Craig Hutchison

Jason on X, is it too cynical to suggest that most of these AFL coaching appointments are predetermined outcomes and therefore the selection processes become an exercise in intellectual property harvesting by clubs of the unsuccessful candidates?

I'll jump in there.

Look, if you go back to one of the relatively recent ones where Collingwood moved Nathan Buckley on, they definitely wanted Sam Mitchell.

And that was reported pretty much in the timeframe upon it happening.

So they had a person they wanted to go to.

In the end, they didn't.

But then equally, they then opened the field up to effectively 60, 70 conversations, at least, with prospective candidates.

And they found the next best, as it was, because the next best won a premiership, Craig McRae.

Two years later.

So it can still be done both ways, Jason.

Look, we're yet to know what Essendon is going to do.

There's a chance they will go down that we-know-who-we-want path.

But equally, Carlton under Graham Wright again, as he was at Collingwood back in 2021, they will go down a very wide open path.

I don't think there's any predetermined outcomes there.

You got any views on that, Hutchie?

Yep.

Just reading through these questions, there's a lot relating to the Melbourne Stars and Renegades merger.

There are a lot relating – in fact, there's even more relating to Gus Gould's refusal to say anything about Caelan Ponga on the –

State of origin coverage.

We devoted a fair bit of time, in fact, a lot of time to both those topics on the main body.