Hazyshadeofgrinter

If the club looked disfunctional it was because Jim stuffed up. That is not Coglin's fault. Coglin decided to put the interests of the club ahead of Jim's (and his own). Why should he expect Jim to behave any differently the next day when Jim just completely blanked him? Why didn't Stynes contact Coglin given that Stynes was the one in the wrong? How else could Coglin have set the record straight on a matter that Jim made public, by non-public means, when Jim refused to do so? It wasn't a matter of Jim's opinion. Jim's opinion was contrary to the facts. Facts win. Why should Coglin be humble and not Jim? Is this a joke? Why indeed?

Let's say you have a dear friend who is loving and respectful to women. You and your buddy are at a party when Jim Stynes stands up and tells 300 prominent people, each of whom know your friend, that your buddy is actually a misogynist. Let us also say that your friend is pretty fragile at the moment and can't afford to have these nasty, false rumours flying around about him. You're pretty ticked off about what Jim said, especially considering that your buddy can't really stand up for himself, but it Jim's party and you don't want to make a scene, so you wait a while before you discuss it with him An hour later, you approach Jim to find out what it was all about and to set him straight about your buddy. Maybe it was an honest mistake and Jim will somehow be able to se the record straight after he knows the truth. But even after you have given irrefuable evidence that what Jim said about your buddy is completely back-to-front, Jim just sits there and doesn't say a word. You are shocked at the way that Jim ignores you. You had always thought that Jim was a pretty inclusive guy. You think about trying to set the record straight about your buddy with some of Jim's mates, but then you realise that Jim's kind of the leader of the gang and that you aren't likely to get anyware. Even worse, sticking up for your buddy like this is beginning to affect your own reputation. All you can really do is write a blog about it. You will probably lose a lot of cred for going up against Jim like this but at least your friend's name will be cleared. Jim might look a little bad and this might even reflect poorly on you and your buddy for "snitching" on him like this but what else could you do? And besides, he brought it on himself anyway. He shouldn't have made those comments about your friend and he shouldn't have ignored you when you tried to sort it out with him personally.

1. He went to Stynes first. 2. He went for the defence of the club's reputation, as well as his own, and his board's. How's this for a lesson - if you make a mistake you should fix it - they don't go away on their own.

Jim was not merely commentiong on Cronulla-type problems. He also directly dsiparaged the club and everyone in it for belonging to a culture which featured the ignorance and exclusion of women. Given that you are of the opinion that "negative publicity is the last thing we need", I expect hat you are not only dissapointed by Jim's ill-advised choice of topic (i.e. Cronulla etc.), but by his negative revisionist take on one of the best off-field stories at the club. It would be nice to think that Jim might have eventually, publicly retracted his statements about this, but now we will never know. We can only assume however, that Coglin was of the opinon that this was highly unlikely. What choice would you have made?

Yes, sounds like this was a refence to his frame of mind during the speech, not at 3/4 time. It also sounds loquacious. Well he is paraphrasing but that is fair enough. t sounds more like Coglin confronted Jim and Jim listened. (without saying anything - but more on this later). He did not state that he did not wait for a resonse - these are your words. What he did state was that he left without making a scene (a hard thing for an abusive man to do by the way). He also stated that "He didn't say a word to me, not a single word." Predictably, you left this out. Predicatably because it is a very strage comment for a man to make if he has just launched a tirade without giving his opponent an oportunity to respond. The peice de resistance though is your suggestion that Coglin was so angry, that he simply coudln't hear Jim's polite attmpts at conflict resolution: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Oh wait, I forgot this bit too: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! He went to the boss and got nothing. The whole thing was the boss' fault anyway. How you can still keep trying to blame Coglin for going to the media, when he was practically forced to by Jim's false claims, Jim's silent treatment and then Coglin's own conscience, is beyond me.

You wish. Care to present an alternative?

