Bevo and our efforts

[GVGjr]

I know Bevo was one of the main reasons for our 2016 triumph and that must have earned him a significant level of credits with our supporter base and within the 4 walls of the club.

Since 2016 however, we have underachieved. Many supporters were happy to accept a 2017 gap year although it never sat well with me. Prior to the 2018 season we rid ourselves of the Jake Stringer distraction and we thought that would be sufficient to get us back on track and focused however, that never quite eventuated.
2019 saw a more competitive team on the field after we sorted out our selection dilemmas but one that was also eventually on the receiving end of a humiliating exit from the finals. Our effort that day was very poor.
Buoyed by the efforts during the 2019 season though, we recruited 2 bookend key position players when we finally acknowledged we were deficient in that area and 2020 had all the signs of being a positive season that would see us to be a significant player in this years finals. We were also going to use the failure in 2019 as a spur for the 2020 season

The media certainly agreed with our 2020 chances with many regarding us as a genuine top 4 chance. With that level of excitement though it also comes with a high level of expectation and we aren't measuring up to that at the moment.

While the challenges of Covid 19 is evident to all in the competition what is also evident is that we have turned in 3 sub-standard performances in a row and we have a now critical Friday night game against the team that stitched us up in last years finals. To say the spotlight is right on us now would be underestimating how important Friday nights game will be for us.

Bevo's persona in the media is one of being calm, calculated and a bit eccentric which is what you might expect from coaches but I really hope there is a vastly more impatient coach within the VUWO training facility. He needs to rally the team with a bit more vigour than preaching his calm and patient approach.

We all hope we are just a week away from a more positive performance but I'd like to hear how many more poor performances particularly from an effort perspective we can continue to accept?
We appear to have a problem with our focus or mindset and the results confirm that something isn't quite right. Lets hope Bevo can locate the problem and get it fixed.

I welcome your thoughts and some serious debate

[SonofScray]

I have had serious concerns for a long time, since a particularly odd speech at a Season Launch. 2017 I wrote off as a hangover & banged up bodies. 2018 I was filthy about and would have pulled the trigger then & there. Chris Grant changed my mind at an Inside the Kennel function. I regret listening to the Great Man now & actually have him in the gun too.

Here's a couple of things that really bug me:

1 Skills. Bevo used to be a big one for skills on both sides of the body. He never talks about it now & we certainly don't look like a side that focuses on it.

2 Tactics. He used to all about working to what he has available, playing to strengths, a horses a for courses approach. Players responded well to it post BMAC. Some talented players felt freed up to shine, others clarity in their function. I don't see the adjustments happening in the coaches box anymore, certainly not in game and definitely not between seasons like we did the summer of 15/16.

Rule changes have hindered his tactical influence. 3rd man up in particular he still hasn't adjusted to.

3 Personal presentation. He has at times looked disinterested. Disengaged. Occasionally exhausted and rarely the man who was running rings around people with metaphors and interesting reflections on culture. Honestly, I was concerned for his wellbeing at times late 2018 through R6 or so last year. He looks healthier now and has been on an even keel in some ways, which is a relief. It's not entirely appropriate to speculate too much on this front, but looked like a classic case of burn out to me.

4 Sunk cost effect. Aside from Naughton's emergence as a real weapon, we see him selecting & deploying players that feel like we are chasing losses. The ruck scenario. Is feeling like that. Trengove out of favour, English thrown to the wolves, assistant shuffle, Gardner selections. The game plan gets doubled down on.

I can't move past the idea he is cooked.

[Remi Moses]

The effort perspective is seriously worrying
Sometimes says something about the coach / player relationship
If this continues he’ll get the Bullet at seasons end

[GVGjr]

The effort perspective is seriously worrying
Sometimes says something about the coach / player relationship
If this continues he’ll get the Bullet at seasons end

With the lack of money in the game at the moment, I can't see him being sacked. To me it's not about replacing Bevo it's about finding out why a team with as much talent as we have is under performing and what can be done to fix that.

Just saw the 'Bevo Brief' and it's a coach clearly struggling for answers around the challenges of performance and effort.
If anyone was searching for answers, Bevo didn't provide them

[Mofra]

I worry the "sparkle" is gone.
We all compare the 2016 season to where we are now, but for me the better comparison is 2015.

We had as many questions marks about us now as we did then, but there was a strong feeling that 'we're all in this together'. That feeling is gone, we're scratching our heads instead of rubbing our hands together with excitement.

[Happy Days]

The sunk costs one is the most irritating one to me. The worst part about McCartney was his stubbornness that almost ruined Wood, JJ and a host of others by either limiting them to one position or placing a firm ceiling on what he thought they could be. Bevo is almost the polar opposite problem in the sense that certain guys will get seemingly limitless chances to prove themselves at multiple spots, resulting in others wasting away on the sidelines.

