Bevo ‘won’t be sacked’ as Dog days return… but a ‘Dimma-like’ exit could work wonders

Are the Dogs actually any good? Is premiership coach Luke Beveridge the right man to lead them forward?

It’s the curious case of the Western Bulldogs.

Foxfooty.com.au takes a deep dive into the glaring issues at the Kennel and where to next for Luke Beveridge’s troops.

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IS BEVO THE MAN FOR THE JOB?

North Melbourne champion David King does not believe the club will sack premiership coach Luke Beveridge, despite their poor start to the 2024 season.

“I don’t think they’ll sack him; I don’t think that’s on the table,” King told Fox Footy’s First Crack.

“They’re too classy an organisation and he’s too proud a person, if it were to come to that, I can see him walking.

“If it’s to be soon, it won’t be them sacking him, it’ll be him putting his hand up.”

Beveridge delivered the club a drought-breaking premiership back in 2016 but outside of 2021 where they lost the grand final to Melbourne, have not won a final since.

“I’m a massive Bevo fan, I feel like I say this week after week, I stick up for him, what he’s done for that football club, he’s got a 60% win-loss rate, he’s taken them to two grand finals and he won them a premiership, that is bloody hard to do,” King said.

“In any timeframe you want to give any coach – we’re still talking about people like Ken Hinkley who’s been there 10, 12 years trying to get an opportunity.

“This guy won a flag at a club who craved it for so long.”

King believes that whatever happens, Beveridge has earned the right to decide his own fate on his own terms.

“It’s always ugly at the end with coaches leaving, there’s no smooth passage,” he said.

“I just feel like this club will do the right thing on the way out, if it is to be.

“I think it’ll be Bevo’s call. It always looks ugly at the end, but it can be done with class and grace.”

St Kilda champion Leigh Montagna agreed with King, saying that Beveridge will “back himself in” believing that he’s got enough there to regenerate this group.

“If he’s still got the energy and desire to coach this team, I don’t think they’ll sack him,” Montagna said.

Hawthorn champion Jordan Lewis told foxfooty.com.au he doesn’t think Beveridge would walk away from the job of his own accord.

“There’s no harm in the football club, if it is Luke Beveridge to say, ‘I’ve got absolutely everything out of this football club in my tenure here, now it’s time for someone else to try and energise this football club again,” Lewis said.

“Although I don’t think Bevo would walk away, he knows the football club and its players better than us.

“But sometimes you can be blinded by being involved day-to-day, thinking that the next game is going to solve all the issues that are currently going on. Sometimes it’s a clearer picture looking from the outside looking in.”

Lewis said the worst-case scenario for the Bulldogs would be to continue to languish in the middle of the pack, where they aren’t good enough to compete but at the same time refusing to give youngsters an opportunity.

“Clubs and coaches need to have those tough conversations, clearly Damien Hardwick had walked away from Richmond, but that was clearer that they were going through a different phase than what it might be at the Dogs,” he said.

“But they don’t want in two or three years to be having the same conversations that we’re having now, because it will be a wasted opportunity.”

Captain Marcus Bontempelli is in the prime of his career, while the Dogs have a plethora of gun midfielders and key forwards at their disposal as well.

“I like Luke Beveridge; I think he’s a good coach and they’ve got some stars, I think we know that.

“If they’re in premiership contention and that’s where they want to be, I just don’t think the list is a premiership list.

“It’s a lot easier to change the coach because that’s one position, rather than change the whole list over because you’ve only got so many decisions that you’re allowed to make.

“That’s the position that the administrators at the Bulldogs are in and it’s not an easy decision, but there’s no point hanging around 8-12, there’s nothing to be achieved there.

“They’ll know, if it’s the coach then they need to make a hard decision, if it’s the players, then it’s going to take a lot longer to build this team up to be a premiership list.

COULD HE ‘DO A DIMMA’?