Here is an exerpt from my second post in this thread: Here is another one from a susequent post: I think you will find that I am part of a very "exclusivity" minority of posters who have entertained all of these possibilites. Flaccid tripe is a reasonable response becasue it is a perfect description of your post. Your "argument" rests upon the false assumption that I have not entertained the possibility that Jim stayed stone cold silent in order to "prevent the situation from escalating." This is utter nonsense as you would know if you spent less time telling people to re-read your posts and more time reading those to which you are responding. To cap it all off - this is the argument you have when you are not having an argument. Ok so, you present a highly specific hypothetical example (tenuous) You maintain that I refuse to accept it as a possibility (wrong) You then say that you are not really arguing that this hypothetical example is the case because, you admit, you have no idea. (tenuous) And then you cap it all off with: That is, if we persist with this specific thought experiment that is so tenuous that you yourself are unwilling to make it your contention, you think that there might be some other, unnamed logical possibility other than calling the Sun. What an utter waste of time. Ther were plenty of other things Coglin could have done. He could have saved himself the trouble and kept mum. He could have tried to undercut the boss and seen if Schwab or someone could get Jim to come around and be reasonable. But it is pretty rich to criticise Coglin for going to the media even in this rare hypothetical instance that you pose. Because: 1: he tried to sort it out with Jim first and was given the silent treatment. & 2: he was determined to preserve the good image of the club, even at his own expense. What if Coglin is actually just a butterfly dreaming that he is a pincipled ex-boardmember?

Sorry, mate you got it wrong. You seem to be another demonland unfortunate who is stuck at the cognitive developmental stage where MFC = Stynes. It turns out that they are not the same thing. the MFC is bigger than you, me Coglin and Stynes put together. With any luck, it willl be here long after we are all gone. Coglin was not using the media against the Club. He was using it for the club. It is a shame that he was forced to use it at all.

Then you will be pleased to learn that the MFC has been the leader in this field for the last few years - despite what some would have you believe.

If Jim had his way, the vast majority of the club would believe that the MFC has a history of excluding and ingoring women. What a great shame that would be. Seems to me like you are more worried about Jim's ego than the reputation of the club.

Do you or do you not think that the club has had a culture of excluding and ignoring women over the last few years? We still don't know how "heated" this allegedly "abusive" discussion was. We do know that if Stynes said absolutley nothing then Coglin could hardly make an appointment with him to resolve the matter elsewhere. You have it arse backwards. Coglin went to the Sun because he was worried about the club's reputation. It seems as though he had little option. the MFC is bigger than Jim Stynes. It has been sorted. It was sorted this morning in the paper when Coglin set the record straight - no thanks to Jim. Hopefully, the truth of the matter will reach the ears of all 300 of the people that Jim misled. I might add that whilst this solution might be a little embarassing for Stynes, it has probably come at a greater cost to Coglin who, it appears, was willing to knowingly subject himself to the hatred of the nuffie brigade for what he saw as the best thing for the club.

Could be. I am open to that possibility. Although it does smell suspiciously like option 2. Still, even if this were the case, it didn't leave Coglin with much option did it? EDIT: It seems as though you are not arguing much then huh? A bit of a shame I responded so reasonably, no? Makes you look a little silly.

For the umpteenth time he did try to settle it with Stynes. As for self-serving - why did Jim choose to couch his Cronulla/gender observations in the false context of past failings on behalf of the club? Could he not have instead used this opportunity to promote our good record on womens issues? And as for agenda - ask yourself what your agenda is when you come on here. Hopefully this will help you see just how stupid and irrelevant these sorts of comments are. No, I refuse to read that flaccid tripe again. Stynes stuffed up. Coglin approached him to fix it. It wasn't fixed. Coglin went to the media. Why is it so surprising that Jim remained silent? there are any number of possibile reasons. Here are just a few off the top of my head. 1. He was embarassed because he didn't realise that Coglin was in the audience. 2. He was hoping that if he ignored it, that it would just go away. 3. He was utterly dumfounded by the novelty of someone questioning his actions. 4. Swine Flu

Neither had I until his speech. I have heard plenty of it on here though.

Your last two sentences: Going to the Sun was not a mistake and it was not Coglin's first port of call. Jim was. It seems as though Jim didn't handle the matter very well after he was confronted. Strong clubs do not feel the need to falsify and denigrate their past acheivements in order to make themselves look good in the present. Coglin cannot be blamed if Jim's comments and the reaction that they elicited caused Jim to look amateur. Jim's behaviour was amateur. If this means the club looks a little amatuer by association then this is probably a small price to pay to prevent the club from looking like it has a history of excluding and ignoring women. And you could learn to accept them more graciously.

