Surprise surrounds Demons Pert appointment

Former Melbourne captain Garry Lyon says he was “shocked” to learn about the Demons appointing Gary Pert as the club’s new CEO.

Melbourne announced the news last night, with the former Collingwood CEO coming back into the football industry.

Legendary journalist Mike Sheahan was also “genuinely surprised” about the news, while Essendon champion Tim Watson was caught off-guard, explaining how he thought the decision would go down.

“I thought they had some succession plan in place,” he told SEN Breakfast.

“When Peter Jackson came out and said, I’ll be standing down as CEO of the Melbourne Football Club, I immediately thought, he has always been about succession plans.

“I thought because they had the succession plan with the coach, Peter Jackson spruiked succession plans, I thought it would have been an internal appointment.

“I thought they were grooming someone internally for that role.”

Pert will commence in the role in October of 2018.

Listen to the best bits of this morning's edition of SEN Breakfast with Garry Lyon and Tim Watson in the player below