Damien Hardwick stepped away from the head coaching role at Richmond halfway through last year’s campaign.

Should the Dogs struggles continue, could we see Beveridge do the same?

“He’d be an easy hire next year, if he were to take from say round 12, round 15, a bit of a break, he’d be a fresh voice,” King said.

“To come in like he did once upon a time after Brendan McCartney and go bang, I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom.”

King said that if Beveridge thought he had “rung the rag dry with this group” he could step down.

“Doesn’t mean your career’s over, it means it’s over at the Dogs. You shake hands, you’ve been great for one another, that’s how I think this story will finish.

HAS BEVO MAXIMISED THE POTENTIAL OF THIS LIST AND THEY’VE ACTUALLY OVERACHIEVED?

Has Beveridge “cooked the sausage a thousand different ways” with the Bulldogs?

In other words, has the premiership coach tried everything he can with this group of players, and do they need a fresh start?

“I don’t know, you don’t really know unless you’re inside the footy club,” King said.

“Has Luke Beveridge maximised what he had at his disposals and got everything possible out of this group and rewarded this football club with a premiership and been a big part of that, maybe he has,” Lewis said.

CONSISTENTLY INCONSISTENT

Wins over the Cats, Giants and Blues in 2023. Losses against the Eagles, Hawks and Suns.

The Bulldogs have made a habit of teasing the absolute best, but failing to deliver week in, week out.

“When I look at the Dogs and I talk to people who are involved at that football club, they don’t know what they’re going to get from the players week-to-week,” Lewis said.

“Are they mentally switched on, are they ready to play, are they doing enough to prepare themselves to play senior football at a consistent level?

“If you look at their players, they’re top heavy in terms of their stars and those players are quite often the most consistent.

“I think it’s that middle tier to lower bracket, the inconsistencies with those two groups are for me the reason why their football and performance have been inconsistent.

“Their performance throughout their whole careers have been inconsistent.”

Lewis said it’s time for the leaders at the Bulldogs to draw a line in the sand. Enough is enough.

“At some point you need to find out if these players will thrive or falter in an environment where the leaders start to demand really high standards and really demanding.”

Lewis believes that the elite stars of the Bulldogs continue to do all the heavy-lifting and declared it’s time for the others to come to the party or suffer the consequences.

“I think it’s time for the coaching staff and the leaders of this football club to really drive this group hard, to see if they can maximise the list that they’ve got, or unfortunately, realise that they have to start turning players over.

Lewis questioned whether some players had put in enough work over pre-season.

“You’re probably looking at guys who are coming up, who have had some experience, guys like Vandermeer, Richards, Williams, Johannisen, Harmes to take that next step.

“Did they come back in the right shape?”

While the Bulldogs may have misread where their list was at during pre-season, Lewis said Beveridge would need to “find out” and start playing the youngsters if the likes of Harmes, Bramble and Baker couldn’t turn their form around.

Prized draft pick Ryley Sanders had another strong VFL outing on the weekend, racking up 27 touches and ten tackles.

Defender Jedd Busslinger is yet to see any AFL action, while Charlie Clarke has played just one match since being drafted at the end of 2022.

Jordan Croft and Joel Freijah have been unsighted as well and Luke Cleary, Arthur Jones and Dom Bedendo have had limited senior opportunities.

“The one part of the ladder you don’t want to be around is 8-12,” Lewis said.

“You either push this group hard, really find out if they can bounce, or, if you push the group hard with standards and responsibilities and consistency with form, if they fall away then you realise that you don’t have the next premiership side.

“Then how you go about trying to turn the list over, I know that’s hard, how you go about finding and exposing youth to the level of AFL football, that can happen pretty quickly.”

Key forwards Aaron Naughton and to a lesser extent Jamarra Ugle-Hagan have drifted in and out of games too much in 2024.

“There’s no obvious levers for Beveridge to pull,” Lewis said.

“Aaron Naughton’s been a really important player forward, in terms of scoreboard impact, score assists.

