From Frank Costa's generally stable board down,there appeared to be some unrest at every level. The review was announced in July and the spotlight turned to coach Mark Thompson and his future.
With Cook already highly respected,having built and overseen two premierships at West Coast and having significantly reduced Geelong's crippling debt and stabilised the Cats'finances,the review according to insiders sealed his legacy as a one of the game's great administrators.
While every battling club grapples with its own individual set of circumstances it remains baffling that less experienced club chiefs have not moved to pick apart in detail the nuances of the Cook review.
The Cats'round-nine rival Collingwood presents a stark example of a powerful and successful AFL operation which appears to have lost its way in a football sense despite the best of intentions. While there has rarely been a more unified triumvirate than Eddie McGuire,Gary Pert and Nathan Buckley since the latter took over in 2012,a combination of coaching expertise,recruiting and players'behavioural standards has somehow been falling short.
It must be said,though,that younger bosses such as Richmond's Brendon Gale – who has also stabilised his club's finances but is now facing the mammoth task of reviewing and also making key personnel changes across coaching,recruiting and high performance to achieve the next level at Tigerland – have sought Cook's counsel from time to time.
In 2006 the Cats chief enlisted just one outside consultant – his old coach David Parkin – and spent the best part of 60 days interviewing close to 60 club stakeholders ranging from first-year players to coaches to player agents. Nineteen of 20 recommendations Cook put to the board were accepted.
The view of the senior players was that if the CEO was prepared to get his hands dirty on the factory floor then the least they could do was speak truthfully. Adamant that Thompson was the right coach,the players were equally adamant that he had become distracted from coaching by a football bureaucratic thicket including list management,fitness,recruiting and IT.