If I may, as a club and supporter base (the majority of the sample here are heavily invested financial members who bleed Scotty mullets'n'Semaphore jetty chum) we have been pilloried, denigrated, patronised and plain arse****ed by the local and national media for the best part of five years since the Preliminary Final celebrations of Messrs Tredrea and Cornes were gleefully blown out of all proportion.
Forgive us then, when almost immediately the collective media don the steelcapped strap-on and start hammering us vociferously while pulling our head back and shouting 'RATTEN!' like it's some sort of BDSM safeword that will transform our prostatular reaming into something more desirable, like playing the part of Morgan Freeman in that scene in 'The Power of One' where he dines on the hen faeces adorning Daniel Craig's boot.
An appointment that would be so speculative and underwhelming, we may as well have let Mark Williams run his race in full, regardless of the likelihood of him resembling one of those stumbling marathon runners for whom victory, hydration and bowel control had long since become a pleasant olden-day memory. The same Mark Williams who actually won a Premiership and still had a fearsome career winning percentage but was reportedly no chance of winning the vacant Melbourne job when Bailey was under threat, even if he was interested.
Yet here we are, being not just recommended but dictated to that a thoroughly-resourced career Carlton man with a thoroughly mediocre record in Brett Ratten is such a can't miss laydown misere that we won't just be investing in electronic typewriters over the personal computer should we deign to peruse an alternative, but we'll be marking our cards as Fitziversity if we dare to make such an alternative appointment.
Hence, gnashing of teeth.
Me, I like football, and there's a lot of coaches around, but when it comes to Ports anyone but Ratten wins hands down.