Nigel Smart was asked on 5AA Friday morning and was very vague about the research they conducted, no one from the club has outlined what they did.
Of course they haven't outlined their research processes. No club is ever going to do that. Not to mention it would be the most boring radio interview ever.
As for the dissent, it was more than just a vocal minority, personally I know neutral supporters who didn't agree with it. You had journos and legends such as Leith Mathews and Sheedy slam it.
With all due respect to Matthews and Sheedy, they've got nothing to do with the situation. Obviously I have no stats to back it up but I still believe it was a vocal minority - and a very small minority.
Not sure why you keep comparing it to Tippett gate, these are two very different examples of incompetence. The benefit of having it in writing in this case was to have all the conditions agreed to. Stuff like confirming we could sell the jumpers with supporters names on it would have been covered.
I'm not the one comparing it to Tippetgate. I've read probably 50 times in the last day alone, "haven't we learned anything from Tippettgate?!" I agree with you, the two are completely unrelated incidents, so I'm not sure why the Tippett saga keeps getting brought up as here.
And let's not be stupid here. Regardless of what we had in writing, the SANFL was going to roll over like a wet leaf. There's no way they didn't know our intentions for the guernsey.
As for the supporters who are critical of another incident, we should just accept we are the victims of bad luck again and it has nothing to do with the competence of our admin.
I'm all for accountability, but this incident having happened is entirely a black mark on the SANFL, not the Crows admin. There's just no feasible way you can paint it to be our fault. We conducted market research, got all of the approvals we need, had the bodies themselves announce it on radio, only to have them go back on their stated word 24 hours later in one of the most limp-wristed displays of capitulation I've ever seen. Yes, I agree that we do seem to "back the wrong horse" often, but that doesn't mean that every time we do, we should have been able to see it coming.
You can have a completely separate debate about how well you think we've handled the response to the situation, but that's about it.