Link



Western Bulldogs player Easton Wood has praised coach Luke Beveridge’s philosophical approach to coaching, with his anecdotal stories teaching his side valuable football lessons.

The Dogs defender labelled his coach as a “different” cat in regards to his teaching methodologies, with particular emphasis placed on Beveridge’s use of characters from Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in describing the way his side plays.

“He is a bit of a different cat but I think he is quite philosophical,” Wood said on SEN radio.

“He picks out some nice truths out of stories like that and I think with Charlie Bucket he was referring to Charlie’s honesty when he gave back the gobstoppper.”

Wood also touched on the continued success of the Bulldogs’ VFL side, which features over a dozen AFL listed players.

The 26-year-old says that the integrated coaching between the two sides is helping each team find success.

“It’s just great that they can take their performance straight into the AFL team,” Wood said.

It’s such a benefit having your own VFL team and be able to coach and teach them the same way to play and makes it such a good transition for them coming straight in.”

He says this depth is on display in the Dogs’ backline, with the Bulldogs continuing to hold a solid defence even with injuries to ball magnet Jason Johannisen, captain Robert Murphy and Matthew Suckling.

“I think that is the strength of our group,” said Wood.

“We haven’t relied on any single player to play a specific role for us. It’s spread across the entire group and no better proof in the pudding than what we have been able to do with missing those three guys, who are super impactful with the ball in hand, it’s been great we have been able to cover that as a group.”