Mollythedolly
Norm Smith Medallist
- Oct 21, 2021
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Our Murphy & his partner, Rose are having a baby
Hopefully they have daughters.
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AFLW 2024 - Round 9 - Indigenous Round - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
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Hopefully they have daughters.
76woodenspooners
Brownlow Medallist
This is good news!
IMO the original website was poorly executed. It smacked of one of those projects that gets conceived, gets given a budget, and gets executed …
… with little or no consideration to its sustainability. And then when the metrics get reviewed, it’s quickly decided that there is more value generating social media content based on what Nick Daicos ate this morning for breakfast, rather than sustaining a museum site.
Museums are living breathing entities that need to be maintained and sustained - sometimes through long periods when the contents are uncool. Hopefully it’s set up better this time around.
An Article in today's The Age:
Craig Kelly and Craig McRae revealed one of the AFL’s worst-kept secrets on the eve of round 23 when they summoned key football coaches and staffers at Collingwood’s Olympic Park headquarters to tell them that football boss Graham Wright would not be coming back to the club.
Although Kelly had not spoken to his old friend, colleague and former teammate Wright for weeks, it was the CEO who broke the news before stepping aside for reigning premiership coach McRae. The second Craig – or “Fly” as almost everyone in football calls him – then addressed the group, acknowledging that it had been a tough season where some key decisions and appointments had not worked. Kelly later addressed the entire staff and apologised for the sometimes-disruptive year.
The saying that everything is never as good as it seems and nor is everything as bad can be applied to the Magpies over 2023 and 2024. The last angry conversation between Kelly and Wright took place about six weeks ago when the latter was travelling through Italy, but the premiership season was occasionally punctuated with them as well.
Wright’s tenure at Collingwood predated Kelly. The last key appointment made by Eddie McGuire, the respected list manager and football boss came from Hawthorn and stepped into a club emotionally spent from COVID on and off the field and facing a multimillion-dollar salary-cap disaster.
Over a 2021 dominated by board upheaval, Wright negotiated Nathan Buckley’s gracious departure, oversaw McRae’s appointment and handled the Brodie Grundy exit. He went on to lead the retention of Jordan De Goey and stepped in as interim club chief executive until Kelly’s appointment. And yet now he has gone.
New chief executive Kelly had bigger plans for Collingwood and its footballers than his predecessor Mark Anderson. There was one big argument between Kelly and Wright in the middle of 2023 when both men had their say in a fiery exchange. The entrepreneurial Kelly accused Wright of repeatedly knocking back his suggestions and Wright stuck to his guns in the belief that football was his domain.
“I’ve had disagreements with Wrighty for 20 years,” said Kelly this week. “I regularly disagree with him, and he does with me.” Of his current relationship with Wright, Kelly said: “We haven’t spoken for a while.”
Still the club was not expecting Wright’s resignation last November and instead agreed upon a sabbatical season where Wright would return at the end of August after travelling through the US, the Middle East and Europe with his wife Tracey. Although Wright was retained as a consultant, that role finished up being relatively minimal. Reports reached the Wrights as early as April that he would not be returning to Collingwood.
Wright, who was contacted this week but chose not to comment, has told friends he was disappointed in the manner in which his tenure ended at the club but has acknowledged it would have proved too difficult to return due to the falling out with Kelly, whom he has credited with making some good decisions. He also remains on good terms with McRae and has backed McRae’s denials that the players over-celebrated after last year’s premiership.
Kelly explains the off-field issues thus: “The club, after winning the grand final, was put in a position which had us one man down. There was certain change that was thrown upon us. We asked people to play different roles, and we worked to develop different people. Hindsight’s a great thing, but people stepped up to the plate.
“We tried new things. Some worked and some caused little ripples. Did we get everything right? Did we make mistakes? Yes. We make mistakes all the time, just like football teams do.”
Kelly denied that running a football club presented challenges he had not faced when running his successful marketing, athlete management, and promotional agency, TLA. “It’s the same thing,” he said. “Exactly the same. Except at a football club it becomes a media story. And the week in, week out demands for success are more intense.”
Kelly also took issue with the suggestion that president Jeff Browne was leading the restructure of the football operation after a year of upheaval and some disharmony. “He’s not,” said Kelly. “We are.”
Every senior administrator at the club contacted this week denied that Kelly’s increasingly heavy involvement in football in 2024 had been part of the problem. And yet it was outgoing president Browne who stepped in to negotiate with Wright and ultimately navigate his departure, and Browne who is overseeing the search for his replacement and who has contacted candidates such as Port Adelaide’s Chris Davies.
