I read some of the reports this morning, Bunt was pretty much solely blamed for the club dipping out of the finals contention in the review and their were obvious questions over his leadership.
They pounded him and he took exception to that as he sees himself as some kind of immortal.
If you want to keep an underperforming player, there’s various ways of raising issues -in a constructive way and trying to be positive, get them to buy into making changes and meeting expectations.
But they just smashed him!
He sulks for weeks and considers his revenge. He could have struck back in many ways but throws Kyle under the bus and tries to embarrass and humiliate him.
Doesn’t even the guts to front flanno etc with his grievances, but takes a cheap low gutted dog shot at a good friend (according to Kyle) and a work colleague.
The zoom call and the club waits for him to seek a release, which he does, and the new era begins.
I think the club had made up its mind he needed to go before the review. If they wanted to , I think they could have held their fire against him at the review, been more nuanced and diplomatic. They knew he had been toying with abandoning ship for a few years. But it wasn’t the straw broke the camels back, it was fully loaded roadtrain!
We got very annoyed at Stefano last year because he kept playing chicken for 6 months. We gave him a final offer and told him to hurry up and make his mind up. When we grabbed him from the eels, he was a kid on minimal salary and there are reports we offered over $500k extra to bring him to WT and when we ask for the love back, hes nowhere to be seen! Some of these players have no shame!
I still wonder why Shane kept Bunt for so long. I guess you were well into finals contention until the twilight of the regular season.
I also watched the extended SGI highlights v storms in Melbourne. The idiot game editors who put this package together missed a lot of the tension at the back end of the game unfortunately.
We all know that clinging desperately to a slim lead against an Uber elite powerhouse marquee gf side was the highlight. They just should have shown the last 5 minutes!!
Right at the end you see Flanno and the brains trust, and that is the happiest you will see Flanno since his gf I think. Pig in s…t stuff, grin from ear to ear.
Awesome.