It came much earlier than all this. The "defection" of Nick Davis to Sydney and Sydney's refusal to trade Collingwood our first round pick, #5 overall (ultimately used for Jarrad McVeigh) apparently led McGuire to threaten Andrew Ireland that he would use his influence to bring down the Sydney club. His previous dislike for Ireland as a Collingwood player plus Ireland's key role in making the Lions a power (and defeating Collingwood in a GF) probably added to Eddie's paranoiac resentment of Ireland's influence and superior football strategising. Surely people don't think that the Richard Colless detestation of Eddie flowed from nothing. This feud came way before the COLA rubbish which only raised its head when we won the flag in 2012 and recruited the big boys up forward in subsequent years. Buddy's move to Sydney gave Batman McGuire a Robin in the form of Hawthorn President Newbold. Their cosy little relationship on the equalisation committee allowed this cancer within the AFL to fester and metastasise among others such as Peter Gordon. I also suspect that the McGuire/Newbold draft "anomalies" argument is a smoke screen for the bigger threat to their clubs - financial equalisation.
Bookmarks