Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes has put the heat on Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge for his side’s slow start to the season, questioning the timing of his off-season extension.
Beveridge, who has been the Bulldogs’ senior coach since 2015, signed a two-year extension over the summer, but has seen his team stumble to an 0-2 start.
The Bulldogs were upset by a hungry St Kilda side at the weekend, and Cornes laid the blame squarely at the foot of the senior coach.
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“Yeah I do (blame the coach) 100 per cent,” he told Nine’s Footy Classified.
“A coach’s role is to maximise what you’ve got, be that individually with your players and to get the most out of your team.
“He is failing to maximise the talent that he has got on the list individually and as a side, and this has been an issue for a long time.”
Cornes suggested the Bulldogs would’ve been better served to wait to agree to a new deal with their 2016 premiership coach and questioned his behaviour in recent years.
“If it’s the wrong decision to extend him it’s the wrong decision, regardless of whether there is pressure,” he said.
“Yes (I believe it’s the wrong decision), at the time I said it and now I’m saying it. I would much rather them wait to the halfway point of the year. What was the advantage of extending him when they did?
“I don’t think he’s been a great ambassador for the club, either. Some of his comments in the last two seasons have been bizarre, and that started in round one last year with the blow-up with (former Fox Footy reporter) Tom Morris. He made some questions after the Gold Coast (match last season) about tactics that were non-existent.
“I just don’t think he’s sold the club as well as he should have in his role.”
The Age’s Caroline Wilson pointed to the departures of some of Beveridge’s 2016 players, namely Josh Dunkley, who left the club to join Brisbane over the summer, questioning whether Beveridge had begun to lose the group.
“The big question for me, you talk about playing talent, so many players from that 2016 premiership team have left the club,” she told Footy Classified.
“Josh Dunkley, that departure was unattractive. It was unattractive from both sides. He was bad-mouthing the club, the club was bad-mouthing him. It’s very rare to see a coach as critical as Luke Beveridge was of Jake Stringer when he left the club.
“I just wonder about those relationships, I don’t think it’s healthy.”
However, Essendon great Matthew Lloyd backed Beveridge to rescue the Dogs out of their current slump.
“I think they should be playing better than they are,” he told Footy Classified.
“I’m more giving him some credit for what a tough industry this is, and to win a premiership and make the grand final two years ago, he’s done some wonderful things.
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“They’ve often been poor at stages but he’s found a way to get his team going, so that’s why I’m not ruling out Luke Beveridge doing it again this year with what he’s got.
“But what I am saying is they looked spooked on the weekend. They couldn’t move the ball. This is a St Kilda side that’s been under Ross Lyon for one off-season … and they went into their shells. That’s just not how the best sides play.”
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