Wright’s overseas trip caused Kelly and the board to reanalyse their football department soft cap and overall budget and prioritise a bigger allocation into list management and recruiting. This was one key reason Wright is not returning. And yet the club remains adamant it can recruit another highly regarded football boss, despite prioritising soft-cap spending elsewhere.
Browne, who will depart the presidency next year and make way for director Barry Carp, strongly backed Kelly after he was accused by a former employee in July of using racially inappropriate language and conduct. Kelly refused to discuss those allegations this week but his colleagues and Browne have insisted that the potential scandal and potentially forthcoming court case was not the reason for the board’s hands-on intervention in football. And yet for all of his famously brash, gregarious confidence, the accusations must have rattled Kelly, as did an incorrect recent report that he had been sacked.
The off-field state of play at Collingwood as the club licks its wounds after narrowly missing the finals is that Justin Leppitsch and Brendon Bolton – the two men who stepped up to replace Wright during his season-long sabbatical – will remain despite an occasionally fractious relationship.
Clare Pettyfor, who started the season as head of operations and women’s football, left and joined Gary Pert’s executive team at Melbourne.
Wright returned home last weekend and his belongings left behind at the club have been returned to him. He has held talks with Tasmania’s CEO-elect Brendon Gale and also met AFL bosses Andrew Dillon and Laura Kane since his return, with the league contemplating a new senior football role overseeing player movement, list management and the implementation of the 19th team.
Former Brisbane Lions coach and three-time premiership player Leppitsch will take over the Magpies’ list-management role, while former Carlton coach Bolton will vacate the full-time football duties he shouldered this season to play a development and leadership role across the entire club. Friction between Bolton and Leppitsch predates their current football roles, with the pair known to clash semi-regularly in the coaches box.
Away from football, Collingwood’s commercial and membership boss Ian Paterson has quit to join News Corp and been replaced by Chris Larkins from St Kilda. And Kelly has lured his TLA legal boss Susan Harper to the Magpies to take on an executive role in compliance.
The generous view of the state of affairs at Collingwood is that a competitive correction was due at the club after the seismic change brought on by the Do Better-led political upheaval and the disastrous state of the club’s total player payments of 2021. That was immediately followed by McRae’s stunning first two seasons, which began with a one-point preliminary final loss and then a premiership. The team ended the 2024 season on a high note – and, after all, won 12 games with two draws – and could well boast another Brownlow medallist come grand final week.
McRae denied on 3AW recently Leigh Matthews’ suggestion that the February/March timing of the grand final documentary could have had a negative impact upon performance, but there is no doubt some of the negative commentary that has come the club’s way this season came off the back of not only disappointing performances and internal disharmony but also some public moments of post-premiership off-field hubris.
Browne, Kelly, McRae, Leppitsch and co. have the clout and the cash, and significantly more time in this off-season, to restructure the football operation. Judging by some of the internal disputes, the off-field bloodletting is not yet complete as the departing president Browne and his team work to create Collingwood in Geelong’s image.
For now, though, the collateral damage has been the friendship forged over more than three decades between Craig Kelly and Graham Wright.
www.theage.com.au
Craig Kelly and Craig McRae revealed one of the AFL’s worst-kept secrets on the eve of round 23 when they summoned key football coaches and staffers at Collingwood’s Olympic Park headquarters to tell them that football boss Graham Wright would not be coming back to the club.
Although Kelly had not spoken to his old friend, colleague and former teammate Wright for weeks, it was the CEO who broke the news before stepping aside for reigning premiership coach McRae. The second Craig – or “Fly” as almost everyone in football calls him – then addressed the group, acknowledging that it had been a tough season where some key decisions and appointments had not worked. Kelly later addressed the entire staff and apologised for the sometimes-disruptive year.
The saying that everything is never as good as it seems and nor is everything as bad can be applied to the Magpies over 2023 and 2024. The last angry conversation between Kelly and Wright took place about six weeks ago when the latter was travelling through Italy, but the premiership season was occasionally punctuated with them as well.
Wright’s tenure at Collingwood predated Kelly. The last key appointment made by Eddie McGuire, the respected list manager and football boss came from Hawthorn and stepped into a club emotionally spent from COVID on and off the field and facing a multimillion-dollar salary-cap disaster.
