Griffen retired

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revo333 said:
I would personally erase the name Brian Lake before Ryan Griffen.

Lake walked out 10 minutes before the end of the 2016 SF cause he couldn't stand seeing the Dogs beating the Hawks.
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where did you hear that about Lake?

I would also scrub out higgins and cooney before Griffen. Both of the former gave far less than 90% in our challenging years (could have been the difference).
 
lifesaver said:
No griffen = No Boyd= No flag

On [device_name] using BigFooty.com mobile app
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In all fairness (life-saver) I used Bevo because he played a big part in our flag and was going to St Kilda until Macca got outed or
shown the door after Peter Gordon was given some harsh feedback from other players Stringer included. Griffen never received
negative feedback unlike some of the other guys, but as Captain was forced to act and did and in came Chris Grant with the
olive branch and I played here for an extra 20 cents. Now what would Bruce Doull do after his pleas were ignored, run forest
run and the rest is history.
 

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dogwatch said:
I have mixed emotions. Once he'd left - and worse still, joined the Giants - I wished him only failure. Now that he has retired without getting to a GF and with no further career achievements at GWS I can afford to look at it a little differently.

I may be joining a few dots but here's how I see it.

To me he was a bit of a Shakespearean tragic figure. A victim of complex circumstance who was not equipped to deal with those twists of ill fortune.

He was made captain against his wishes. He was not a natural leader. In fact he was the exact opposite of the articulate, urbane and empathetic Bob Murphy who succeeded him.

Once he had been painted into a corner under a coach he couldn't stand, his love of footy vanished. He didn't have the skills to think through or negotiate a way out of the situation, either for his own benefit or for the players under him who he could see were also suffering. If his representations to Gordon were rebuffed he would have seen no way out. That's a recipe for extreme mental stress - full responsibility but no capability to deal with it. He just wanted to get back to enjoying his footy and his life but all the fun had disappeared.

What followed was a very public and sensational falling out. Leon Cameron had kept in touch with him and would have known he was miserable so it wouldn't have been hard to lure him north. Griffen knew himself well enough. He would be unable to deal with interviews and the paparazzi chasing him so he went AWOL until the trade had been arranged and the media had moved onto the their next feeding frenzy (which ironically happened to be the bloke he was traded for, Tom Boyd).

From our perspective it was a shameful act from a club captain, almost unprecedented in footy. It was a crushing blow to a club that had been badly battered over the previous 25 years and was again on its knees, having fallen away after making three prelim finals under Eade. I don't know how much Griffen would have thought about that side of it. For him it was just a desperate personal escape from a dire situation.

It certainly seemed like a callous, treacherous act but to my mind Griffen was a victim of circumstances as much as the culprit. The real villains were Brendan McCartney and the club leaders who appointed him and supported him despite the mounting evidence within the club that his was a toxic regime.

History now tells us those club leaders got a second chance to get it right and pulled off an unbelievable flag within 24 months.

For them there was a very happy public redemption and they will sleep easily. For Griffen there is not such a happy ending. Despite his excellent 200+ games for the Dogs, the events of October 2014 defined his career and may haunt him for the rest of his life.

For his sake I hope he surrounds himself with good people who will help ensure he has plenty to live for in his footy retirement.

One day I hope the story will be re-told from his perspective - perhaps by a perceptive writer like Martin Flanagan, or even Bob Murphy - and that could lead to an opportunity for rapprochement with the club. That would be a good thing. It might help us all move on.
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Great Post dog-watch, hyphens are temporary, but class is permanent. :thumbsu:
 
100action said:
where did you hear that about Lake?

I would also scrub out higgins and cooney before Griffen. Both of the former gave far less than 90% in our challenging years (could have been the difference).
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All of them have proven to be flogs post time at VUWO. Lake/Cooney the most, but we probably had an equal hand in things there, got rid of blokes starting to get on the nose. Higgins fits in better at Norf, with the rest of the campaigners. Darryl Griffin, we had higher expectations of as Captain. He failed miserably.
 
I think I’m quite different to most here. Was at work the day at happened. Afternoon smoke rolled around and checked my phone. Saw he had requested a trade. Heart sank. Then I saw where he wanted to go. Was elated. I was far more excited about what was going to come back the other way than sad about what we were losing.
 
Who?

Have a milligram of sympathy, given the years he played for us, but as to the last 4 years, hope they were, and always will be, the most miserable of his life. I weigh the great finals he played for us against the failure to achieve anything meaningful at the sh1t-stains - karma is a wonderful thing.
In a similar vein, I look forward to that ‘franchise’s’ list being raided heavily over the next few years, sending them into a spiral to extinction. And someone, anyone, ramming Cameron/Greene through a fence would be a wonderful thing too. I’d particularly enjoy Harris Andrews or Allir Allir cleaning either of them up cleanly, but in a way that completely f*cks their career.
 
kitsoasis said:
Wow @ some of the comments in this thread.

Isn't it exhausting being so hateful?
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Only if you carry it with you. If you only save it for significant moments, eg Griffen playing in another losing knockout final or retiring, it is quite cathartic. The rest of the time I wouldn’t give him a thought.
 

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Everyone here knows this club well enough to understand how dysfunctional we can be; 2 flags in almost 100 years says more about the things that are wrong with our club than it does about the things that are right. It is well noted that playing for us can be an ordeal at times.

He didn't leave for money ala Brown and he didn't leave because he didn't want to/couldn't meet the on-field demands of the coaching staff ala Cooney and Higgins.

One of the very best to pull on our jumper and will go down as a huge figure in the history of the club (for reasons right or wrong). Anyone who says different is absolutely kidding themselves.
 
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scooter600x said:
What I never understood was he wanted out because of McCartney, then McCartney quit but Griffen still wanted out.
So it wasn’t McCartney then?
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Griffen didn't want the captaincy and, from what I understand, was a bit annoyed with those at the club who forced him to take it. Us being a rabble at the time wouldn't have helped matters.
 
revo333 said:
I would personally erase the name Brian Lake before Ryan Griffen.

Lake walked out 10 minutes before the end of the 2016 SF cause he couldn't stand seeing the Dogs beating the Hawks.
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I watched the Open Mike featuring Lake which was filmed a few weeks before the grand final, when it was clear we were on the march but probably not in many peoples’ mind we would win it that year.

He said specifically he’d feel bad for the likes of Cooney if we won one any time soon. He clearly didn’t love the club, although in the grand final coverage he was pretty upbeat.

Frankly he was looking at life working in an abattoir if we hadn’t taken the punt on him as a 20 year old so he should show some serious gratitude, regardless of the way McCartney and Monty treated him.
 
I struggle to be critical of someone who is simply a weak character (as opposed to an a-hole deliberately trying to hurt the club).

He tried to address things internally, despite being told things would be addressed he probably knew deep down that things wouldn't change ... and bailed.

He took the easy option, and didn't have the courage to deal with the consequences or face up to the people effected by the decision.

There might have been mental health issues at play too, you never know - his father had passed away during that period, he felt McCartney was an a-hole in how he was going about things, his knew some of his best mates there were leaving that off-season (Cooney/Higgins, Matty Boyd likely on the chopping block..), the club seemingly in for another few years of pain under a coach out of his depth ... he simply saw the bailing option as his easiest out ... yeah, he should have been tougher, as captain he should have put the club first and foremost, but as things have turned out, I don't begrudge him.

Missing the premiership, and being sent off in front of what would have been 2000 of his own club's fans ... he's paid enough for that decision, and I'd have no drama welcoming him back into the doors in 5-10 years.
 
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