As you now know, Dean Bailey passed away at 2 o’clock this morning, with Caron by his side, after a brief but courageous battle with an aggressive lung cancer.

Dean was just 47 years old and as everyone will appreciate, his loss is devastating first and foremost for his family; but of course for everyone at our Club, and for many across the football industry.

You all know, and I’m sure deeply respect, the contribution that Dean has had on our game, across three states and a number of Clubs. I won’t reel that off, because it’s readily available. But I would take the opportunity to say we’ve lost someone who’s had a profound impact on so many places and so many people – that it just adds to the terrible sadness we’re all feeling at this point in time.

For our Club, Dean very quickly established himself as a really genuine mentor and educator. His tremendous wisdom and experience was shared – and while he loved sharing it, the players (in particular) lapped it up. He was a great developer of players – both as footballers and young men.

He had an extraordinary capacity to be intuitive about players’ needs and their emotions – and about the way we should play the game.

In the end, Bails was awfully sick. But in the moments I was able to have with him personally, he was strong on the fact that we – as a Club – should press ahead with everything we do (and need to do) to be successful.

So for us as a Club, his direct message is really clear. We have a responsibility to do what he can’t. To learn, to develop and to leave no stone unturned to be as successful as we can be, individually, and as a group. That’s our responsibility, and one we’ve talked to the players about already.

So that our supporters know, we’ll respect Dean’s wishes to forge ahead in our preparations for Round 1, but we have cancelled all key events that were on today. The Season Launch tomorrow night will go ahead as planned, allowing us – if nothing else – to bring the Crows family together to reflect and prepare.

For now though, our absolute focus is on supporting Caron, Darcy and Mitch -  and we’ve put everything  into that area we can. They’ve had a horrible three months and a very challenging 18 months in reality and so our heartfelt sympathy and support is with them now and into the future.

We’ve also, as you’d expect, had time to prepare, and so there are very extensive support processes that’ve been put around our players, coaches and staff this morning.

In short, we’ve lost a great mate, a wonderful family man and an extraordinary contributor to our game – all of which at this point seems so unfair.

Having talked about our responsibility to do what he can’t do – at the moment we also need to have the courage that he displayed over the past 3 months – and that’s what we intend to do as a Club.