Brock McLean reveals Melbourne players rebelled against tanking to secure top-two draft picks
Ex-Demon Brock McLean has revealed a group of senior players approached then coach Dean Bailey, who he is convinced was an “unwilling participant” and was made a “scapegoat”, in an effort to stop the club’s tanking in 2009.
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Brock McLean says he was part of a delegation of Melbourne players who pleaded with coach Dean Bailey to stop tanking in the days after the club’s farcical loss to Richmond in Round 18, 2009.
But retired Demon McLean says those players were told by Bailey the club had to stay the course in its determination to secure the priority pick that would help it draft Jack Trengove and Tom Scully.
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Bailey told the players in pretty stern words, “We have all got to be on the same page here,” according to McLean.
McLean was ultimately the trigger for a 2012 tanking investigation that saw official Chris Connolly and coach Bailey suspended, although the AFL never upheld a tanking charge.
Melbourne was fined $500,000 and Connolly suspended for 12 months for “acting in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the competition”, with that Round 18 game one of three heavily scrutinised by the AFL.
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Asked by the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast whether he believes Melbourne tanked in 2009, McLean replied: “I will rehash an old saying, I think you would have be Blind Freddy not to see that they weren’t.”
It was those exact words that triggered the investigation when he uttered them on Fox Footy’s On The Couch in 2012 when he was asked if winning was a priority at the Demons in 2009.
In a remarkable Round 18 clash that the Herald Sun described the following day as “high farce”, Jordan McMahon kicked the winning goal for Richmond after a series of extraordinary moves saw Melbourne’s players effectively nobbled.
In that game Russell Robertson and Colin Sylvia were dropped for VFL regulars Jake Spencer and Michael Newton, forward Brad Miller played ruck, star tagger James McDonald played back pocket and Aaron Davey was dragged as he was starting to turn the game.
McLean said the players were determined to win but it was obvious they were being prevented from doing so and the leadership group protested strongly in the aftermath.
“I remember being at the club on the Monday or the Tuesday. A few others players were like, ‘Nup, this is absolute shit, we won't be a part of this’. These were younger players, not the older players,” McLean told Sacked.
“I think a few of us, maybe the leadership group at the time, went into Dean Bailey's office and you could tell that he was doing things against his will and his want or desire to win games of footy. We were just told in pretty stern words we have all got to be on the same page.
“It wasn't a good time at all, wasn't a good time for anyone involved, the players who were coached against their will, I guess, for the main part.”
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Bailey had been given express orders to maximise the club’s draft picks and McLean still believes the coach was made a scapegoat.
The Herald Sun unearthed 80 pages of the AFL investigation last year, in which Bailey told investigators: “What was said to me was, if I win games I would get sacked.”
Asked who he blamed, McLean replied: “Look, I wasn't privy to a lot of those conversations. (President) Jimmy (Stynes) has passed away, Dean has passed away, when that came up last year (in a Herald Sun investigation), it was really sad.
“I felt sorry for his wife Caron and Mitch and his other son (Darcy). I felt really sorry for them because, to see their dead husband and father's name pop up again, and he is not there to defend himself.
“One hundred per cent I think he was a scapegoat, or sort of a victim in all of this. He was an unwilling participant.
“Talking to Bails, and sort of seeing what was going on, I think (other figures) may have been the masterminds behind it, maybe, and again going on from what I saw and from what I heard, but I was never privy to those conversations, so I can't unequivocally say (who).”
Originally published as Brock McLean reveals Melbourne players rebelled against tanking to secure top-two draft picks