Diehard Saint
Brownlow Medallist
Agree - maybe one person here or there. But a group of people, ostensibly supported by a couple of other coaches? Debatable.I think the behaviour was terrible, will probably be proven, and a bunch of people will no longer work in the game, and rightly so.
But clearly there are reasons to lie, there always are with human emotions. A personal grudge against Clarko and others because they feel hard done by? Hate Hawthorn because they feel like they didn't get treated specially enough? A fundamental dislike of the entire footy industry because they haven't succeeded in it? All of these could colour people's memories and push their recall and stories in a more negative direction.
Especially because with anonymity, mostly this doesn't even put them in the spotlight, so there's not a huge downside.
I don't think this undermines their story so far, and again I think it was terrible behaviour and people will rightly be excommunicated because of it.
But if it comes out in a court of law, as it will probably need to, you better expect these are the questions that will be raised in their defence.
They won’t stay anonymous for long, people are already speculating - who are the indigenous players who played at Hawthorn over those years. It wouldn’t be hard to find it you could be bothered.
Of course a court of law will probably not necessarily provide clarity, because there will be a fair amount of he said, she said.