Luke Beveridge happy for players to publicly recruit opposition players to the Western Bulldogs
The premiership coach's call came as Beveridge declared his team's defensive weaknesses were not as bad as critics have suggested, pointing to it as a historical strength with the 'reality' of needing to win every game to play finals ever present.
Newly re-signed Bulldogs captain Marcus Bontempelli this week singled out Butters, who will become a free agent at the end of the 2026 season and grew up as a Bulldogs supporter, as someone he'd like to join him at the Kennel.
'I love watching him as a footballer,' Bontempelli said, declaring as captain he felt getting involved in luring players to the club was part of his role.
'If we happen to end up in the same team, I'd be pretty happy about that too.'
Beveridge said he wouldn't try to curtail his players making such desires public but wouldn't go 'over the top' himself despite recently confessing to conversations with Gold Coast star Matt Rowell before he stayed loyal to the Suns.
'I can't stop our players talking about who they would like to have as teammates,' he said on Thursday.
'But I've got a personal approach, I spoke about Matt Rowell because I knew he was going to re-sign at Gold Coast, it wasn't like a public overture.
'But as far as a player like Zac, who every club has a great opinion of, I don't want to be over the top with anything in regards to him. He's still contracted, the ball is in Port Adelaide's court.
'But I can't stop our players expressing their desire.'
The Bulldogs are chasing their tails to make the finals having beaten only one team above them on the ladder, with questions raised about their defensive deficiencies against the top teams.
Beveridge conceded it was an area of improvement but said the systems were in place – it was just about execution – and could be corrected enough to get them the wins they need, starting with a Friday night showdown against Essendon.
'It's interesting, and sometimes little history lessons are important,' Beveridge said at his weekly press conference.
'If I asked you who was the best defensive team on aggregate, so conceding the least amount of points going into last year's finals series, do you know who it was? It was us. We were the best defensive team going into the finals last year.
'Has our philosophy and my philosophy and how we coach and teach the defensive system changed? Absolutely not.
'The execution is the responsibility of all of us.
'We weren't the best offensive team last year, but we are this year, so that's encouraging.
'You need a healthy blend and against the more high achieving teams, they have been able to score too heavily.
'We know we can improve. We seek that out.'
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