COMMENT
Mick Malthouse has forced Carlton's hand. Having suspected he was "cooked" six weeks ago and in his own mind believing it to be a fact last week, the coach set on a destructive but familiar scorched earth-style mission that has harmed both him and the club which never truly embraced him.
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Malthouse considered venting his frustration at Carlton on Monday night, but slept on his disappointment at the Blues' procrastination in a letter to members on Monday that detailed a decision was to be made after round 10.
On Tuesday morning, he surely delivered his final grenades in a bid to provoke an immediate decision and a handsome six-figure payout.
He threw one at the board, another at chief executive Steven Trigg over the departure of Eddie Betts and several in general aimed at the club to which he claimed earlier this year no free agent players wanted to join. He appears to have known for some days that the Blues had entertained appointing his lieutenant, Dean Laidley, as caretaker once the deed had been done.
Carlton is not blameless in this fiasco, but the new president had seemed determined to buck the Blues' old ways and allow the coach's contract to be honoured. Mark LoGuidice, Trigg and Andrew McKay tried to manage Malthouse and wanted to believe him when he assured them he was happy to coach out the year not knowing his fate.
But they, like Collingwood president Eddie McGuire and CEO Gary Pert before them, were ill-equipped to deal with a Malthouse scorned. McGuire and Malthouse have patched up their differences for reasons of club and legacy, but who could forget the day early in the 2012 season when McGuire declared Malthouse would not, at that stage, have a friend at Collingwood.
With Malthouse, managing a dignified departure this time around become impossible once he sniffed the wind. Malthouse has turned a failure to cope with demotion or sacking into a macabre art form.
The Blues erred in the manner and timing of their rebuild announcement, but Malthouse had known it was coming and reportedly had not spoken up in any meetings beforehand. Six weeks ago, I believed the coach should be given the opportunity to set about rebuilding the club, but the players have spoken since with their shocking on-field lethargy.
The statement they made - or failed to make in Malthouse's milestone achievement against Collingwood in round five - spoke volumes and have rendered all subsequent interviews meaningless. With hindsight, the coach was finished the night he passed Jock McHale's games record.
After Trigg, McKay and media boss Jay Allen departed the club early on Tuesday they travelled together to LoGuidice's city office. An announcement is expected later on Tuesday.
Should Laidley win the interim job as expected, it will be his first time back in the senior coaching position since his departure from North Melbourne in the middle of the 2009 season. Having played under Malthouse at West Coast, he was brought to Carlton by his former mentor at the end of 2013.
David Buttifant, the once pioneering fitness boss Malthouse lured from Collingwood, is not expected to remain at the Blues beyond this season. That goes for several of Malthouse's assistant coaches.
The off-field facelift is almost complete and now the on-field is set to begin with list boss Steven Silvagni distancing himself from Tuesday's decision, quite literally, by entering Ikon Park once the other power-brokers had departed. Fittingly, "SOS" had been in talks with the AFL's total player payments boss Brett Clothier.
Having written fewer than 24 hours ago that it might not be too late to preserve Malthouse's dignity, that now appears to have been a forlorn if optimistic prediction. And now the situation has turned ugly, it must be said that the coach in focusing on himself has himself to blame.