Ned Guy quits: Collingwood AFL list boss to leave club amid disastrous 2021 season
Former recruiter Matt Rendell has hit back in his spat with Collingwood after the Pies launched a strong defence of departing list boss Ned Guy.
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Former recruiter Matt Rendell has hit back in his ongoing spat with Collingwood, claiming it was his “informed opinion” that Magpies list manager Ned Guy did not watch a lot of football.
Collingwood came out swinging in support of Guy on Saturday night with a strongly-worded statement targeting “inaccurate comments made by a one-time employee”.
That statement read that Guy had attended 137 AFL, SANFL, WAFL, TFL, NEAFL and NAB League matches in 2019, contradicting Rendell’s claim on Friday that the club’s list manager “didn’t watch much footy”.
Collingwood’s statement, attributed to chief executive Mark Anderson, added that Guy was “reserving his right to further action”.
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The Magpies announced midweek that Guy had tendered his resignation but would remain until after the mid-season draft on June 2.
Guy was the face of Collingwood’s much-criticised trade period fire sale and his bungled Fox Footy interview afterwards made matters worse.
Speaking on Sunday, an unfazed Rendell said his comments had been “blown out of proportion”.
“It’s your opinion. I was there and that’s what I saw and you have your opinion,” Rendell said on Footy SA.
“To me, it was my informed opinion. I don’t regret the comments, it’s a simple opinion and the club has got a different opinion, which they put out.
“I think it’s been blown out of proportion, to tell the truth.”
Rendell went on to take a swipe at the Collingwood’s management, saying he had not “heard from one person at the club” since he lost his part-time recruiting role last year amid COVID-19 budget cuts.
“After seven years of battling away trying to get the list into a position to challenge for the flag, I thought I at least deserved a text message, but nothing (was) forthcoming,” Rendell said.
“Some footy clubs are like that.”
‘DIDN’T WATCH MUCH FOOTY’: STUNNING SWIPE AT EX-LIST BOSS
Michael Warner
Former Collingwood recruiter Matthew Rendell has savaged Ned Guy’s reign as Magpies’ list boss, saying the former player manager “didn’t watch much footy”.
Guy resigned from the club on Tuesday following a disastrous trade period where the club lost Adam Treloar, Jaidyn Stephenson and its first-round pick in this year’s draft for little returns.
Rendell, who worked alongside Guy at the club between 2017-2020, said the Magpies’ list chief was not the right man for the job in the first place.
“Ned’s background is in finance and I think that’s why they got him in to try and fix up the TPP. But it didn’t quite work out that way,” Rendell said on SEN.
“My experience was that he didn’t watch much footy. People are coming into the club in recruiting and list management, you have to love watching all footy. Any grade of football I’ll watch them.
“I don’t think Ned was that keen on watching a lot of footy.
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“From that point of view I thought it was a really poor appointment by Geoff Walsh and no surprise it has ended up like it has.”
Guy served as Alex McDonald’s right-hand man at McDonald Sports before taking the Magpies’ list chief job in 2017.
He oversaw the move to bring in Dayne Beams for two first-round picks and initially denied Treloar’s departure was because of the Pies’ bloated salary cap.
Rendell, who was let-go by the Pies last year, said Guy wasn’t the only man to blame for the Collingwood’s salary cap nightmare.
“It was a disaster, not all of his own making, the last trade period,” Rendell said.
“That was a list management monumental stuff-up not only of one, but two or three years. Everyone has to take responsibility from that list management group
“He was trying to manage the outcome the best he could. He didn’t have many cards to deal with because everyone knew it was a fire sale.
“Ultimately, the footy manager is responsible. (The) list manager does all the groundwork, but the footy manager signs off on TPP (total player payments) and salary cap stuff. He has to sign off on trades and contracts.”
The Magpies have guaranteed access to father-son superstar Nick Daicos in this year’s draft, but the man likely to go No. 1 in this year’s lottery could wipe out the rest of the Pies’ picks unless they trade out more senior players.
Rendell said Daicos was a double-edged sword as they would pay a huge price in draft points for him.
