.
It would also be fair to say the quality of media reporting in general is pretty low across the board at the minute, but HS's football reporting seems to have dropped off even further than the general media trend.

Historically, sports journalism has rarely been great, largely because it has tended to be dominated by two types of journalists. Firstly, mediocre journalists who somehow end up working in the sports section despite their lack of ability, passion and/or insight for the subject matter. Secondly, ex-players who have subject matter expertise but typically aren't great writers\reporters\journalists, sometimes because they lack the ability to translate their knowledge and\or increasingly because they have become so institutionalised in their thinking that any insight they might possess becomes almost unrecognisably repressed as they scramble their brains to align their opinions with the prevailing mainstream groupthink of the day.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but they are quite few and far between.

 

[Mofra]

If Lobb is getting CBA's does that open a wing role for Darcy?

Jordan Croft is an incredible endurance athlete ...

 

[Dogs till i die]

So Timmy has delayed contract talks until mid-season at the earliest.

Not sure if that's a good thing or not....his lack of contact training complicates discussions as well.