Western Bulldogs officials rally around embattled coach Luke Beveridge amid harsh criticism

Heavy criticism of premiership-winning Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has become “aggressive and personal” according to the club’s football boss Matthew Egan, who has been shocked at the level of vitriol.

Beveridge is facing a must-win clash against Richmond on Saturday after his team slumped to a 3-5 record last weekend after losing to Hawthorn, a fourth loss in five matches, heaping pressure on the coach who has garnered support from his players and club officials amid the strong backlash from outside the club.

Egan, who was appointed as part of a review last year to oversee the football program, lauded Beveridge’s connection with his players and said he was shocked at how heavy the attacks had been.

“I have been blown away with how aggressive some of the comments have been in the media about a guy who has been coaching 10 years at the footy club with a grand final win and obviously being in the grand final only three years ago,” Egan said on Wednesday.

“He’s an incredible coach. He’s an innovator - you know when you’re playing against Bulldogs, they’re quite tricky to play. They’re always looking to do things slightly different around the ball.

“He’s always looking to change and look for new ways of winning and I feel like he’s got a pretty good record.

“There’d be a lot of coaches out there who would take his record so far as a coach.

“I go to my experience of working in footy, in the coaching industry, for 16 years and I have never seen a coach connect as well as I have with Bevo and his players.

“His ability to story-tell and create a narrative week to week for the players is amazing.”

After the unexpected seven-point loss to the Hawks, Bulldogs president Kylie Watson-Wheeler, said the club would not be making any “rash decisions” when it came to Beveridge, the 2016 premiership winner who is contracted until the end of 2025.

“This is not something that you just jump in on when you have a bad loss … these conversations are happening constantly and we’re always assessing where we are at as a club,” she told the ABC.

Midfield star Adam Treloar also declared love for the coach.

“We love playing for him. He bleeds red, white and blue, he’s a Bulldog man,” Treloar said on Tuesday.

“Personally, I love playing for him. I think he’s a great coach and a great human being and I love playing underneath him.

“I feel like the coaches are preparing us really well and really setting us up to go out there and win and have success, and ultimately we’re the ones that … aren’t performing.”

Egan confirmed the players and staff did their review of the Hawthorn loss away from their Whitten Oval base to try to shake up their approach to the clash with the Tigers.

“It’s a long season so you have got to mix up what we do for reviews,” Egan told SEN.

“And this year we have probably changed our reviews a little bit and tried to make it a real learning environment.

“It was probably more of a discussion on our club and where we’re at and some changes we obviously want to make moving forward.

“We will hold together, we’ve had a positive week so far and we’ve seen some teams recently in this position and know we can turn it around.

“It’s just making sure we look after the game this week, which is Richmond and not look too far ahead.”