The extraordinary return of Geoff Walsh to Collingwood little more than three years after he walked out of the club, having said his piece to some board members and clearly at odds with the chief executive Gary Pert, again underlines that football is as forgiving as it is pragmatic.
This was a situation where two stars a little lost in the AFL galaxy aligned. Collingwood looked foolish after the Graeme Allan debacle and characteristically wanted a well-regarded and experienced football boss. And Nathan Buckley certainly deserved a strong ally.
And Walsh, having called time on his full-time career at North Melbourne and then regretted it, wanted the challenge and a return to the coalface he realised he had attempted to leave too soon.
Just how productively Walsh and Pert, who has been under the most immense pressure in his time at the club, can work together this time around remains to be seen. With Buckley entering the last year of his contract he had that protector in Neil Balme who backed his strategy.
Balme was reportedly sidelined after the board lost patience with the pleas for faith from the coach and the football boss. And because McGuire wanted Allan in the job. With the spectre of Paul Roos hovering, the Magpies' fortunes next season remain more intriguing than ever.
But intriguing, too, is Pert's role, along with that of influential club powerbroker Craig Kelly, in the forthcoming breakfast radio battle which has pitched Collingwood president Eddie McGuire's Triple M team against the new and costly set-up at sports radio station SEN.
SEN has stated its intention to challenge McGuire's show and has invested in the whereabouts of $1.5million in setting up its new-look breakfast team headed up by Garry Lyon and Hamish McLachlan — both key members of the Kelly management stable — and with SEN director Pert the board member said to be driving the change.
Kelly always plays down any suggestion of his competitive edge with McGuire. But the truth is he remains one heir apparent to the Collingwood presidency McGuire has held for 18 years. He has told friends, though, that the job would not fit in with his current conflicting business pursuits — he also manages Buckley — and family concerns. But that could all change within two to three years.
Having searched to find suitable mediums for Lyon's return to the AFL media landscape, Kelly has been a key player behind the establishment of the new breakfast show which also includes Tim Watson — Kelly manages his son Jobe — and Fairfax Media's Sam McClure.
Kelly has also reportedly played down a rumoured rift with McGuire and certainly there is no suggestion the Magpies president is concerned that his club CEO Pert has played a strong role with Kelly in putting together such a high-profile team against him.
That's the media business after all and the AFL industry is riddled with professional conflicts.
That pair would play down the Collingwood influence and point to the station's new boss, former Southern Cross Austereo general manager Cathy Thomas. But Kelly has been a passionate advocate for the new show. Interestingly SEN's new chairman is another Collingwood man in Swimming Australia chairman John Bertrand — one often mentioned also when McGuire successors are mooted.
The football media landscape has rarely undergone such an active post-season trade period and while McGuire would insist the other big off-field talking point of spring — the Lachie Whitfield affair — is a GWS problem it has created a giant headache for his credibility.
Not to mention a significant staffing issue for Collingwood.
There is no doubt that the McGuire-Pert-Buckley relationship has been strained and that Kelly's influence behind the scenes cannot be overlooked. And that if Buckley cannot significantly improve his team's standing this year he, too, could be looking for a role in the media.
Caroline Wilson appears as a football commentator on 3AW.
