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Tuesday’s sensational sacking of Michael Voss reiterated sport’s coldest message: no individual is greater than the game.
The club champion was once an untouchable entity, he did as he wanted at the club he essentially owned. This week’s ruthless decision to not renew the triple-premiership winning captain’s contract was bold.
To rid the club’s favourite son showed a brutal, yet welcoming, streak from the Lions’ board, never seen before.
However the manner in which the news was handled was appalling at best.
Fairfax Media broke the story mid-Tuesday afternoon, after Brisbane had planned to inform the public the following day.
Almost every news source in the country reported Voss’ demise before a whimper was heard from the club.
Wednesday’s exiting press conference was one of tremendous grace and heart, letting his passion for Brisbane known to every man and his dog.
In the very same press conference, chairman Angus Johnson made an interesting statement which has flown somewhat under the radar in the subsequent media analysis and speculation.
Johnson said the Lions would make an appointment by the end of next week, surely signalling the club has in fact agreed, at least verbally, to an heir to the Lion king’s throne?
The man on everyone’s lips is Paul Roos, a former Fitzroy great in his own right.
Roos danced from interview to interview on Wednesday, without once shutting the door on a return to the pilot’s seat.
Although there is one (Melbourne) and possibly another (Essendon) coaching role on the table, it appears Brisbane is the only option Roos would seriously entertain.
Funnily enough, the surest indication a move north was possible didn’t elapse today or yesterday, but almost three years ago to the day in an interview with Inside Sport:
“I remember at Fitzroy back in ’86 the club president at the time pulled us all together and said: ‘we’re broke, we’ve either got to merge with someone or go to Brisbane.’
“The player group all voted to go to Brisbane so we could stay together. That’s probably my only regret from my time at Fitzroy: I wished we’d gone at the end because I reckon we would’ve had a really successful period…
“You know, if I ever live in Brisbane or Melbourne again, I’d take my boys to a Brisbane game and say, ‘look, this is my old club.’
“I’ll always say that I’ve got two clubs – one’s Sydney and the other’s the Brisbane Lions.”
The link to Fitzroy becomes even more pertinent, as support from Victoria has wavered in recent years, with a lack of Melbourne-based games.
This year the Lions have played just four matches in Melbourne, with one to come against the Cats in Geelong. Brisbane are contractually obliged to play at least five games in Melbourne due to their existing, albeit diluting, connection to Fitzroy.
Additionally, the iconic Fitzroy Lion has been ditched in favour of the widely criticised ‘Paddlepop Lion’.
Roos has the status to mend burnt bridges off the field, as well as return Brisbane to a powerhouse on it.
The former Sydney coach just has to be appointed, anything less is a catastrophic failure which would see the club lose countless memberships and digress further into irrelevancy.
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