Craig Kelly and Craig McRae revealed one of the AFL’s worst-kept secrets on the eve of round 23 when they summoned key football coaches and staffers at Collingwood’s Olympic Park headquarters to tell them that football boss Graham Wright would not be coming back to the club.
Although Kelly had not spoken to his old friend, colleague and former teammate Wright for weeks, it was the CEO who broke the news before stepping aside for reigning premiership coach McRae. The second Craig – or “Fly” as almost everyone in football calls him – then addressed the group, acknowledging that it had been a tough season where some key decisions and appointments had not worked. Kelly later addressed the entire staff and apologised for the sometimes-disruptive year.
The saying that everything is never as good as it seems and nor is everything as bad can be applied to the Magpies over 2023 and 2024. The last angry conversation between Kelly and Wright took place about six weeks ago when the latter was travelling through Italy, but the premiership season was occasionally punctuated with them as well.
Wright’s tenure at Collingwood predated Kelly. The last key appointment made by Eddie McGuire, the respected list manager and football boss came from Hawthorn and stepped into a club emotionally spent from COVID on and off the field and facing a multimillion-dollar salary-cap disaster.
Over a 2021 dominated by board upheaval, Wright negotiated Nathan Buckley’s gracious departure, oversaw McRae’s appointment and handled the Brodie Grundy exit. He went on to lead the retention of Jordan De Goey and stepped in as interim club chief executive until Kelly’s appointment. And yet now he has gone.
