The Terrace

Today can fuck right off.

— Brock McLean (@dirty_14) June 26, 2012

There’s no doubt that Jesse Stringer’s recent effort has rocked us off our moral high horse down at KP, but surely Carlton’s Brock McLean takes the AFL knob-jockey award for his social media antics this week. For the uninformed, McLean tweeted “Today can f*ck right off”, to which one of his followers responded (with great humour) “Did you finally get delisted?”. McLean responded with “No, your mum has given me aids.” Nice touch. Not.

The club subsequently acted upon Brock’s no-brain effort, slapping him with a suspended one-match ban and a $5,000 fine. In a statement McLean said, ”I realised soon after that my comments were not suitable and took it down and I sincerely apologise for offending anyone who read the tweet in the short time it was up. The discussions with the club this morning were an important reminder of the possible ramifications of comments in social media and of remembering the added responsibilities that come with being a player with the Carlton Football Club.”

And the club said, “From a club point of view, we work with our players and encourage them to be on social media to engage with our supporters and we do work with them about what they should and shouldn’t say. We are certainly disappointed with the tweets, knowing (Twitter) is in the public domain. While it is really disappointing that people use social media to have a cowardly go at players, it’s no excuse for using that language. Brock took it down almost immediately of his own accord and it’s important to note that.”

Was the club really serious by saying they were disappointed about people using social media to have a go at players? Please. Given three of their own players were recently fined for using social media to criticise umpires’ performances, that’s all a bit rich. And whilst it was admirable of Brock to take the offending tweet down, if you spend a minute reading through his Twitter feed you’ll see he hasn’t removed the original tweet (“Today can f*ck right off” is still there). And there’s a litany of posts that use, in the club’s very own words, “that language”. For example, “hey brock I have a dirty a*$#hole , can I get a RT”, upon which McLean replies, “Get it bleached mate, worked wonders for mine!!” All class.

The whole saga begs the question: if this is the piecemeal way Carlton handles this sort of indiscretion, is it any wonder the Blues haven’t reached the heights many expected this year?  And it’s time we ask: is Judd really a great leader, or simply a great player? After all, his legacy – which is the ultimate mark of a great leader – at West Coast was hardly a stable one. And all the signs coming from Princess Park indicate that the club is seriously lacking sound judgement and leadership at a fundamental level. So, is Carlton’s crap performance this year reflective or poor coaching, luck, administration, culture or leadership? Or is it all of the above?

Max Rooke is back in town. Casterton that is…

“I’d like to thank my Mum and Dad. Without them I wouldn’t be here.” Mark Bairstow, accepting the 1986 Sandover Medal.

We recently heard Mark ‘Toby’ Bairstow interviewed on the radio, which brought up a few fond (and a couple painful) memories. Toby was a great servant of the cattery, until he was unceremoniously dumped by Gary Ayres (along with Buddha Hocking). Toby then spat the dummy and returned to his native WA to train some nags, and never really came back into the fold until recently.

Indeed, ‘Toby’ played 146 games between ’87 and ’94, and memorably held the third-most possessions in the VFL during 1989 (behind Couchy and none other than one T. Wallace). When he was on song, he was a possession (and more specifically kick-getting) machine. We all loved watching Bairstow launch some raking kicks into the vicinity of G. Ablett and co.

We’ll also remember Mark for being rather dry on the humour side and of dubious captaincy material, and copping a few pastings at the expense of one P. Matera. Three losing grand finals ain’t much to write home about, but that was life in that Geelong era. At least he didn’t have to hang around for ’95.

We’ve uncovered some great footage from 1986 of Toby winning the Sandover medal, after only his second year at the club. Look out for many inaugural West Coast Eagles players (Harding, Peos and a first-year John Worsfold sharing a table with Bairstow), and a youthful Dennis Confetti compering the glamorous function. For the record, there appears to have been no more than one female guest in attendance.

Interestingly, Mark ‘Toby’ Bairstow named his son…Toby…who is currently getting a few kicks for South Freo.

Fair to say this is the worst news that’s come off the press this weekend (and probably the year). So much for the ‘boilover’ round –  the footy gods are a bunch of muppets.

Had scans this morning and its confirmed that I’ve torn my acl in my left knee, so disappointed but thanks for all your messages and support

— Daniel Menzel (@DanielMenzel10) June 3, 2012