This might make some sense if you gave the all benefit of the doubt to Stynes and none to Coglin. It still wouldn't change the fact that Jim was propogating a falsehood about the club that was besmirching it's good reputation. A falsehood that needed to be addressed. And it still wouldn't change the fact that if I were an MFC player, I would not appreciate being likened to a Cronulla rugby player for no apparent benefit to the club.

What was he supposed to do? Someone had to defenc the reputation of the club - clearly that someone wasn't going to be Jim.

Subject change, I win. (Although it is probably technically a draw given the cheap shot I took about your record with women).

Fair cop - I normally try to be a little better than that. I guess I'm a little tired. He just left himself wide open and it was to hard to pass up. FWIW If we assume that Jim wasn't prepared to make a public retraction/revision of his comments, then what should Coglin have done? Should he have simply permitted Jim's falsehood to go unchallenged?

From memory, what Stynes actually said is that "we (i.e. "the club") were nuturing an environment of exclusivity and ignorance..." Due to the way in which Coglin has been quoted, the pro-noun has been changed to denote the fact the Coglin was referring to Jim taking over the role as chairman. Either way the meaning is clear. Coglin raises Jim's use of the term "exclusivity" ("I think he meant") because what Jim probably meant to say was "exclusion". Maybe Jim grew up speaking Gaelic or something, who knows? Once again, the meaning is clear either way. Your desperate search for ambiguity is futile. You have heard it from me and you have read it in the paper. When you find someone else you know who has heard the speech first-hand then you will hear it from them also. But, feel free to nuture your own environment of exclusion and ignorance to your heart's content. The club cannot "move forward together" if the President is telling fibs about the club that he inherited. Neither do these fibs encourage club stability. It seems to me that if anyone was bignoting, it was Jim - and he did so not just at the expense of Coglin, but at the expense of the club also. And lets not forget that Jim probably could have set it right if he wanted to - after all, Coglin went to Jim before the media. I think I'll take a break now. It seems like you and your fellow fundamentalists need some time to regroup (or preferably, to come to your senses). I mean, "exclusivity/exclusion: therefore all information is invalid"? Come on.

I see. You doubt whether I even heard the speech, yet you are quite happy to claim with certainty that Coglin was yelling at Stynes. If you are always this pig-headed, then I suspect that your track record with women is not quite so enviable.

Whatever mate. You might think I'm biased but you have no grounds for suggesting that I made any of this up. I have always been accurate with the facts in the past - even if people don't always agree with my interpretations of them. The most relevant part of Jim's speech is contained in the article linked at the top of this thread. Coglin claims that he was so taken aback that he wrote it down. here it is: "He [Jim] said that when he and his board came in to office, and I wrote this down, he was nurturing an environment of exclusivity, I think he meant exclusion but he said exclusivity, and ignorance towards women and young supporters." This is what Jim said in his speech. His intended meaning was clear. There is not getting away from it. Ask anyone you know who might have been there. Or, alternatively, you could invent your own reality. It's probably easier for you than coming to grips with the fact that Jim is not the messiah. He's just a very naughty boy.

Well it all depends on what image you are most concerned about. A ) You are most concerned about Jim's image Then by all means promote Jim's revisionist history of the role of women in the MFC and do not correct his public mistake. B ) You are most concerned about the club's image Ask Jim to publicly retract his false statements and failing that, dispute them in the media. (I'm guessing that this is what Coglin did) The thing I love about everyone else's posts, is that in the mad rush to blame hot-headed, egocentric Coglin, nobody has considered that: It was Stynes who made this issue public when he gave his speech in front of 300 notaries. and It was Stynes who damaged the reputation of the club with the fictional account of the MFC club culture that was contained therein.

It is not about sides wanting Jim to be right or wrong. If Jim says 2+2=5 he is wrong no matter how much people want him to be right. When Jim said he inherited a culture of "exclusivity" and ignorance towards women in the club, he was similarly and irrefutably wrong. You may not care about Coglin's legacy and Coglin's reputation. Fine. However, as you were part of the club culture the Jim so poorly descibed, I would be surprised if you were not concerned about the legacy and reputation of your football club. Coglin protected this in the media after what he clearly found to be a fruitless discussion with Stynes. Perhaps you can do the same by letting us know what your thoughts are on the initiatives that were taken by the club to promote the inclusion of women over the last few years.