Statement from Peter Gordon

[Remi Moses]

Bornadog has a decent point, as it would have to be passed the tipping point as far as discontent is concerned.
However in saying that the players have put themselves under enormous pressure now and would need to perform .
They look like royal idiots if they don't

[boydogs]

Do yourselves a favour and don't read the papers today. Incorrect facts or not, the articles reinforce many people's opinions that the club is run by the players and that we couldn't stay the path taken by powerhouse teams before us.

Just extremely sad.

I think everyone involved with the club, supporters, players and management alike, needs to see that. Losing Macca isn't the worst thing that could happen, but failing to now acknowledge and address the weakness of our club to stay the course is.

[BulldogBelle]

Would have loved to have heard this version, which is no doubt gathering dust in someone's bottom draw:

It has been a challenging couple of weeks for the Club, culminating in Brendan McCartney offering his resignation today as our Senior Coach after he expressed that he thought his position had become unfortunately untenable.

The Board and I did not accept his resignation and we believe that this is in the best interest of the Club.

The Board took the decision to support Brendan staying on late last month following a review that included serious critique around communication issues that had been raised by a number of people including our captain Ryan Griffen in relation to the Coach.

Brendan accepted the validity of a number of these concerns and readily agreed to participate in a number of measures we put in place to help him address them. While we were all committed to working hard on these issues, we and Macca himself were concerned about whether the position was recoverable.

While we believed that the issues had been aired appropriately and solutions found – as agreed to by Ryan - yesterday’s news in relation to Ryan’s change of position meant that the Board needed to further consider the matter further.

Ryan’s unfortunate change of mind in the last few days in our judgement has had principal effects:

1. It took away one of the central planks – the support of the Captain which had been pivotal and even critical in our pursuit of our next premiership.

2. And it created a new impediment in that in 2015, Macca would be communicating his message to a small group who even with the best will in the world; would have this difficult event entrenched in their minds, whenever hard messages needed to be delivered.

When we met yesterday, I asked Macca whether his best judgement was that he could overcome these new significant impediments.

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=arial]He was uncertain. He asked us to get some further feedback from some key people. We spent a lot of yesterday doing so. The feedback was not all one way – but it was sufficiently compromised to make it clear that Ryan Griffin's position as captain of our great football club was untenable

Under this enormous pressure, Macca therefore made the decision to offer his resignnation as senior coach, a decision that is not supported by the Board. Therefore Brendan will continue as senior coach, and both parties will honor his contract as a strong and united football club should.

Some of you will agree – others will not. That’s your right as a Bulldogs person.

Brendan is a good man, but not a faultless man. As President, Board and Senior Management – we all like and respect him, and will help him with whatever means necessary, continue his development as a senior coach. And we want to thank him for his continued significant contribution in building our Club.

There has been a lot said about our review, our Club and our players – and indeed our Board – over the last month.

Lots of old footy sayings like “you can let the players run the Club” have been trotted out. They are very simplistic for the complex environment of the management of professional AFL Clubs in the second decade of the 21st century, however, they still ring true.

I want to say these things about our group:

a. Our players do not run the Club of course. We the board and senior management do. As a board, we are entrusted with the responsibility to make tough and difficult decisions. That is what we have done today.

b. I’m very proud of a majority of our players. The fact that they had these concerns but that their first and predominant position has been to look to work through them and reflect on what they themselves needed to do to get better and make things work better reflects well on them as a group. These players are prepared to endure the hardships that are part and parcel of winning a premiership. They will, I'm sure, achieve that goal in their careers here at Whitten Oval.

Those that do not share our vision have been advised that the club will do its utmost to find them a new club. When trading though, our position is that these players will be traded in such a way that the Western Bulldogs football club gain the maximum benefit. Our supporters deserve as much. If that means that the "club of choice" is not where these players end up, so be it. We thank them for their service.


I want to thank our players for their honesty and concern yesterday. It has been a " line in the sand" moment for our club, and I hope that the members and supporters understand our stance. No individual is greater that the club.

Foundations are strong for an exciting future if we hang together and continue to work hard.

We now will look forward to an extensive process to appoint a Captain and continue to strengthen our club.

Peter Gordon
President

That would have bought a smile to my face.