Rumour Future of the club (Bevo, board, assistant coaches, football department)

[redmania]

A question I've seen before is if we were to swap our coaches with the hawthorn coaches, what would the year and the finals have looked like?

 

[adogsfan5]

A question I've seen before is if we were to swap our coaches with the hawthorn coaches, what would the year and the finals have looked like?

Not a huge difference I don’t reckon. The game now requires leg speed. We are slow and the guys that actually do have speed aren’t AFL quality. On top of that, we are still playing slow half forwards who don’t hit the scoreboard and are basically guys who can’t get any midfield time.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

You do realize this is now the fourth time in 6 years we've seen this exact episode play out?

2019: up and down year, finish in 5th-8th position, beaten immediately by GWS in the elimination final.
2020: up and down year, finish in 5th-8th position, beaten immediately by St Kilda in the elimination final.
2022: up and down year, finish in 5th-8th position, beaten immediately by Fremantle in the elimination final.
2024: up and down year, finish in 5th-8th position, beaten immediately by Hawthorn in the elimination final.

How many more times will we "not be far away"?
How many times do we have to keep telling ourselves "the future is still bright"? What good is having a bright future if we never reach it?

We were a much better team this year than we have been in any year except 2021, and we were somewhat unfortunate to fail to finish top 4 and also come up against one of the best 3-4 form teams at their home ground in an elimination final, who played up to that standard.

It sucks, but according to this analysis, GWS should be happy, because they collapsed into top 4 because they just managed to beat bad teams narrowly because their opposition kicked inaccurately?.

The main issue we had with this season is the lack of resilience early in the year to not win close games vs. Geelong, Essendon and Hawthorn.

We were always playing catchup and couldn't overcome that to finish top 4 despite clearly playing top 4 if not top 2 footy from Round 9 onwards.

We've also been unfortunate that in three of our losses we've had to play awya games (GWS/Freo/now Hawks)

Not everything has to be this black and white. Things like home ground advantage matter and we can assess for heading forward. We're in a better position for next year than we were at the end of 2022.

 

[BulldogMuscle]

Spot on. I couldn't care less about the hugs and the emotional rubbish that he goes on with, I just want our club to win. That's it.

You're right, we're not ruthless. We're not prepared to do whatever it takes to win. There's no hard streak and any hardness and ruthlessness that we had in 2016 has been weeded out.

I agree, have to give Mitchell credit, he's a winner and his team is playing like winners. Give me a coach and a playing list that stops at nothing to win. That doesn't accept losing. We don't have that now.

Look at all the champion coaches and teams over the decades. Hardness, uncompromising and ruthless, their coaches and their playing groups. Brisbane in the 00s, Hawthorn, Geelong, they all had it. We don't. That has to change. Fast.

This is exactly why I don’t want Bob Murphy back at the club.

More “hugs” and “emotional” rubbish.

I want someone who’ll do anything to win. Give me MBoyd back please.

 

[Claudonious]

This is a long shot but I would go poach Frank Ponnissi from Melbourne Storm and this is not the first time I have mentioned this.

A very very good General Manager and I know he is regarded as one of the best if not best operators in the game

Do not fear he comes from another code job description would be similar think dealing with and having robust discussions with Bellamy, players, training staff etc etc

Storm is one of the best run clubs in terms of football department both on and off the field and he is the the glue that keeps it together

Matt Spangher vibes…. Be careful

“How can you have a general manager who has never played afl let alone managed an AFL team at any level.Rank amateur stuff by the dogs.Mitchell is the greatest coach of all time and would be ruthless and ensure he had the best manager in the comp beside him, not some dude from another code”

Not my opinion - just some expected future responses based on the last 24 hours of activity on this board.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Bulldogger]

We were a much better team this year than we have been in any year except 2021, and we were somewhat unfortunate to fail to finish top 4 and also come up against one of the best 3-4 form teams at their home ground in an elimination final, who played up to that standard.

These are just excuses.
It was yet another up and down year. This home and away season just happened to finish on an up, whereas last year it finished on a down.

It sucks, but according to this analysis, GWS should be happy, because they collapsed into top 4 because they just managed to beat bad teams narrowly because their opposition kicked inaccurately?.

This doesn't make any sense and doesn't correlate with my analysis at all.
GWS finished top 4 because they were good enough.
The Bulldogs missed top 4 because they weren't good enough, the same way they weren't good enough last year, the year before last year, then 2021, 2020, 2019.
Under Luke Beveridge, the Bulldogs have never been good enough to finish top 4. This is his 10th year and he still couldn't do it.

