Among the most popular threads of AFL commentary each season is the debate over which coach’s job is safe and whose seat is in play. The almost daily bombast on the subject is a reminder that football’s fourth estate will never not consider itself a player. It is assumed that as readers and viewers, we are looking for arguments, provocations, jock banter and the odd joke. Sadly, for the most part, they’re probably right. And while the media wasn’t agitating for Brad Scott’s job at North Melbourne, his decision to step aside has provided all that.
Let’s start with an argument, in that it was Scott’s decision to step aside. On Sunday, Scott and North Melbourne chairman Ben Buckley fronted a media conference to break no news and spoil nobody’s fun to note that the club and coach had mutually decided to part ways.
“[We] agreed with Brad that the time was right for him to step aside and we accepted his offer,” Buckley said.
“The strategic direction [that I] presented to the board was with a view that I’ve always preached that you do what’s right for the club,” said Scott, not pulling any punches, talking a good game and being a team player. Pick your cliche. “Put the club first in all of your dealings and let the cards fall where they fall.”
That the decision was made 10 games into the season with a year still to run on Scott’s contract suggests the cards are all over the shop. As for strategic direction, that is a piece of work that North won’t start until this week when a club-wide review will be undertaken by Peter Nash, the former national chairman of KPMG, board member Brian Walsh and former club football director Glenn Archer. This task will likely also involve selecting a new coach.
There is hardly a man coaching today whose obituary is not in its third draft at the sports desk, and question marks over the decision being as cordial as the one portrayed appeared before the ink was dry on Scott’s resignation letter. The inevitable reports of the Swans’ John Longmire returning to Arden Street were made almost immediately.
Ironically, it was following Norths’ loss to Sydney last week that the decision was allegedly made to part ways with Scott. “I think the decision to part ways came three or four weeks ago when Brad Scott spoke to the board meeting and said if you want to get rid of me, this is the year,” Caroline Wilson told ABC’s Offsiders on Sunday.
At a time when every media appearance is an exercise in corporate stage management, and every club employs a team of media managers who act like they’re protecting the nuclear launch codes, it is difficult not to agree with Wilson that the club overcooked the message and that Scott was unhappy with the “lack of professionalism” shown by the club.
Although it was Scott’s own lack of professionalism that gave the matter its provocation, jock banter and joke all rolled into one, when – displaying the bluff machismo of a former athlete – he brushed by Fox Footy commentator and former Kangaroo, David King, and gave him a few choice words as part of the bargain.
“There was a time when I put my shoulder straight through David King - it was at the Gabba in the late 90s. And he didn’t respond then either,” said Scott, trying to metaphorically knock the preening ego out of his former (and seemingly present-day) opponent but instead demonstrating that a fault in his coaching career was an inability to think things through.
“I didn’t know he was coming, clearly. But it was just a little brush past. It was funny, I found it quite hilarious,” King replied on Fox Footy.
Although given the current state of Michael Christian’s MRP Variety Hour, if Scott was not resigning, he may have had a case to answer. The MRP has become compulsive watching of late and this week is no exception with Gary Ablett Jr. the name in 48-point bold font atop this particular circus poster … again. So far this year, Ablett has gotten away with elbowing Essendon’s Dylan Shiel in the back of the head and North’s Sam Wright in the face. This week it’s a right hand to the chin of Gold Coast’s Anthony Miles.
After the first incident, you suspect Ablett was handed a pass due to his status as an icon of the game. Literalists cringe at using the word “icon” outside of a religious context and unless someone is kneeling and praying before it – so perhaps it’s OK in the context of considering the MRP’s response to the second incident. If he escapes a ban this time around, you suspect Christian’s threshold for Ablett is to knock seven bells out of someone. So, if you’re still looking for an argument or a joke, the MRP is sure to provide. If it’s just jokes you’re after, watch a replay of St Kilda versus Carlton.