“The level of frustration with him and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan to a lesser extent is that they go through long periods of a game where they’re not involved.

“So maybe the different lever they can pull is to give these players who are going long periods without having an impact a second position that they can go to, and maybe harness that energy from that position that they can then take back to their primary position.”

LEAVING TOO MUCH TO THE BONT

The Bulldogs desperately need someone to join Marcus Bontempelli for the ride.

Bontempelli looks set to add a sixth All-Australian blazer to his cupboard this season after another strong start to his campaign.

“He’s everything to them,” King said.

“I can’t wrap this guy up enough; we don’t talk about him glowingly enough for the player that he is, and he gets a lot of mentions.

“I see Marcus Bontempelli going to the nth degree every week to try and get them over the line, for whatever reason it’s not clicking for the rest.

“It was a one-man war against Hawthorn, I felt sorry for him that he couldn’t get them over the line.”

Lewis believes Bontempelli cannot do any more to help his struggling side.

“He can’t do any more than he’s doing, he’s an absolute star,” Lewis said.

Tom Liberatore tries his heart out every week, while there’s been some serious improvement from the likes of Sam Darcy and Cody Weightman.

But Bontempelli needs some friends.

“I think they would’ve seen themselves in contention, no doubt, because all those players they’ve brought in, you can only secure players that are available, but it’s not A grade talent,” Lewis said.

“They’re important players for depth, but they won’t win you games.

“These players coming in from other clubs, they need to show a level of consistency to help this club, they’re not going to be match-winners, they’ve already got match-winners.

“This is the group of players in any side, that are the most important.”

ARE THE DOGGIES REBUILDING ON THE RUN?

Hawthorn and Richmond both tried to rebuild on the fly after successful eras respectively.

Hawthorn went and recruited the likes of Tom Mitchell, Jaeger O’Meara and Chad Wingard in the years after their historic three-peat in a bid to stay ahead of the pack.

The Tigers chased after Giants pair Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper.

With both sides, languishing in the bottom four, it’s fair to say, that didn’t work.

“The Dogs are not good enough to win a premiership this year, he knows that as well, he’s trying to regenerate on the run,” Montagna said.

But Lewis doesn’t think the Bulldogs are in that same position.

“Western Bulldogs have never been in that top echelon,” he said.

“It’s a different story to Richmond and Hawthorn, who had a long period of success where they were a genuine top four contenders and genuine league leaders.

“The Western Bulldogs have never been that side.

“I know they’ve come out and said they’re a top four side, but they’ve never been a top four side.

“They’ve always batted above their weight division, 2016 showed that.

“They’re not at the level of a Giants, Sydney, Melbourne, Geelong, Collingwood, they’re not at that level, they’re a rung below.”

WHO CAN THEY OFFER UP AS TRADE BAIT?

Will the likes of Caleb Daniel or Jack Macrae seek a trade at the end of the season? How about journeyman Rory Lobb?

Lewis believes Daniel in particular would be a name clubs are interested in.

“I think Caleb Daniel would be highly sought after,” he said.

“For whatever reason if he is not in the best 22 or best 25, maybe it’s time to give him an opportunity to go elsewhere and play senior football.”

The 27-year-old hasn’t been able to lock down a spot in Beveridge’s side of late, spending time at half-back, through the midfield and at half-forward.

“He’s still got a lot to offer, for whatever reason he’s not in the best 22,” Lewis said.

“I’d be having the conversation with players like that to say ‘hey, thanks for your services, we’re totally open to the idea if you want to go and explore your options somewhere else and play regular senior AFL football.

“If I’m other AFL clubs I’m looking at Caleb Daniel and thinking he can offer something to our side.”

Bailey Smith has not played in 2024 due to an ACL injury but is another name who has been floated as a possible trade out.

Hawthorn, Collingwood and Geelong are widely perceived as the front-runners for his signature should he choose to depart the Kennel.