The main issue we had with this season is the lack of resilience early in the year to not win close games vs. Geelong, Essendon and Hawthorn.

We were always playing catchup and couldn't overcome that to finish top 4 despite clearly playing top 4 if not top 2 footy from Round 9 onwards.

The main issue this season?
Mate... it's EVERY season.
Sometimes it's early on, sometimes it's the middle of the season, sometimes it's right at the tail end (2021 anyone?).

This is just what you get with Up-and-Down Beveridge. Might have a 3-4 week period of great football, then seemingly out of nowhere it all crashes down.
Four great wins in a row against Carlton, Geelong, Sydney and Melbourne... then thrashed by Adelaide of all teams.
All but certain to lock in top 4 in 2021 with three rounds left... then lose three times in a row to Essendon, Hawthorn and Port Adelaide... then going on an amazing finals run beating Essendon, Brisbane at the Gabba, Port Adelaide at the Adelaide Oval. Then we're beating Melbourne for 2.5 quarters in the Grand Final... only to be obliterated in 40 minutes.

Same can be observed in 2019. First half of the season we continue our "rebuilding" form from 2018, then go on a nice run at the back end of the year with 7 wins 2 losses in the last 9 games... then get thrashed by GWS in the elimination final.

It. Keeps. Happening.

We've also been unfortunate that in three of our losses we've had to play awya games (GWS/Freo/now Hawks)

Please give me a break...
If you're not good enough, you play away. We weren't "unlucky", we just weren't good enough. There's actually a stronger argument that we were lucky to even make the finals in 2020 and 2022.

Not everything has to be this black and white. Things like home ground advantage matter and we can assess for heading forward. We're in a better position for next year than we were at the end of 2022.

Heard this all before.
Weren't we supposed to be primed to re-contend for the flag after 2021? What happened there? As I recall, this is when Beveridge started talking about creating a footballing "revolution", and how his side would revolutionize the way AFL was played. This seemed to entail never manning the mark for the stand rule, and allowing players to kick an extra 20-30m at their leisure. Clearly wasn't working, yet we never abandoned this incredible, "revolutionary" philosophy all year.

How about 2019? Had three players finish top 10 in the coaches votes, Bontempelli, Macrae and Dunkley, and Bontempelli outright won it. Had a strong finish to the year, making finals with one of the youngest squads around. Then proceeded to add Alex Keath and Josh Bruce to strengthen up the bookends. All seemed primed for a strong 2020 season... then we go 1-7 against top 8 sides, and the win was a 2-point win against declining West Coast with all their midfield out.

Nothing will ever change with Beveridge as coach. He is the eternal enigma. Even the supposedly great 2021 season epitomizes the up-and-down nature of his coaching tenure: great start, decent middle, shocking end, sensational first three finals, diabolical Grand Final.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

These are just excuses.
It was yet another up and down year. This home and away season just happened to finish on an up, whereas last year it finished on a down.

We finished with the second best percentage across the year, of 125.1%, and only 1.5% behind the best in the competition. Purely on that basis, we were unfortunate not to finish with one of the best four win-loss records. That is more up than down, and it's not excuses, it's a fact - by many measures across the home-and-away season we were approximately the second-best team in it.

2023: 9th best percentage, 108.7%
2022: 8th best percentage, 108.9%
2021: 2nd best percentage, 132.8%
2020: 9th best percentage, 106.7%
2019: 8th best percentage, 107.2%

This doesn't make any sense and doesn't correlate with my analysis at all.
GWS finished top 4 because they were good enough.

I wholly disagree, because GWS finished the season with the 9th best percentage and that's before you even account for the fact that their opposition kicked more inaccurately across the season and in a manner that their oppositoin lost games, which they cannot control. They were lucky. They were not good enough to finish top 4, but they were lucky and we were unlucky.

I would think the above is tough to reckon with after a loss, but is pretty factual and based in reality.

I'm not going to pretend that of couldn't have done better - of course we could have. There's lots we can look at, such as whether our game style and our motivation is somehow very good at beating up on the worst teams by ever bigger margins rather than matching up against other good teams (it may be, but who the hell can measure that). But it needs to come from the starting point that there's a lot that went well, and emotional responses that don't reflect the reality and what can be controlled and what is luck and we shrug and mvoe on isn't the way to go about it. Assessing that we're better or worse than we are isn't good, because we try to fix things that don't need fixing, or hunt for weaknesses that aren't there.

