I might be wrong about this, but Woosha seems like a symptom of Essendon’s problems more than a cause. He always seemed to me to be the type of coach who put out the witches hats and worked with the players; he doesn’t seem like a political animal (like a Sheedy or Lyon) or someone who was going to try and recast a club in his image. Rightly or wrongly, I think he left that to others (or no-one).
That made him a perfect pick for the power-brokers of a club that embarked on a systematic and experimental supplement/doping regime and yet still felt like the aggrieved party when it came to light. He is someone who gives the impression of a ‘steady hand’, but is who wouldn’t challenge the status quo.
I think you’re right about North Polly. They’ve been putting off a proper rebuild forever, in part because the people running the place didn’t know for certain the club would come out the other side of it. There are too many teams in Melbourne, so there will always be a rotating cast of mendicant clubs like North, St Kilda, Footscray and Melbourne hoping they aren’t closest to the drain when the Pay TV money plug gets pulled. My view about whether Melbourne clubs survive has been generally indifferent, but I know a lot of North fans and I reckon they’d be lost to the AFL rather than jump to another club. Hopefully the AFL has learned something from how they handled Fitzroy.
I’d rather the league as a whole prop up a Tassie team than the 9th Melbourne club (or GC17 for that matter), but the hard-heads will point to population, attendance and TV ratings – not to mention the North/South divide – as reasons that can’t happen. They’re probably right, but it’s a shame.
