Lessons from the AFL Grand Final

One of the reasons that we love sport is that it keeps revealing great stories.

And the story for this year is the Western Bulldogs.

A classic “battler” club - the Bulldogs were only saved from a forced merger in 1989 by the fightback lead by current President Peter Gordon.

On field success has been rare with the club have only won one AFL Premiership and having last appeared in a Grand Final in 1961 !

High performing teams need good players but in particular they need great coaching.

Luke Beveridge - like many great coaches was a journeyman player - twice traded  - his career highlight may well be getting named in the AFL Greek Team of the Century!

It appears at the moment -  to be a great coach you need to have worked with Alastair Clarkson and have coached a Premiership in lower grades somewhere. (Clarkson coached Centrals to an SANFL flag in 2001).

Beveridge began his coaching career in the Victorian Amateur Football Association competition where he coached St Bede's Mentone Tigers to the C, B and A Grade premierships in consecutive seasons.

This was a feat that had never been achieved before.

Each year the team jumped up a level. It is simply extraordinary that one team could progress through the ranks like that. That is no fluke.

At the end of 2014 the Dogs were in crisis with several key players leaving and a sacked coach.

Many pundits predicted they would be bottom in 2015.

Instead they finished 6th and Beveridge was named Coach of the Year by his peers.

This year Beveridge backed it up  - winning the award again.

In a few hours we’ll know the answer - but for now - Go Dogs.

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Post match update…

So - the Bulldogs did win by 22 points…

What else can we learn ?

What’s particularly interesting to me is that for about the last 5 years - every club has wanted to be “like Hawthorn” and it seems every coach “like Clarkson”.

Interestingly - Hawthorn could easily have made the Preliminary Final if Isaac Smith had made the fairly easy shot after the siren in the Qualifying Final - and who knows how far Hawthorn might have got.

But - that’s not what happened.

So - for me - one of the most interesting things about Luke Beveridge is that he has taken a different path to success - he’s clearly got a different style to Alastair Clarkson.

Age Football writer Caroline Wilson helps to explain.

“The 2013 Norm Smith medallist Brian Lake – who credits then Hawthorn defensive coach Beveridge with a mid-season intervention that year that realigned his career – believes the Bulldogs coach has managed to combine his two sides to locate the perfect sweet spot between mate and "hard arse".”

“Bulldogs captain Robert Murphy has described him as "the most balanced person I've met in footy. He's clinical and methodical and super-focused, and yet he has this other side where his love of the game, the romance and his passion are equally important to him and the way he coaches."”

And maybe Beveridge’s gesture in giving his premiership medal to Murphy and stepping back to allow Murphy and Easton Wood to hold the Premiership Cup aloft symbolise this approach.

Murphy is a very different captain to Hawthorn’s Luke Hodge.

Both very effective, but different personal styles, different leadership styles.

The other key point is that Beveridge’s approach seems to be a great cultural fit with the Western Bulldogs.

To get a sense of that it’s worth watching the Bulldog’s post match press conference in full.

In summary - there is no one way to success - in an ultra-competitive field you need to find your own way - learn from others but don’t simply copy.

I’m already looking forward to next year !

Visit Business Lessons from the AFL for more on what we can learn from sport.

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