Grumblings could be heard emanating from Arden St last week when former Essendon great Mark 'Bomber' Thompson described North Melbourne coach Brad Scott as having "done an average job at an average club" over the past eight years.
Thompson was answering a question about whether Scott had done enough to warrant a contract extension beyond the end of 2018.
If the remark was meant to be slightly humorous in that wacky, offbeat 'Bomber' kind of way, it was lost on the Kangaroos' hierarchy, or those with a long memory anyway.
For they remember Thompson being given a job as one of Denis Pagan's assistant coaches in 1999, the year the Kangas won the flag. And how he kept very unusual hours in executing that role.
He lasted just one season before being offered the senior coaching role at Geelong where, of course, he won two premierships, in 2007 and 2009, and helped build one of the best teams in recent memory.
So what prompted his unexpected and uncharitable assessment of Scott's performance?
Surely it would have nothing to do with the fact that North knocked Essendon out of the finals in 2014, when Thompson was coaching the Dons in James Hird's absence, in what was to be the last match 'Bomber' ever coached at AFL level?