[The bulldog tragician]

I have been mulling over this exact issue. 2016 should have set us up for years of success given the age profile of our group and a very strong Footscray side at the time. Instead of just talking about the players lost from that side I'm interested in the why and what it says about the coach and his planning for our future.

We had two solid and young defensive pillars - Hamling and Fletcher. We let Hamling go, I can only assume in the premiership euphoria we took his request to go home with an abundance of good will and didn't fight hard enough to keep him on. The treatment of Fletcher has always baffled me, if we thought he was no good why did we retain him and never play him? I'd have rather his staid and solid defending last night.

We lost the party boy/larrikins. Biggs, Dahlhaus, Stringer. Not always pleased at their antics but every club has their share and could we have found a way to manage them and still get the best out of them? A noted hard-ass coach like Buckley manages, and still gets the best out of them on game day.

We lost Tom Boyd and Jordan Roughead. Wonderful young men.Both spoke of a lack of enjoyment at our club, which rings massive alarm bells for me. With the former I am still left wondering if something more could be done to manage his mental health while still keeping him in the game. Maybe that's unrealistic, but it saddens me to see such talent lost to us. Roughead is the most baffling of all. He's well and truly capable of good footy and such an impressive person. Where did that all go wrong?

Apart from the retirements of Morris, Picken and Smith, these other guys could still be playing with us, most of them still in their 20s and now knowing what was needed for premiership success.

Instead we have a hollowed-out group where selection doesn't to the outsider at least appear based on merit, where defeat is now accepted quite meekly, where we are no longer the innovators but the exposed in match day tactics. Some young players are ruthlessly dropped when to the outside world they deserve more chances, others are persisted with long after their merits are not apparent to that same outside world.

Another season of underachievement looms and I have to wonder if success came too early for Bevo and, thinking everything he touched turned to gold in 15 and 16, he has become locked in and stubborn. (I haven't even started on the perplexing ruck tactics which to be fair were perplexing in 15 and a lot of 16 as well). He achieved the most miraculous feat of coaching, he inspired and led a group to the greatest sense of self-belief and hunger for success I've ever seen, but now I don't even begin to understand the path he's on and where it is supposed to lead.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Bevo has never been a great tactical coach. He's been slaughtered in the coaches box more than any other coach I can remember.

What Bevo has been tremendous at is motivating players, managing people and aligning them in the same direction.

My concern is that he can't seem to pull the right strings to motivate this group anymore and this is then compounded by our inability to influence the game tactically. He's a genius at leaning on emotion, triggering responses - but the last 3 games that has been completely missing.

I said it years ago and it still rings true - Bevo's qualities are both a strength and weakness. With stubbornness and an unrelenting method he brought home a Premiership cup, but it's that same stubbornness which will see him lose his job eventually.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

I am as concerned about this group as I have ever been about a bulldogs group. The last three efforts have been the WORST I have seen in a bulldogs jumper. Ok, there were some bleak years in the Rhode and BMac days, but at least then they were somewhat expected. We were rebuilding. We had bottomed out. But we’re 3 years after a premiership. Yes we’ve lost experience but the core is still there and should be improving.
We’ve severely gone backwards. And the cull at the end of 2017 was supposed to address cultural and work ethic issues. Well today we are seeing those players weren’t the issue. In fact it’s those players we sorely miss. Some grunt, some X factor, some desire to get their hands dirty. I’m not saying those players would address our current issues but I think it goes to question the decisions being made by the coaches and club. Because what they thought was the issue clearly isn’t the case.

We are in serious trouble. I don’t believe it’s a matter of give our all Friday night and show who we are. The last three weeks have shown exactly who we are. We have been well and truly OBLITERATED the last three weeks. And the selection, skills, game day tactics and player efforts all fall on the shoulders of the coaching staff.

[GVGjr]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to discussions so far. This is what WOOF does best in exploring a topic in a very fact based manner without a lot of emotion. Some excellent and thought provoking suggestions have already been shared

[The Pie Man]

Obviously hard to judge from the outside, but that's what we do - starting to look like they need a new voice.

I look at the way Macrae goes about it.... I don't he cares right now. Is it a general attitude thing, or does he need a new voice to motivate him? Lipinski was good in patches, but seems to run without purpose or urgency at times, when he could potentially impact a contest with more intensity.

Is not playing our supposed best 22 getting to a few of them like it is us?

Dispiriting times - change has to come.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

I have been mulling over this exact issue. 2016 should have set us up for years of success given the age profile of our group and a very strong Footscray side at the time. Instead of just talking about the players lost from that side I'm interested in the why and what it says about the coach and his planning for our future.

