Dumbass 2

Angwin has been sacked. Norman fined $5000 and suspended for a week (no, if the ecstacy story is right I don't think that's anywhere near long enough either).

Carlton did their best to help Laurence Angwin but to no avail. At North, Pagan was able to keep quite a few 'troubled' young players on the straight and narrow, and alraedy at Carlton it looks like he has turned Brendan Fevola and Ryan Houlihan into footballers, but Angwin was beyond his help. He should not be criticised for trying. The ghost of Rhett Baynes is haunting this story and everyone hopes Laurie sorts himself out before he reaches that stage.

This is bound to fall on deaf ears but, Sam and Trev, move along please, there's nothing you can use here....

Scuse my ignorance, but who was Rhett Baynes?

Rhett Baynes was a big ruckman from WA Carlton signed in the old Form 4 days. I think he might have played in John Todd's Swan Districts premiership teams in the early 80s. Apparently when he came to Carlton he rode acrosss the Nullarbor on a Harley Davidson. He had quite a bit of talent but he was as mad as a fart in a bottle. Not stupid (he was a graduate from WA teachers college), just mentally ill. As his career at Carlton faded (Harry Madden finished second in a Brownlow and blokes like Kerhnahan and Dorotich had moved into the key positions) he did a couple of really stupid 'stick-up' jobs on places like 7-11's and Macca's, and was put away for a while for his own protection.

He played about a dozen games at Carlton in the mid-80s, a couple for Sydney when he moved there for the 89 season (under his Carlton seconds coach Colin Kinnear), and when that didn't work out he left the game and went back to Perth. A couple of years later word filtered back to Melbourne that he had killed himself.

Whether anything could have been done better, who knows, but Baynes is still a very sore spot with a few around Carlton at the time, especially Col K.

Sad tale FN - but after hearing all Lozzas stories, he may be the kid that noone could really help other than himself...