Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says the external review at Mission Whitten Oval at the end of 2023 helped reset the direction of the football club, reinvigorating his drive for another premiership push.

Beveridge has signed a two-year contract extension to remain in red, white and blue until 2027, after starting the year without a deal beyond October before leading the Bulldogs around plenty of obstacles across the first half of 2025.

The 54-year-old met with Western Bulldogs president Kylie Watson-Wheeler, CEO Ameet Bains and football director Luke Darcy during the club's bye at the end of May, where he recommitted for a 12th and 13th season as senior coach. 

After overtaking legendary figure Ted Whitten last year, Beveridge is the longest serving coach in the Bulldogs' VFL/AFL history, one of only two men to lead them to a premiership after the late great Charlie Sutton in 1954. 

In a wide-ranging interview with AFL.com.au on Tuesday afternoon, Beveridge said he never wanted to coach anywhere else next year and believes the club can continue to progress deep into seasons like they did in 2016 and 2021. 

"I feel energetic, positive and optimistic about the future. I want to see it through," Beveridge told AFL.com.au on Thursday afternoon. 

"I don’t know how long that is, but it was quite simple: I am only 54, I'm really fit and I love the club, love our people and everything about it, so there was no reason for me to think that it was time, albeit I have been sensitive to the possibility that others don't think that I should go on. That's why it has been a bit of uncertain time."

Beveridge said he wouldn't have entertained a move to another AFL club in 2026 in any capacity if the Western Bulldogs opted against re-signing him.

"My thinking around that was, if it was to happen, I would stand down from the game for a period of time, and I didn't know how long," Beveridge said.

"Mainly my key drivers to my thought process there were I didn't want anyone here thinking there was another option and a better option that I was considering. I wanted everyone to know that I was totally invested here and if it wasn't here, it was nowhere. Mainly because there couldn't be any confusion with that; the players couldn't think I wasn't all-in and wasn't invested in them next year, as well as the now. That's legitimate. 

"If it hadn't turned out the way it has, then I definitely wouldn’t have been involved with another AFL club definitely not next year, and who know what would have happened after that."

Watson-Wheeler, Bains and the rest of the Western Bulldogs’ board opted to engage former Essendon and Melbourne CEO Peter Jackson to conduct an external review at the end of 2023 after the club failed to play finals, 12 months after exiting in the first week of September.

The club underwent a complete off-season overhaul across the coaching, football operations and high performance departments, while Jackson conducted a comprehensive six-week process across that summer. 

Club great Chris Grant changed roles before leaving the club at the end of last year. Matt Egan was promoted from coaching and performance manager to GM of football operations within a matter of months. Sam Power was elevated from list manager to EGM of football last pre-season.

"I'm really grateful that Peter Jackson came in and did what he did. It has reset our organisation," Beveridge said.

"As far as asking the probing questions, asking the right people and comprehensively getting across the cross-sections of the footy operations area, he did an amazing job. He essentially went on a fact-finding mission trying to work out where the challenges were and at the end of the review with his recommendations, I just think he nailed it. 

"Now we are really healthy, there is a great harmony within the footy club, particularly the operations area. It was so important that we got someone independent in who knows football clubs and knows and understands the challenges and the people that work within them. 

“There were lots of hard questions, lots of significant feedback. I had three key meeting with Peter along the way and he was really honest with things that were going on and really honest with me and my domain. I believe he did that with everyone, so everyone that still remains understands their importance with what we do. There would have been some of my colleagues that got a tickle up with one or two things. 

"Sam Power's elevation has been seamless and important. Matt Egan was the one that was the key important that we didn't have. It was something recognised in the review and Matt Egan has done a significant and critical job since he has been here and that’s really helped me."

Beveridge said Jackson has remained a close confidant since the review was completed last January. The pair meet regularly and most recently sat down for dinner last week after a decision was made on Beveridge's future.

"I didn't know Peter prior to the review, but I really appreciated his wisdom and how honest he was," he said.

"He can cut through you like a knife with some contentious and constructive feedback that I always welcome if something needs to be changed or improved. He will give some positive feedback too and give you a worldly outlook on what your influence may be. 

"Now I catch up with Peter spasmodically. I took him out for dinner the other night to thank him for what he did during that period of review because it really helped everyone here. I bounce things off him and lean on him as one of my mentors now. I think it’s that real honesty that helps and gives me perspective. He has been a real god send for the football club and definitely helped me in my domain."

The Western Bulldogs sit 6-6 at halfway of 2025 and present as a contender, despite sitting one game outside the eight. Sam Darcy is poised to return against St Kilda on Thursday night in the first of a month block against four bottom six teams.

Beveridge said the timing of his contract announcement was important for stability, not just when it comes to what the Dogs can achieve in 2025, but in the pursuit of free agents and trade targets, as well planning for next year and beyond.

"It is critical," he explained.

"It is the people within the club now that are uncertain with where we are heading and specifically their own future, but also you're talking to players who are possible acquisitions, you're strategising around the draft, you're talking to people coming in that need to know whether the club is stable and whether the current senior coach will be there.

"There will be people who are relieved, there will be people who maybe celebrate it, there will be people who think the club could have gone in a different direction. The uncertainty in it is more about what’s right for everyone and I think we got to a point where we all felt – and that's Kylie, Ameet and Luke – we all felt that me continuing on was the right way forward at the moment."

Talent manager Carlie Merenda has acted as an intermediary for Beveridge this year, helping him handle media arrangements amid a period of his life where everyone has wanted to know what he was going to do next. 

Beveridge has been coaching for 20 years, dating back to his famous three-peat with St Bede's Mentone in the VAFA, where he led them to C-Grade, B-Grade and A-Grade premierships in successive seasons, ahead of stints at Collingwood in development and Hawthorn as an assistant coach.

Before he started down this path, Beveridge played 118 games for Melbourne, Footscray and St Kilda between 1989 and 1999. But life as a senior coach in this day and age is far different to life as a player in the 1990s, which is how he explains his evolution from guarded with the media to far more open in 2025 than ever before.   

"I think the main difference is when you first start and your life isn’t public; it takes a while to get used to it," he said.

"I tried to duck and weave from things that I didn't think I needed to do because I felt like two press conferences a week and the fact that I was already a figurehead here at the club was enough to publicise what was going on here but also my life and personality. Anything extra I was really paranoid about how it would be perceived by our playing group, more than anything, because they were going to have to listen to me within the club and I didn't want to have too much of an external voice other than what I was obligated to do. So I must admit I was happy to be a minimalist when it came to being accessible. 

"As I’ve trudged through the years, probably the simple way to explain it is I don’t fight how public my life has become, so I am more open to doing things that I probably wouldn’t have wanted to do in the past. That's the simplest way to explain it. Whether it's the humility at the start and now just the acceptance, that's what’s happened, I think."

With the ink still drying on Beveridge's contract, Marcus Bontempelli is the next priority for the Western Bulldogs. The coach doesn't get involved in contracts other than his own, but is confident the skipper isn't going anywhere.