Over a 2021 dominated by board upheaval, Wright negotiated Nathan Buckley’s gracious departure, oversaw McRae’s appointment and handled the Brodie Grundy exit. He went on to lead the retention of Jordan De Goey and stepped in as interim club chief executive until Kelly’s appointment. And yet now he has gone.
New chief executive Kelly had bigger plans for Collingwood and its footballers than his predecessor Mark Anderson. There was one big argument between Kelly and Wright in the middle of 2023 when both men had their say in a fiery exchange. The entrepreneurial Kelly accused Wright of repeatedly knocking back his suggestions and Wright stuck to his guns in the belief that football was his domain.
“I’ve had disagreements with Wrighty for 20 years,” said Kelly this week. “I regularly disagree with him, and he does with me.” Of his current relationship with Wright, Kelly said: “We haven’t spoken for a while.”
Still the club was not expecting Wright’s resignation last November and instead agreed upon a sabbatical season where Wright would return at the end of August after travelling through the US, the Middle East and Europe with his wife Tracey. Although Wright was retained as a consultant, that role finished up being relatively minimal. Reports reached the Wrights as early as April that he would not be returning to Collingwood.
Wright, who was contacted this week but chose not to comment, has told friends he was disappointed in the manner in which his tenure ended at the club but has acknowledged it would have proved too difficult to return due to the falling out with Kelly, whom he has credited with making some good decisions. He also remains on good terms with McRae and has backed McRae’s denials that the players over-celebrated after last year’s premiership.
Kelly explains the off-field issues thus: “The club, after winning the grand final, was put in a position which had us one man down. There was certain change that was thrown upon us. We asked people to play different roles, and we worked to develop different people. Hindsight’s a great thing, but people stepped up to the plate.
“We tried new things. Some worked and some caused little ripples. Did we get everything right? Did we make mistakes? Yes. We make mistakes all the time, just like football teams do.”
Kelly denied that running a football club presented challenges he had not faced when running his successful marketing, athlete management, and promotional agency, TLA. “It’s the same thing,” he said. “Exactly the same. Except at a football club it becomes a media story. And the week in, week out demands for success are more intense.”
Kelly also took issue with the suggestion that president Jeff Browne was leading the restructure of the football operation after a year of upheaval and some disharmony. “He’s not,” said Kelly. “We are.”
Every senior administrator at the club contacted this week denied that Kelly’s increasingly heavy involvement in football in 2024 had been part of the problem. And yet it was outgoing president Browne who stepped in to negotiate with Wright and ultimately navigate his departure, and Browne who is overseeing the search for his replacement and who has contacted candidates such as Port Adelaide’s Chris Davies.
Wright’s overseas trip caused Kelly and the board to reanalyse their football department soft cap and overall budget and prioritise a bigger allocation into list management and recruiting. This was one key reason Wright is not returning. And yet the club remains adamant it can recruit another highly regarded football boss, despite prioritising soft-cap spending elsewhere.
Browne, who will depart the presidency next year and make way for director Barry Carp, strongly backed Kelly after he was accused by a former employee in July of using racially inappropriate language and conduct. Kelly refused to discuss those allegations this week but his colleagues and Browne have insisted that the potential scandal and potentially forthcoming court case was not the reason for the board’s hands-on intervention in football. And yet for all of his famously brash, gregarious confidence, the accusations must have rattled Kelly, as did an incorrect recent report that he had been sacked.
The off-field state of play at Collingwood as the club licks its wounds after narrowly missing the finals is that Justin Leppitsch and Brendon Bolton – the two men who stepped up to replace Wright during his season-long sabbatical – will remain despite an occasionally fractious relationship.
Clare Pettyfor, who started the season as head of operations and women’s football, left and joined Gary Pert’s executive team at Melbourne.
Wright returned home last weekend and his belongings left behind at the club have been returned to him. He has held talks with Tasmania’s CEO-elect Brendon Gale and also met AFL bosses Andrew Dillon and Laura Kane since his return, with the league contemplating a new senior football role overseeing player movement, list management and the implementation of the 19th team.
Former Brisbane Lions coach and three-time premiership player Leppitsch will take over the Magpies’ list-management role, while former Carlton coach Bolton will vacate the full-time football duties he shouldered this season to play a development and leadership role across the entire club. Friction between Bolton and Leppitsch predates their current football roles, with the pair known to clash semi-regularly in the coaches box.
Away from football, Collingwood’s commercial and membership boss Ian Paterson has quit to join News Corp and been replaced by Chris Larkins from St Kilda. And Kelly has lured his TLA legal boss Susan Harper to the Magpies to take on an executive role in compliance.
