For kicks, try and say the title of this post 11 times quickly. If you get past 3 with perfect diction let me know.

Now - down to business.

Sometimes a madman's only sane response to insanity is to break out of the straight jacket. And given a choice between having Jack in or out of the straight jacket, set him free I say, set him free.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves - GWS are diabolically bad at the moment & to have beaten them by less than 100 points would have been sinful. However, Jack's one man revolution against the RFC unity ticket had a truly remarkable effect on the field last weekend: it sparked an outbreak of unity.  For the first time this season our lads appeared to be playing to a single game plan. Never mind that one of the main lines of attack in Jack's revolution was that very same game plan. Never mind that 11 goal Jack was the biggest beneficiary of its execution against the Giants. Mere distractions. What the Reiwoldt Revolt did was break the rhythm of a defensive narrative that just wasn't working.

Any high performing team needs three things for success: the right system, the right skills for using the system, and the right execution of the system and skills under performance pressure. Frustrated by the side's poor performances under pressure, Jack did not run with the 'we don't know what's wrong' line. He challenged the system, which I think forced the club - and particularly the players - to confront that grave question: do we have the right system? If yes, then our trouble is either a skill and / or an execution problem. The weekend's performance then further answered what our main problem has been. It could not have been skill because fixing skills requires weeks not a handful of days. Therefore, it must be an execution problem. And indeed, an honest assessment of the side's form this season points to poor game day performances by most players as the main culprit in our hapless 2014 season.

Damien Hardwick, lovely fella. Sometimes I think too lovely. A more ruthless coach would be more direct with the players and the public. When I was a junior hack, I remember when a coach of mine was so frustrated with the game day performances of the First XVIII that he dropped the lot of us one week and played the Second XVIII instead. We got thrashed, but that coach lost a battle in order to win a war. The continuing tolerance of poor performance ferments a culture of under achievement. 

I reckon Jack could no longer tolerate the poor performance excuses. Not being in the leadership group this season, how else could he make his point? Whether he meant it or not, there was a method in his madness. He did not mind copping several boots in the yarse if suffering that inconvenience would serve notice to the players.

Are there still some doubts? Well yes of course. We will have much harder tests of our system, skills & execution that GWS. But what Jack's one man revolution achieved was to bring some honesty back into the spotlight. And this is welcome because there are two things that no footy fan should ever have to bear: 1. The claim that a club does not know what is wrong and 2. Consistently poor execution from a group of professional players.

So let's have more of Jack the mad revolutionary, a fellow who is as much 'fan' as he is 'player'. And let's have some more of that good old fashioned honest accountability that Old Tom was legendary for. 

Eat them alive Tigers, eat them alive.