The pair are leading the NBL All-Australian team on a three-game tour of China that began on Wednesday night. It comes just a matter of months after Randle labeled the Hawks a “dirty team,” in the lead-up to the Adelaide-Illawarra playoffs showdown.

Beveridge fired back, accusing Randle of “shooting his mouth off” during what would ultimately be a series victory for the Hawks.

Randle was a consensus league MVP despite the 36rs early exit from the play-offs, but there’s no doubt Beveridge’s defensive schemes caused the 30-year-old more trouble than any other coach.

It’s something Randle conceded via twitter this week while expressing his newfound respect fro Beveridge’s coaching style, tweeting:

“now I see why playing against rob beveridge gave me problems. He think outside the [box] genius coach....love his approach 2 the game.”

Speaking to the Mercury from China, Beveridge says that certainly cuts both ways having witnessed Randle’s immense talent up close as coach of the All-Australian squad.

“When he was first invited to come in my initial instinct was ‘gee he’s not going to do it’ because of the past and things like that,” Beveridge said.

“Straight away I reached out and said ‘I’m looking forward to coaching you, it’s going to be fun’.

“He got straight back, there were no apologies or anything, but he just said there’d been a lot of toing and froing but lets move forward and it’s been really good.

“From day one, the minute we got together, ‘rome and I are mates.  He’s an exceptionally talented guy, an incredible competitor and that’s the biggest thing with him.

“He’s got a chip on his shoulder and he wants to kick everyone’s backsides. He’s been fantastic, been great with the guys and it’s a really good group.”

On the home front, Beveridge welcomed the re-signing of Hawks stalwarts Tim Coenraad and Oscar Forman.

I means 10 of last season’s grand final squad will go around again in 2017-18 as the Hawks look to go one better.

“You’ve got to keep in perspective that we made the grand final and we had a great core group of players that have really turned the club around over the last couple of years,” Beveridge said,.

“We’re moving in the right direction and to me there’s no need to make changes to our Australian contingent. 

“Ozzy is arguably the best stretch four [man] the country’s ever seen.

“When you look at replacing someone like Ozzy and what he brings, you just can’t. It’s as simple as that.

“Timmy Coenraad’s coming off a great year as well and both those guys know they can still play at that level. If they didn’t they’d have moved on but we certainly welcome them back with open arms.”