2015 Pre-Season

[Twodogs]

The next open training session at Victoria University Whitten Oval is on Thursday 19 February 2015, commencing at 9:20am.

I will do my best to get down there. It's been a couple of weeks since I've seen training.

[josie]

Apart from the onfield value that Jongy offers its great to know that he can help us tap into a huge latent supporter base amongst Melbourne's asian community. There is a cashed up Asian middle class potential membership and patrons and donors and Board members. .

With more time on their hands and a different attitude to work/leisure balance than their parents and grandparents had. the early adult Asian demographic could be prime candidates to try and engage and get to join up.

A guy with a story like Lin Jong would be a great asset to a push into that area. If the AFL want to expand into the west of Melbourne and try and hold Soccer at bay then we have to get the a Asian community onside. Jongy being a success story by playing good footy and beating opponents and playing in a couple of flags for us, a couple more flags, would help a lot.

Two dogs - your thinking is what I've been thinking. Spooky!! Go Lin Jong. P.S. Love the optimism wrt multiple flags THINK BIG.

[josie]

Gotta love Bevo's honesty...found the bits I've put in bold of interest.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-...rom=public_rss

Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge settles into new role at Whitten Oval

LUKE Beveridge casts an eye over to the carpark which he is talking about and smiles.

Twenty years ago he was driving in there every day, a young man trying to find his way in the AFL.

He lasted three years and 31 games before he saw the writing on the wall when the Dogs recruited another rover, Jose Romero, from North Melbourne.

So he was off again, onto his third club in a journeyman career that would eventually finish with 118 games and 107 goals from 11 seasons in the system.


Since he left the Whitten Oval at the end of 1995, Beveridge had only been back to that carpark once until last November when he took the senior coach’s parking space.

“I picked someone up in the carpark to take them to watch Box Hill play North Ballarat, that was two years ago and it was the first time I’d been back since 1995,” he said. “A lot has changed.”

It certainly has given Beveridge is now coaching the sons of teammates from his Bulldogs days — Tom Liberatore, Mitch Wallis and Lachie Hunter.

“Kenny (Mark Hunter) was down here the other day watching Lachie train and I hadn’t seen him for 20 years.”

Three months into his “homecoming”, Beveridge is comfortable about the start of his senior coaching career.

“We have got a lot done,” he says. “I describe it like cramming for exams. On Tuesday we did match simulation and just to get to that point you can imagine the water that had to go under the bridge.

“We’re reprogramming them in different areas and they’ve been really responsive with the buy in and execution out on the track.”

After a whirlwind interview process — he had agreed to a job at St Kilda and was about to go on an overseas family holiday when the Dogs came knocking — Beveridge walked into a football club in turmoil.

The captain had just walked out along with a Brownlow Medallist and several others which added up to 800 plus games experience. Then he also had to deal with an assistant coach, Brett Montgomery, who he’d just beaten for the main job.

“We had to reconfigure what the coaches were doing and control the noise between the departments in the organisation,” Beveridge says. “Just to make sure we harmonised it a little bit.

“It wasn’t toxic but we needed to put some controls around communication and we have done that.”

The former Hawthorn assistant says he wasn’t “doing cartwheels:” about the list he was inheriting because he just didn’t know enough about them.

“There was a Hawthorn-Western Bulldogs game at Launceston and there were some signs there from a pretty young group, they were close to the Hawks late in the third and then missed a few opportunities so I knew there was the nucleus of something pretty good.”

You won’t hear Beveridge making any radical predictions or even talk about pass marks for the Bulldogs this season.

“I don’t want to sell false hope,” he states. “I don’t believe we are hoping, we have got some objectives and we are aiming to do certain things.

“In a sense everyone hopes the opposition aren’t as good as what they possibly could be but that gets you nowhere.

“I don’t really like the word hope in a football environment, you create your own opportunities.

“It’s like when you are driving a car on a wet road and there is that tree when you are going around the corner that you don’t want to hit.

“You focus too much on the tree you will slide off the road and hit it.

“If there is something you don’t want to be, in the end you will end up being it.”

Asked what a Luke Beveridge coached side will play like, he pauses: “I have never been concerned with scorelines. I don’t feel you need to win 12 goals to nine or eight goals to five is a good result, just as long as you win.

“If we kick 20 and they kick 17 we win. That’s all I want, to win. Obviously I’d like to be winning by big margins but we’re not in that space yet.”

He will take an element from all the coaches he was worked with and played under, notably Alastair Clarkson and Mick Malthouse.

“With some of them, to be honest, I have learnt what I don’t want to do,” he says.

There is an affinity with former Melbourne coach John Northey — he started his career under him in 1989 — who he describes as one of the best motivators in football.

“Everyone who played under Swooper genuinely loved him and I think he got the absolute most out of the Melbourne sides that he coached and I’m sure he did at Richmond and Brisbane as well but he never had the stock.”

What stock Beveridge has will become clearer over the next couple of months.

He is excited about Marcus Bontempelli and his “Kouta-like” traits and the possibilities in the forward half with boom recruit Tom Boyd, Jack Redpath, Stewart Crameri, Jake Stringer and a host of classy smalls.

“There are a lot of options and potentially we should be one of the better front ends in the comp but I don’t know when that is going to explode.”