 

[Bulldogger]

We finished with the second best percentage across the year, of 125.1%, and only 1.5% behind the best in the competition. Purely on that basis, we were unfortunate not to finish with one of the best four win-loss records. That is more up than down, and it's not excuses, it's a fact - by many measures across the home-and-away season we were approximately the second-best team in it.

Who cares about percentage? Means absolutely nothing compared to winning big games. What good did Adelaide's 117% do for them in 2023? Did it give them some wave of scoring momentum they could build upon the next year? Not even close.

I wholly disagree, because GWS finished the season with the 9th best percentage and that's before you even account for the fact that their opposition kicked more inaccurately across the season and in a manner that their oppositoin lost games, which they cannot control. They were lucky. They were not good enough to finish top 4, but they were lucky and we were unlucky.

You can bleat on about percentage and inaccuracy and a team getting "lucky" because of opposition misses until the cows come home. At the end of the day, Beveridge has completed ten seasons without making top 4 even once, and he's only won a final in two of those ten seasons.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Who cares about percentage? Means absolutely nothing compared to winning big games. What good did Adelaide's 117% do for them in 2023? Did it give them some wave of scoring momentum they could build upon the next year? Not even close.


You can bleat on about percentage and inaccuracy and a team getting "lucky" because of opposition misses until the cows come home. At the end of the day, Beveridge has completed ten seasons without making top 4 even once, and he's only won a final in two of those ten seasons.

It's far more relevant to being a good team heading forward to have lots of big wins and some narrow losses than lots of narrow wins.

Adelaide's big percentage was fluffed up by some big wins over teams that could also not make finals later in the year, but it still counted, and the fact that they went backwards this year doesn't disprove the fact that they still had a good 2023 and may have been unlucky to miss finals.

You agree that a team can't necessarily control whether the opposition in a set shot makes or misses the shot, once they're taking it? If you agree to that premise, you can agree to the fact that some wins are lucky, like a few of GWS's over the season.

I'm not trying to be obtuse;I just don't want fans to influence the club in what I perceive the wrong way:

Some Useful Things I Learned About Football - Squiggle

I got into football stats because I wanted to understand why my team was so bad for so long and was there any hope for the future or should I just die. That was about 20 years ago. Along the way, I learned that plenty of common football wisdom is probably wrong. Stats people can … Continue...

squiggle.com.au

Give this a read, and posts like these: https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/thre...squiggly-lines.1022679/page-351#post-47985629

 

[Dogs Rule]

I just want us to be a team where when we turn up every week and we know what kind of performance we'll get. Won't always win but we'll know that we'll squeeze 100 per cent out and give it our best.

Less of the exceptionally good for a few weeks then an inexplicably bad one, less of the screwing around and flirting with form at the start of the season. Less of the getting ourselves in a mess by the midpoint of the year and having to steam home. S****** the bed in finals post 2016 also has to be addressed quickly. Sort it out.

Less of the blowing of golden opportunities (to win games we should, to make top 4 whatever...we do it every time).

Reliability is what I want. An honest, reliable and dependable team.

 

[Bulldogger]

It's far more relevant to being a good team heading forward to have lots of big wins and some narrow losses than lots of narrow wins.

Oh really?

Collingwood in 2022 made top 4 with 9 wins by single-digit margins. I guess they weren't actually that relevant though because their percentage just wasn't good enough. Truly confusing how they went onto win the flag the next year.

You agree that a team can't necessarily control whether the opposition in a set shot makes or misses the shot, once they're taking it? If you agree to that premise, you can agree to the fact that some wins are lucky, like a few of GWS's over the season.

I think everything you've attempting to say on this topic is total nonsense.

So you're trying to claim the Bulldogs are just unlucky to miss top 4 because GWS got lucky with opposition team set shot accuracy over a 24 week season? Are you actually being serious? This is some next level coping mechanism.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Oh really?

Collingwood in 2022 made top 4 with 9 wins by single-digit margins. I guess they weren't actually that relevant though because their percentage just wasn't good enough. Truly confusing how they went onto win the flag the next year.


I think everything you've attempting to say on this topic is total nonsense.

