Fremantle is keen to poach Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge if things go wrong and Justin Longmuir is sacked during the 2024 season, reports The West.
The Dockers will reportedly “not extend Longmuir’s contract if his team does not look like a genuine finals chance early this year” with Beveridge leading their list of replacement candidates.
Beveridge is contracted until the end of 2025, as even though the Bulldogs have won a final in just two seasons under his leadership, a pair of runs to the Grand Final have given him tremendous currency.
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St Kilda was said to be keen on the 2016 premiership coach before hiring Ross Lyon and that leverage allowed Beveridge to land a new contract in December 2022.
Longmuir, meanwhile, led the Dockers to their first finals victory in almost a decade in 2022 before his young side slumped into the bottom six in 2023.
It sees the out-of-contract coach under intense pressure in the west.
The Dockers have many links to the Bulldogs with chief executive Simon Garlick playing 137 games for the club and holding the same role there in the early 2010s, helping hire Beveridge.
They have also brought across Bulldogs champions Bob Murphy and Matthew Boyd as assistant coaches.
The Bulldogs completed an internal review this past week in an attempt to clear up a messy behind-the-scenes situation, where the lines of reporting were blurred. Beveridge gained plenty of control in recent years as assistants were poached but he was then overruled when the club sacked favourite son Rohan Smith last August.
The only real change made in the review saw Matthew Egan appointed in the new role of GM of Football Operations, reporting to Executive Director of Football Chris Grant.
