Robbo: Are the Western Bulldogs about to undergo a football department review without bloodshed?
The Western Bulldogs might be about to undertake a rare event in football – a review without bloodshed. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be tough questions.
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A rare event looks like being played out at the Western Bulldogs – a review without bloodshed.
Of the senior club figures, football boss Chris Grant would appear to be under the most scrutiny because veteran administrator Peter Jackson’s review guidelines – announced this week – centre solely on the football department.
That’s Grant’s domain, but early indications suggest the review is not a headhunting exercise but instead a fact-finding expedition to improve the overall department.
The other senior figure, of course, is coach Luke Beveridge.
There’s also chief executive Ameet Bains.
Bains, who with Grant ran an internal review at season’s end which heralded in hefty change to the coaching group, is also conducting the “external” review with Jackson.
And that would be a rare event wouldn’t it, a chief executive discovering in his second review that he wasn’t the right person to be running the club?
So, no, Bains isn’t going anywhere.
Speculation this week that Jackson had to be reviewing Beveridge’s future was just dribble.
Because if the Bains-Grant internal review fully supported Beveridge, it’s a million to one the Bains-Jackson external review would recommend the Dogs, in December, dispense with the coach.
Make that 10,000,000-1.
It won’t mean Beveridge, the Bulldogs’ greatest achieving coach, will avoid examination.
President Kylie Watson-Wheeler’s job description was to review “various aspects of the administration, operation and integration of the AFL men’s program, the program’s overarching environment and how the club best maximises the opportunities of on-field success’’.
It’s real corporate speak.
To try to break it down, Grant is the “operation”, Bains oversees the “administration”, and presumably Grant, Bains and Beveridge all have a major role in the “integration”, which is the bringing together of all footy divisions.
The “environment” is about culture, leadership, communication and connections, the buzz words in any professional football club.
Plainly, the question is: Have we got a culture problem? Individually? Collectively?
Inspector Jackson will be all over it.
That Jackson is adding his expertise in administration and leadership is a positive step for the Bulldogs.
The timing is curious, however, if not bizarre.
Already, the Bulldogs have replaced a third of their football program staff and have appointed new assistant and development coaches, a new high performance boss named Daniel Duvnjak-Zaknich and a new chief medical officer, Dr Anthony Hipsley.
You can only assume the Dogs decided to wait until all those positions were filled before appointing Jackson, because we can reveal that Bains was leaning towards the hiring of an external consultant as far back as preliminary final weekend.
All football staff returned from holidays on Monday so, if we can guess, Jackson’s probing of the new guys would likely be their first impressions and previous opinions of the club.
And how they can best influence “how the club best maximises the opportunities of on-field success’’.
The Bulldogs cannot be accused of sitting on their hands.
Immediately in the post season, changes were made, and they pricked the perception that Beveridge maintained absolute power in the footy department.
The hammer blow came when Grant and Bains sacked assistant coach and club legend Rohan Smith.
Beveridge didn’t like his great mate being dumped.
Where football director Luke Darcy, a long-time teammate of Smith’s, sat with that decision is unknown. But Darcy is a fully-fledged Beveridge man.
The conflict over the Smith decision was serious or minor depending on who you listen to.
Some former Smith teammates (not working at the club) were at both ends of that spectrum.
What the strong-minded Beveridge thinks of the Jackson appointment is most important.
He could be either all-in on improving the program and sees Jackson as a weapon, or he might feel his authority is a touch challenged.
If it’s the latter, it wouldn’t surprise. Name a coach who isn’t strong-minded about their position and abilities, especially a premiership coach.
The prevailing view from the club, however, is it’s the former and Jackson is the final cog in improving processes and best practices as the club forges towards 2024.
Does that put the spotlight on Grant and Beveridge? Yes, but so it should because they are the two most influential heads in the footy department.
Jackson is well-respected at AFL headquarters, but it’s understood the AFL played no role in his appointment to the Bulldogs. It was a president/chief executive initiative.
The AFL had previously coerced Jackson to review an embattled Melbourne Football Club in 2013 before he became the club’s chief executive.
Before that, he was the premiership chief executive at Essendon (2000) and was the person who convinced coaching goliath Kevin Sheedy his time had come to an end.
He was also chairman of AFL Victoria for a period, and closer to home, worked with Simon Garlick when Garlick was appointed the Bulldogs CEO in 2010.
The Bulldogs did not apply a timeline to Jackson’s role.
A review without casualties is rare because traditional club reviews find fall guys.
In 2020, Carlton dispensed with coach David Teague and chief executive Cain Liddle as it embarked on an internal review.
David Noble did not survive a Geoff Walsh-led review at North Melbourne in 2022, and nor did Brett Ratten at St Kilda in the same season after he was reappointed.
The most savage overhaul was at Essendon at the end of 2022. Amid a boardroom coup, an internal and then a second external review run by Ernst & Young put the microscope on everyone at the club.
Departures included coach Ben Rutten, who was sacked, while chief executive Xavier Campbell and former president Paul Brasher resigned and director Simon Madden joined them.
And the man who did the initial internal review, Josh Mahoney, also didn’t see out the long-term changes. He left for the AFL in August.
Who knows, there might be unintentional subterfuge at play at the Bulldogs, and the Jackson appointment might eventually lead to a casualty.
Because make no mistake, reviews always start with best intentions and mostly always end with somebody’s tears.
The Bulldogs might buck that trend.
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Originally published as Robbo: Are the Western Bulldogs about to undergo a football department review without bloodshed?
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