So you're trying to claim the Bulldogs are just unlucky to miss top 4 because GWS got lucky with opposition team set shot accuracy over a 24 week season? Are you actually being serious? This is some next level coping mechanism.

This is bizarre. We beat GWS comfortably when we played them. We headed into the finals as the better team. The way that we were the better team is because GWS relied on other teams kicking inaccurately to get wins.

Collingwood improved the following year, but they weren't a top 4 quality team in 2022, I'm not sure you how pointing out isolated examples really proves anything.

How about me pointing out the example of Essendon sitting in top 2 and top 4 for large stretches of the year with such dumb luck of narrow wins, big losses and opposition inaccuracy (and their own accuracy) and then failing to make finals without even decreasing their output of performance this year? For every example you provide I can give a million tohers.

The research and predictive value of this sort of stuff is proven over and over and its factored into the decision making of all clubs and high performance.

Take my view for instance that statistical rating models do far better at tipping and predicting future football results than humans who over-value things like narrow wins and think they can outsmart the ratings, even though basically every good model outips basically all expert tipsters at media outlets (not a majority of them, literally outputs all media outlets), link to my analysis below:

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

Under Bev we’ve turned the following into finals appearances, so at least not all hope is lost yet: 2015: 5-5 2019: 4-7 2020: 5-6 (0-2) 2022: 3-5 Agree there’s hope but why do we have to make it so hard for ourselves? As anyone can tell you none of those years turned into a top 4 finish. Then...

www.bigfooty.com

 

[Dogs Rule]

Oh really?

Collingwood in 2022 made top 4 with 9 wins by single-digit margins. I guess they weren't actually that relevant though because their percentage just wasn't good enough. Truly confusing how they went onto win the flag the next year.


I think everything you've attempting to say on this topic is total nonsense.

So you're trying to claim the Bulldogs are just unlucky to miss top 4 because GWS got lucky with opposition team set shot accuracy over a 24 week season? Are you actually being serious? This is some next level coping mechanism.

You're right. We deserved to finish where we finished. We only have ourselves to blame.

Start the season as we finished and we likely grab a Top 4 spot and we're alive this week, but we didn't and that's our fault entirely. The club has to think hard whether the first half of the season was acceptable or not. It has to look at our finals record since 2016 which apart from 2021 is crap and decide if this is acceptable.

But, will it even bother considering these things? I doubt it and we'll sleepwalk into another season making some token changes here and there or conducting another little 'review'.

 

[Dog 36]

Matt Spangher vibes…. Be careful

“How can you have a general manager who has never played afl let alone managed an AFL team at any level.Rank amateur stuff by the dogs.Mitchell is the greatest coach of all time and would be ruthless and ensure he had the best manager in the comp beside him, not some dude from another code”

Not my opinion - just some expected future responses based on the last 24 hours of activity on this board.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

Stand to be corrected on this but we once had a G Loewe in our football department around 2014 15

Pretty sure he came from rugby union and worked with one of my favourite sporting teams the All Blacks

 

[Anja_Nees]

For a bit of perspective it’s worth looking through this autopsy thread of Geelong’s elimination final loss to Melbourne in 2018 off the back of a few finals flops.

Autopsy - Cats lose to Demons by 29 points

its all over kids. What a horror. VEnt here Keep it civil and say your peace but do it with respect for each other GO Catters EDIT - Anything remotely resembling abuse to other posters will get you weeks off Vent and be pissed but leave it there

www.bigfooty.com

 

[Dogs Rule]

For a bit of perspective it’s worth looking through this autopsy thread of Geelong’s elimination final loss to Melbourne in 2018 off the back of a few finals flops.

Autopsy - Cats lose to Demons by 29 points

its all over kids. What a horror. VEnt here Keep it civil and say your peace but do it with respect for each other GO Catters EDIT - Anything remotely resembling abuse to other posters will get you weeks off Vent and be pissed but leave it there

www.bigfooty.com

Yes, but a few differences:

1. They had won three flags in the previous decade.

2. They're Geelong. I have nowhere near as much faith in our administration and recruiting.

3. Geelong have a history of winning big finals. They've been in 13 of the past 18 Prelims or something ridiculous. Insane numbers. Our story since 2016 is one of largely losing Elimination Finals and of getting humiliated in a Grand Final.

Personally, we can soothe our wounds, but I hope the club don't. Rip the band aid off and have a good hard look at what needs to be done to get better. Be ruthless. Take the hard decisions otherwise we'll be stuck in this 5-8 vortex.

