Donstuie wrote:
And now the journos bite back
Different club, but same grumpy MalthouseQuote:
IT WAS the sort of sequence that makes sense only in reverse. Twelve days apart, in the same auditorium at Princes Park, two Carlton coaches faced the media music. One was poised and dignified and prompted a round of applause when he was done. The other, once the introductory niceties were dispensed with, was bristling and combative, and when he was done, two Carlton staffers stood impromptu guard on the corridor down which he exited.
The perversity is that the decorous one was Brett Ratten, and he was on the way out, notwithstanding that a year remained on his contract, and the grumpy bum was Mick Malthouse, and - surprise, surprise - he was on the way in, having just signed for three years.
The repeatedly surfacing friction yesterday centred on the insistence of Carlton and Malthouse that they had held no discussions before Ratten's departure, and that they had had only an ''inkling'' of interest in one another. This jars with the understanding of the wider football community about a long, if unofficial courtship.
Yeah, Jon Ralph was bitching about the presser this morning too. Unprofessional of Mick, and Mick really should've taken the opportunity to inspire Carlton supporters rather than taking potshots and answering "absolutely" about going after Cloke and disrupting Collingwood's finals campaign. He thinks Mick should've spent the presser outlining exactly what he's going to do with the gameplan and our players.
What Jon Ralph chooses to misunderstand is this:
As Gore Vidal put it "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail". As Carlton supporters, right now those others are Collingwood. Everyone who works for Carlton has two missions: firstly, to do whatever they can to help Carlton succeed. Secondly, to NEVER miss an opportunity to stick a spoke in the wheels of the old enemies.
What Mick did yesterday is heap further disruption upon Collingwood as they try to prepare for a knockout final, and I effing loved it. I'll bet most other carlton supporters did too.
And furthermore, all he really did is return serve from McGuire's earlier season comments about Malthouse coaching carlton, which were clearly designed to destabilise our club.
After nearly 3 decades, all supporters know what Malthouse brings. He's not a junior coach who has to lay down his philosophies at a press conference.
Malthouse's job yesterday was to announce his presence (I use that word deliberately) at the club, and not a lot more. That he also managed to chuck a hand grenade at the team everyone at carlton hopes will go out in straight sets was a bonus.
After 5 years of a senior coach umming and ahhing and vacillating and muddling his way through pressers, how refreshing was it to hear that one word F-You Collingwood answer to the question of "Will you go after Travis Cloke?" .... "Absolutely."
Loved every bit of it.
Screw you Ralphy. You don't speak for us.
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