Their new CE will be gone in 12 months. A NSW mover and shaker will suffocate in the Adelaide Bubble.
This sounds hard but is nevertheless highly plausible.
It depends to a degree on whether Citizen Fagan is in fact really a 'mover and a shaker.' If he is, I ask myself, why move to AFL in Adelaide?
The AFC CEO spot is viewed as a stepping stone ? To where ? Kangaroo Island ?
The Crows have precious little national appeal, as a caller this week pointed out logically to Bonehead and Brainless when the former announced that Port Adelaide had already passed AFC in the popularity stakes and the latter naturally clamped his hands over his ears instead of his big mouth. Those two media einsteins hadn't even considered the national angle. Foreign markets begin north of Gepps Cross and east of Mt Barker.
I'd guess culture shock has yet to set in with Fagan. I'll bet he was never warned about the Adelaide media. I bet he thought there was more than one newspaper and that he assumed any voice on Adelaide radio must have a brain behind it. If he heard his employer, his chairman, being grilled on 5aa today like an accused murderer in the dock, he would've got a hell of a shock.
Shyte, I've bought a ticket to the other side of the moon!
Since his appointment earlier in the week I have been wondering about it as much as he surely has. A rank outsider, a code-hopper, moving to Adelaide from Canberra / Sydney ? To the bloody
Crows ? To not only learn about his job but also to learn about AFL itself whilst trying not to sound like Tony Abbott talking about the Giants' colour scheme - Abbott the one whose purview is so clear that he agreed at first to cut off Australia Network two weeks before the AFL Grand Final ?
Was Fagan really a success in Rugby Union in NSW? I shall be asking around the Rugby scene in Hong Kong to see how well known he is.
If he was, why is he in Adelaide?
If he wasn't, then we know why he's in Adelaide, and - as Ford predicts - he won't last a year.
I recall reading in
The Peter Principle 30 years ago descriptions of what the author called the 'Tap Dancer' and performing a 'Lateral Arabesque.'
The first refers to someone who performs brilliantly in an interview but subsequently does nothing, stays two years and, with another notch on his c.v., moves on. The second refers to someone who moves sideways for more money, takes a breather, then moves on.
Yesterday it's announced that the West Lakes execution squad has done an
Et tu, Brute on poor dear Sando.
They do that to a guy who lost his No. 2 to cancer at the start of the season and did nothing to fill the gap. Fagan will be thinking: What the hell are they likely to do to me ?
I'm a Rugby man, I'm fair game.
There is more to all this - both the Fagan hiring and the Sando sacking 48 hours apart - than meets the eye.
The Harper Valley PTA rides again. No, that's too simplistic.
So what? Let's revisit the scene in 12 months....
Meanwhile there is Saturday and the Hawks.... and Sunday and the Redlegs .... Now that's
worth thinking about !
It's all your bloody fault, Ford. You got me going.