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Ross Lyon speaks during the media conference to announce the new Fremantle Coach at the Woodside Plaza, Perth. Slattery Images
A lot of venom and anger has been directed the way of Ross Lyon the past two days. Naturally, his decision to cross from St Kilda to Fremantle raised more than a few eyebrows. But a lot of the criticism has been unfair, sensationalised and just hard to fathom.
Take the words of ABC broadcaster and journalist Gerard Whateley for example, who’s taken to Twitter to denounce Lyon’s actions.
“Lyon left at the right time in the wrong way in a cloud of duplicity and deceit. And he took casualties. The greatest of which was truth,” read one very bold tweet.
He followed up with comments to the Fox Sports website.
“How Ross Lyon’s reputation remains intact as a result of this is just a little beyond my comprehension at the moment,” he said.
“It’s an old-fashioned coup but it’s absolutely deceitful, duplicitous and distasteful,” he also said.
Give me a break, Gerard.
Yes, of course, questions need to be asked at this time, that’s a given. But that doesn’t give anyone a license to go as over the top as that.
A lot of the anger centres around the fact Lyon did the deal with Fremantle without the knowledge of either his management, Craig Kelly and ESP, or his club. On the surface, this doesn’t make Lyon look too good – but that’s only until you take the time to consider why this approach may have been taken.
The fact is, Mark Harvey’s management also happens to be ESP. This created an obvious conflict of interest. Had Lyon gone to his manager about the Freo offer, Harvey would have (in all likeliness) then found out his club was shopping around for his replacement.
Similarly, had Lyon told his club about the Freo offer, word would’ve gotten out quite easily. Even had he attempted to stall negotiations between his management and St Kilda, there’s a good chance ESP would then know something was up.
The obvious problem here is that if Lyon had alerted either his management or his club and then the deal with Fremantle fell through, the Dockers would be left with a coach who knew his club had been trying to replace him. That would be a horrible situation that could tear apart the club and arguably set them back several years.
You’d imagine that if Lyon was to put a rival club in such a position, there would be just as many – if not more – questions over his integrity and honour than we’ve seen the past two days.
Or maybe, just maybe, in that set of circumstances the anger would be directed at the entity that actually did place the knife in Harvey’s back (but that’s another column entirely…).
Either way, when you sit down and consider what the alternative for Lyon actually was, his actions don’t seem all that despicable.
Too many have been willing to stand from afar and opine, “it could have been handled better.”
The truth is it actually could not have been handled better. An alternative that could’ve very well ended in Lyon tearing apart a rival football club is in no way “better”.
Whateley was not alone in his criticism of Lyon, it should be stressed. Even Andrew Demetriou fell for the trap, saying: “I think people are entitled to ask questions about issues of commitment (and) integrity.”
But the irony was that not even St Kilda could bring themselves to make such remarks.
“Disappointment is about the only word I can come up with, because Ross served us well. He’s achieved a lot and I had every reason to believe up until 5.30 last night he was going to continue with the St Kilda Football Club. I wouldn’t say [we feel] betrayed, because football is that sort of business, people move on, things change,” said CEO Michael Nettefold yesterday.
Captain Nick Riewoldt, while also “disappointed”, was in a similar frame of mind discussing the issue on Channel Seven.
“I respect his decision. He’s been a great coach for us and we have achieved relative success together, and I wish him all the best for the future,” he said.
These are not the comments of men who feel they have been deceived or are the victims of duplicity. Rather, they are the comments of men who can look at situations like these while being realistic.
As for those who weren’t able to do that in recent days, maybe now they owe Ross an apology.
As a final note, this is my 200th column at The Roar. I’d like to thank all of you out there who’ve taken the time to read my work, leave comments (be they positive or negative) and allowed me the opportunity to do something I thoroughly enjoy. Hopefully there’s many more columns to come, thanks.