 

[Sentinel]

Sigh

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Yes, but a few differences:

1. They had one three flags in the previous decade.

2. They're Geelong. I have nowhere near as much faith in our administration and recruiting.

3. Geelong have a history of winning big finals. They've been in 13 of the past 18 Prelims or something ridiculous. Insane numbers. Our story since 2016 is one of largely losing Elimination Finals and of getting humiliated in a Grand Final.

Personally, we can soothe our wounds, but I hope the club don't. Rip the band aid off and have a good hard look at what needs to be done to get better. Be ruthless. Take the hard decisions otherwise we'll be stuck in this 5-8 vortex.

There's nothing metaphysical about Geelong over us. It's not as if the tap water in Geelong makes it more likely to win premierships.

A fair chunk of their success can be attributed to their unique home ground and recruiting advantages as a result of geograhpic realities.

What's to say that our recruiting in general has been a failure, other than the fact that we were able to benefit with two top 2 draft pick key forwards in which we'll get the full value out of over the next 10 years but had the slight downside of limiting our middle draft picks for our ability to patch holes in the short term?

 

[Dogs Rule]

There's nothing metaphysical about Geelong over us. It's not as if the tap water in Geelong makes it more likely to win premierships.

A fair chunk of their success can be attributed to their unique home ground and recruiting advantages as a result of geograhpic realities.

What's to say that our recruiting in general has been a failure, other than the fact that we were able to benefit with two top 2 draft pick key forwards in which we'll get the full value out of over the next 10 years but had the slight downside of limiting our middle draft picks for our ability to patch holes in the short term?

In part, I agree. We have had to sacrifice to get Ugle Hagan and Darcy in the door (ironically Geelong hardly ever had to suffer to get their Father Sons in the door) and that cost us some elite talent and depth which we could've used perhaps to get some midfield pace.

However, the results don't lie. Geelong have a winning culture. They just keep producing in finals and just when you think they're dead up they get up and are a step off a Grand Final again.

The home ground is a huge advantage as is the BS 'go home' factor but you have to admire their club.

 

[Boyd oh Boyd]

This sums up my thoughts about the high press



It's about Port but most of it applies to us as well. High press defence can work but it's harder to do on bigger grounds and when teams take it on either by running through the zone or switching it gives up too much space in the most dangerous parts of the ground. We're made some great progress this year but this is a strategy left over from when we had to protect our weak defence. It's time to trust the players and open up the ground more.

 

[_Mike_]

You have your best player, arguably currently best in the league, parked inside the fwd50 for 2 quarters when the game is there to be won.

Bevo’s master tactics, aside from ignoring Sicily in the goal square to direct play all night

 

[Angak]

One thing I’d love to know is what we’re doing in our weeks off before finals and whether it’s different to other clubs.

The bye has only ever worked for us once - there wasn’t one until before the GF in 2021 and we know how that worked out.

We very often come out flat.

I think this is an undervalued viewpoint.

We also struggled running out the game against North in the mid season bye.

I'm struggling to believe that we were as bad as we showed on Friday night.

 

[Anja_Nees]

You have your best player, arguably currently best in the league, parked inside the fwd50 for 2 quarters when the game is there to be won.

Bevo’s master tactics, aside from ignoring Sicily in the goal square to direct play all night

Bont was absolutely horrendous in the first half in the middle.

If he’d stayed there and the game had gone the same way you can bet there would be people on here saying “why didn’t he throw Bont forward, just to try something”.

The critical thing for me was that a lot of key players played very poorly. The question is why. Could be poor preparation, could be complacency, could be that the Hawks just played out of their skins. I’m not totally sure. But throwing Bont forward is not the reason we lost.

 

[Anja_Nees]

I think this is an undervalued viewpoint.

We also struggled running out the game against North in the mid season bye.

I'm struggling to believe that we were as bad as we showed on Friday night.

Yep and it seems to be consistent.

I know that in 2021 Melbourne had a full scratch match in the week off and we had a heavy training session. Then again, we had totally different lead ins.

It’s not something we can really know from outside. Plenty of clubs struggle after a week off. The fact is the Hawks did better.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

I think an orderly transition next year will be the best route. Bevo sees out his contract with full understanding and agreement of a new coach coming in 12 months. Bevo can walk out as a deserved legend, and the procees for new coach could start now. I think it helps the players if it's a no-drama procees.