The generous view of the state of affairs at Collingwood is that a competitive correction was due at the club after the seismic change brought on by the Do Better-led political upheaval and the disastrous state of the club’s total player payments of 2021. That was immediately followed by McRae’s stunning first two seasons, which began with a one-point preliminary final loss and then a premiership. The team ended the 2024 season on a high note – and, after all, won 12 games with two draws – and could well boast another Brownlow medallist come grand final week.
McRae denied on 3AW recently Leigh Matthews’ suggestion that the February/March timing of the grand final documentary could have had a negative impact upon performance, but there is no doubt some of the negative commentary that has come the club’s way this season came off the back of not only disappointing performances and internal disharmony but also some public moments of post-premiership off-field hubris.
Browne, Kelly, McRae, Leppitsch and co. have the clout and the cash, and significantly more time in this off-season, to restructure the football operation. Judging by some of the internal disputes, the off-field bloodletting is not yet complete as the departing president Browne and his team work to create Collingwood in Geelong’s image.
For now, though, the collateral damage has been the friendship forged over more than three decades between Craig Kelly and Graham Wright.
‘We make mistakes all the time, just like football teams do’: Inside the Magpies’ season that didn’t go according to plan
A decades-long friendship has been one of the casualties of the 2023 premiers’ sometimes-disruptive 2024.
Scodog10
Brownlow Medallist
Reading that made me feel a little ill. Some of the biggest on field issues we’ve had the past decade have been caused by senior administrators overreaching by involving themselves in football matters. First Pert, then Ed and now Kelly. I don’t get it, but thank you Wrighty for having the backbone to tell Kelly to back off. The need to find an experienced GM of footy who won’t just be a figurehead and will push back on that type of crap can’t be understated.
- Sep 23, 2019
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It sounds like ‘The Club’ all over again. The silver lining is that we haven’t won a premiership in 11 months and one week, not 19 years.
Vicky Park
Premium Platinum
Written by our good friend, Caro.
When I started reading it, I was apprehensive, thinking Oh God, what has she written about us this time?
But when I got to the end, I was unexpectedly positive. If the article is to be believed we are keeping both Leppa and Bolts. Tick. We have cash and time to plan well for ‘25. Tick. The worst of the Wright-related upheaval is over. Tick.
Unlike Caro to make me feel better after one of her Pies articles, and maybe she set out to dump on us. But I’m not sure she achieved that.
BTW, I am no Caro hater, and believe there is a place for her kind of journalism in footy.
- Aug 21, 2009
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Caro loves to invent an off field crisis cos she know SFA about on field stuff
If Browne can confirm it is Leppa who has sung like a bird to her all season he should sack him on the spot
We finish 2 games off second with a massive injury crisis and she goes hard at Fly all year
Meanwhile crickets from her on the tigers wooden spoon , star player exodus and CEO quitting
If Browne can confirm it is Leppa who has sung like a bird to her all season he should sack him on the spot
We finish 2 games off second with a massive injury crisis and she goes hard at Fly all year
Meanwhile crickets from her on the tigers wooden spoon , star player exodus and CEO quitting
JuniorB
Norm Smith Medallist
And, of course, Lou and Ron were from the Pannam family, another great Collingwood family.
NMBB
Norm Smith Medallist
- May 3, 2021
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A top line footy boss might be cautious about working with Kelly
NMBB
Norm Smith Medallist
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Hammer - nail
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The only things from the article that I didn't know was that Wright was told in April he wouldn't be returning and that the tension between Leppa and Bolts predates the current set up, which means they were butting heads in the coaches box in 2023.
There is nothing in the article for us to worry about, and after watching the 2 finals so far, I'm very bullish about next year.
There is nothing in the article for us to worry about, and after watching the 2 finals so far, I'm very bullish about next year.
Scodog10
Brownlow Medallist
Would you want to leave a good environment where you’re paid well and potentially even move interstate to work under a boss that is subject to court matters and is alleged to have created workplace tensions due to overreach? He couldn’t make it work with a mate of 35 years so how do we expect a newby to handle that?
Like others I agree the article in full doesn’t read that badly, but the Kelly stuff leaves a sour taste.