He wants the midfield load to be shared more with less reliance on Tom Liberatore while there is healthy competition for ruck spots with Ayce Cordy fit and Tom Campbell improving.

The defensive side is where the most changes under the new coach will be evident.

Veteran midfielder Matthew Boyd will spend time floating across half-back while former Swan Shane Biggs is looking good for Round 1.

He doesn’t want defensive stalwart Dale Morris to play on opposition monsters anymore which means either Michael Talia, Fletcher Roberts or ex-Cat Joel Hamling needs to step up to support Jordan Roughead.

Beveridge, who previously worked for the government tracking money launderers, laughs when asked how he is handling the time demands of his new job.

“When I was working full-time and coaching St Bedes, you were everything to everyone and probably working 80 to 90 hour weeks,” he said.

He still thinks back to that sliding doors moment in 2006 when he was playing coach for St Bedes/Mentone in VAFA C-grade and his team came back from 48 points down in the third quarter to win the Grand Final by a point.

They then won B-grade and A-grade flags in consecutive years — something which had never been done before and it put Beveridge on the coaching map.

“That was probably the most rewarding period of my footballing life, to see the club and what affect it had on people,” he said.

“The reason I went down to St Bede’s was to go to a club where I felt like I belonged.

“Being a journeyman I didn’t feel like I really belonged at any of the three clubs I played at so given I went to school at St Bede’s there was an added attraction.

“It’s amateur folklore what those teams did and who knows what would have happened if we’d lost by a point.”

He probably wouldn’t have found his way back to that carpark which is now his second home.

[Twodogs]

Two dogs - your thinking is what I've been thinking. Spooky!! Go Lin Jong. P.S. Love the optimism wrt multiple flags THINK BIG.

I reckon a bloke who works hard on and improves his game like Lin Jong deserves to make iit.

[bornadog]

Thanks for posting Josie. Love the bit where Bevo says Morris won't be playing on Monsters. Thank god for that.

[bulldogtragic]

Thanks for posting Josie. Love the bit where Bevo says Morris won't be playing on Monsters. Thank god for that.

I think Morris loved reading that too!

[divvydan]

http://www.westernbulldogs.com.au/ne...-open-training

The Club will trial the new fan-friendly open training time slot of 4.30pm, starting next Tuesday 24 February, and will include activities such as regular autograph sessions, and opportunities for fans to have a kick on Victoria University Whitten Oval at the conclusion of training.

[KT31]

http://www.westernbulldogs.com.au/ne...-open-training

The Club will trial the new fan-friendly open training time slot of 4.30pm, starting next Tuesday 24 February, and will include activities such as regular autograph sessions, and opportunities for fans to have a kick on Victoria University Whitten Oval at the conclusion of training.

Great idea, years back when my Pups were little we used to take them down to the open training session and it was brilliant.
Both pups have fond memories especially meeting having a kick with the players, few times they had a kick with Wally and his two pups.

[Twodogs]

That's a great initiative by the club. I've known for years that footy training is one of the undiscovered jots of Melbourne. You can go along and stand along the fence watching full scale games of football one day and a futball tournamen over two hours between 45 professional footballers the next. Yesterday another guy and I spoke to Simon Dalrymple for ten minutes about who our ifavourite bulldog picks from the draft were. It's a footy tragic's theme park and it's free.

Anyone who gets the chance to to go along to training because it's in the afternoon should take the opportunity to do it. You'll get to see the players up close and personal.

[bornadog]

Any Ballarat WOOFERS going? Please report back.

The Western Bulldogs will this week visit Ballarat for their Australia Post AFL Community Camp.

With over 40 visits to local schools, football clubs and community groups scheduled, players and coaches will visit Ballarat on 4-5 March for the two-day camp.


The Bulldogs will also hold an open training session at Eureka Stadium on Thursday 5 March at 9:15am, while members of the coaching staff will hold a masterclass for local football club coaches on Wednesday night.


Fans will be able to view the Dogs’ full training session, in preparation for the Club’s second NAB Challenge match against Melbourne at the same venue on Saturday 14 March.


The Club will also be hosted at a civic reception on Wednesday 4 March.


Ballarat Open Training Session

9:15am, Thursday 5 March 2015

Eureka Stadium

729 Creswick Road, Ballarat

[dukedog]

so i just had a quick browse on the doggies website and after a thousand tears about libba's injury on saturday. I have been reassured he was at training today after the richmond game lol

http://www.westernbulldogs.com.au/ga...00976bb70aRCRD

[Go_Dogs]

so i just had a quick browse on the doggies website and after a thousand tears about libba's injury on saturday. I have been reassured he was at training today after the richmond game lol

http://www.westernbulldogs.com.au/ga...00976bb70aRCRD

The caption down the bottom of that photo suggests it was from the (first) afternoon open session last week.

[Maddog37]

Sorry guys but I will be on a bus trip to the races at Flemington.

I am devastated as I have been offered passes to get into the rooms as well. If only I had looked at my footy calender earlier.

[dukedog]

haha, very good Go_dogs, i guess i was more wishful thinking then believing it was from today

[LostDoggy]

Any Ballarat WOOFERS going? Please report back.

First job tomorrow morning is to get Thursday morning off work! I'll be there