“Nick Daicos looks like he is going to be No. 1, so all their points are going to Nick Daicos,” he said.
“They won’t have any picks in the second and third round unless they do any manoeuvring.
“They’re probably trying to pick a player at the back-end of the draft.”
‘HIS ACHIEVEMENTS WILL BECOME CLEARER’: PIES BACK GUY
Michael Warner and Glenn McFarlane
Controversial Collingwood list manager Ned Guy has sensationally quit less than six months after the Adam Treloar-Jaidyn Stephenson trade debacle.
It comes as the under-siege Magpies face one of the most critical games in their modern history on Saturday as coach Nathan Buckley fights to keep his job.
With Collingwood 1-6 and plummeting to 17th on the ladder after its worst start to a season in 16 years and facing the prospect of a list rebuild, Guy called time on his role late on Thursday.
He will stay on until the June 2 mid-season draft, with Collingwood general manager of football Graham Wright to take the role on an “interim basis”.
Guy was the man who oversaw the club’s tumultuous trade period, bearing the brunt of widespread supporter anger over the fire sale of Treloar, Stephenson, Tom Phillips and Atu Bosenavulagi for limited draft returns as they sought to relieve massive salary cap issues.
Compounding the frustration was the fact that Collingwood agreed to pay $300,000 of Treloar’s $900,000 annual salary for five seasons.
The anger heightened when Guy tried in vain to explain the rationale behind the decisions during a Fox Footy interview on trade night, saying the Treloar decision was influenced by the midfielder’s partner moving to Queensland to play netball.
Collingwood stressed on Thursday that Guy had made the decision to step away from the role.
Wright said the Magpies were “disappointed to be losing Ned … his experience as a player manager and list manager, along with his finance background, have been invaluable”.
“Recalibrating our player payments structure was a tough and necessary job. Our future payments profile is healthier in large part to him.
“In years to come his achievements will become clearer.
“I’m pleased he can stay with us until after the draft — he will always be welcome at Collingwood — and as disappointed as we are to be losing him, I wish him well in his new direction.”
It’s the latest chapter in what has been a disastrous six months for Collingwood.
Buckley, in his 10th year, is out of contract at the end of the year and is under pressure to retain the role after five successive losses.
The Magpies face bottom-of-the-ladder and winless North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium on Saturday and a loss would ramp up pressure on coach and club.
Off the field, the Magpies lost long-time president Eddie McGuire in February. He resigned in the wake of the club’s ‘Do Better’ report being leaked to the Herald Sun.
The independent report found a history of “systemic racism” at the club, which has led to a number of recommendations being adopted.
McGuire’s replacement, Mark Korda, took on the job after two months of sharing the role with fellow board member Peter Murphy.
The controversy engulfing Collingwood could yet fuel more fire for an extraordinary general meeting — and possible board challenge — playing into the hands of those keen to install former Channel 9 boss Jeff Browne as the president of the club.
Guy joined the Magpies in 2017, inheriting a large part of the salary cap issues that would push the club into crisis mode at the end of 2020.
He was in charge when Collingwood brought Dayne Beams back to the club — with board approval — which cost the Magpies heavily in terms of a lucrative long-term deal as well as two first-round draft picks.
Beams managed only nine games in his second stint with the Magpies before retiring.
Guy also signed ruckman Brodie Grundy to a seven-year deal, worth more than $900,000 a season, as the club was staring down the barrel of a salary cap crisis.
In his Fox Footy interview in November, Guy denied the salary cap had been the main reason for the Magpies fire sale of players.
“We had some conversations with Adam and (his manager) Tim (Hazell) originally around whether his family was going to move to Queensland and whether he wanted to do that and it evolved from having that conversation to he thought he’d look at another opportunity,” Guy told Fox Footy.
Asked directly if Collingwood would have looked to trade Treloar if Kim Ravaillion had chosen to continue her career in Victoria, Guy said: “That was the catalyst for the discussion. We wouldn’t have looked to have that discussion … it wouldn’t have evolved from that, I wouldn’t have thought, no.”
Originally published as Ned Guy quits: Collingwood AFL list boss to leave club amid disastrous 2021 season
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