We had two solid and young defensive pillars - Hamling and Fletcher. We let Hamling go, I can only assume in the premiership euphoria we took his request to go home with an abundance of good will and didn't fight hard enough to keep him on. The treatment of Fletcher has always baffled me, if we thought he was no good why did we retain him and never play him? I'd have rather his staid and solid defending last night.

We lost the party boy/larrikins. Biggs, Dahlhaus, Stringer. Not always pleased at their antics but every club has their share and could we have found a way to manage them and still get the best out of them? A noted hard-ass coach like Buckley manages, and still gets the best out of them on game day.

We lost Tom Boyd and Jordan Roughead. Wonderful young men.Both spoke of a lack of enjoyment at our club, which rings massive alarm bells for me. With the former I am still left wondering if something more could be done to manage his mental health while still keeping him in the game. Maybe that's unrealistic, but it saddens me to see such talent lost to us. Roughead is the most baffling of all. He's well and truly capable of good footy and such an impressive person. Where did that all go wrong?

Apart from the retirements of Morris, Picken and Smith, these other guys could still be playing with us, most of them still in their 20s and now knowing what was needed for premiership success.

Instead we have a hollowed-out group where selection doesn't to the outsider at least appear based on merit, where defeat is now accepted quite meekly, where we are no longer the innovators but the exposed in match day tactics. Some young players are ruthlessly dropped when to the outside world they deserve more chances, others are persisted with long after their merits are not apparent to that same outside world.

Another season of underachievement looms and I have to wonder if success came too early for Bevo and, thinking everything he touched turned to gold in 15 and 16, he has become locked in and stubborn. (I haven't even started on the perplexing ruck tactics which to be fair were perplexing in 15 and a lot of 16 as well). He achieved the most miraculous feat of coaching, he inspired and led a group to the greatest sense of self-belief and hunger for success I've ever seen, but now I don't even begin to understand the path he's on and where it is supposed to lead.

For me, the letting go of Stringer, Dal, Roughead and Hamling brings massive alarm bells. Ok, they weren’t performing post premiership at our club. And we like to convince ourselves that they continue to underperform at other clubs. But fact is they’re all performing at their respective clubs. What does that say about ours?

All us armchair experts have been for years calling for ruck changes, smarter selections and coaching changes. None of which have occurred and yet we haven’t been proven to be wrong. Surely 4 years of the same thing is enough to warrant change

EDIT: to add, I’m also not suggesting Bevo be sacked. I think a thorough review of the football department is needed ala Geelong with Mark Thompson. Bevo has at least proved he’s capable of doing great things and deserves that review. We all know the list is capable of a lot more.

[Ozza]

I'm really concerned about what I see as a serious misuse of the talent on the list.

We went through this for the first half of last year, some didn't want to admit it at the time, but we gave away multiple games at the selection table in the first half of last year - and everyone here knows that we started significantly on the back foot this weekend.

How are you feeling if you are Jackson Trengove, Toby McLean, Lewis Young, Rhylee West right now - when others seem to have inexplicably jumped the queue? And what point do some these players becoming disengaged by the perplexing selection. And yes, I expect that some will say "well Gardner, Gowers etc etc are the least of our worries when our good players are not winning their positions etc etc" - but we win by our team approach and the reality is that the weak links in the chain are absolutely killing us and making it so much harder for our top players.

Last year, once we got selection right, the team gelled and played really good footy. Its a mess right now.

As for the Bevo-motivation factor....hard to know unless you're inside - but motivation only gets you so far, and they've been hearing the same voice for a while. So it has to be putting together a game style and having players capable of executing it - that will get us back to where we should be with a list this talented.

[The bulldog tragician]

For the record, also not suggesting Bevo sacking. I'm appreciating the tone of this thread which is about thoughtfully questioning what has gone wrong and the coach's role in it. If anything, because we know he has many gifts and our eternal gratitude for 2016, it is all the harder to ask these questions.

[Danjul]

The Dogs are playing exactly as one would expect when managed by a psychologist who has never seen a game of AFL footy.

All the inputs are based on an office environment where everyone is expected to do exactly the same thing. No originality, no consideration of individual talent and weakness. All bonding and ‘feel good’ exhortations.

The fact of the matter is the team is running out on the field with the intention of doing the wrong thing.

How do we know that? Because they’ve been doing it since mid 2017.

So how does a game play out?

Smashed in the ruck, midfielders salvage the ball - not set up play , handball/kick under pressure, poor delivery, turnover inside 50, everyone caught out of position, sliced up through the middle to half back, undermanned backline monstered, murdered on the scoreboard.

Have a pep talk about glass half full.

Repeat next week.

Anyone who has seen the last 3 years knows the glass is broken.