I have no qualms about the article at all. What she wrote about has already been confirmed. I would expect that two bulls like Leppa & Bolts would have differing views. That's great. I would prefer that than Harv's & Sanderson that held similar views to Bucks. Anyone that knows or has heard about Ned knows that he wants total control over what he is doing and will ride roughshod to get it done. I agree with you Scodog10 we have been here before
I was more interested in the comment "Wright’s overseas trip caused Kelly and the board to reanalyse their football department soft cap and overall budget and prioritise a bigger allocation into list management and recruiting. This was one key reason Wright is not returning"
Are we doing away with some Assistant or Academy coaches?
I was more interested in the comment "Wright’s overseas trip caused Kelly and the board to reanalyse their football department soft cap and overall budget and prioritise a bigger allocation into list management and recruiting. This was one key reason Wright is not returning"
Are we doing away with some Assistant or Academy coaches?
She isn't inventing anything. What she is reporting has already been reported. It isn't a negative interview. Collingwood sells... everybody knows it. Who really gives a shit about Richmond? Even their own supporters don't unless they are winning
Scodog10
Brownlow Medallist
For a long time we’ve prioritised quality of recruiting eyes over number and we haven’t had a list manager since 2021. My guess is Wright was the highest paid GM league wide because he was juggling both that role and the list manager role. I’d guess again that the restructure involves a smaller wage allocation to the GM role with the savings going towards more boots on the ground in terms of scouts or senior support to Hine like we once had with Rendell, Milesi and Taylor. It could even be tied up in the rumoured departure of Hine.
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- Aug 21, 2009
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She is an expert at having one or two facts, and weaving it in with whole lot of innuendo, speculation and opinion
She is perfect at 3AlwaysWrong
- Aug 16, 2009
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I actually really like Hine
- Thought he did really well with high picks
(Shaz I can forgive / Freeman I can't -- such a shame we were moving up to grab Bont...In hindsight, would it have been possible to trade picks 6+10 to St Kilda for 3? -- there's a bit of a lesson there about doing whatever it takes to get the player you want)
- Frustrated as many were with missing many KPP
However, even though I rate him, sometimes change is needed.
We've seen that life goes on with =out certain coaches, presidents, etc
Time for a new set of eyes
Obese Arachnid
Diplomatic Immunity
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Wouldn't that be inaccurate?
NMBB
Norm Smith Medallist
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Whose thumb?
So Wright exiting essentially because he's had a falling out with Kelly and told in April he wont be returning.
That reads like it wasn't him not being willing to return and resume his role as GM of football.
Sorry Craig but if it was a choice between you and him then Wright should have won out.
So Leppitsch and Bolton don't get on. Okay we won a flag under those conditions so fine but it was when both were in the coaches box. The roles they were head hunted for!
I can accept now that to retain Leppitsch 12 months ago he wanted to progress to a list management / football manager role. I can understand we needed someone to stand in for Wright so Bolton was acknowledged for his experience and got the gig.
It's a year later now however and while I'm interested to see how Leppitsch fares, the role created for Bolton (God I never tire at these titles) doesn't sound like a return to the coaches box.
Are we going to go out and look for another highly credentialed assistant like the above two were?
As it is the reigning Premier went into this season with a line coach rookie in Roughead taking on the defence, while the other two in Selwood and Skipworth both shared a line during our 2023 season. Are we at all surprised our structures and system looked a damn mess at times this season?
All together that's a lot of upheaval for a club who had just won the flag and as the club rightfully acknowledges now it was to much.
That reads like it wasn't him not being willing to return and resume his role as GM of football.
Sorry Craig but if it was a choice between you and him then Wright should have won out.
So Leppitsch and Bolton don't get on. Okay we won a flag under those conditions so fine but it was when both were in the coaches box. The roles they were head hunted for!
I can accept now that to retain Leppitsch 12 months ago he wanted to progress to a list management / football manager role. I can understand we needed someone to stand in for Wright so Bolton was acknowledged for his experience and got the gig.
It's a year later now however and while I'm interested to see how Leppitsch fares, the role created for Bolton (God I never tire at these titles) doesn't sound like a return to the coaches box.
Are we going to go out and look for another highly credentialed assistant like the above two were?
As it is the reigning Premier went into this season with a line coach rookie in Roughead taking on the defence, while the other two in Selwood and Skipworth both shared a line during our 2023 season. Are we at all surprised our structures and system looked a damn mess at times this season?
All together that's a lot of upheaval for a club who had just won the flag and as the club rightfully acknowledges now it was to much.
Yep, I'd say that's a very good summary! I'm really hoping (and expecting) we'll see the site updated/maintained in better style from here on. While the overall look of the site hasn't changed greatly, seeing it up and running again with full data/stats up to the end of 2024 included will be a big step forward.
