Real estate boss Anthony Ferraro, a former Blues reserves player, and club champion Anthony Koutoufides were reportedly at the centre of the suggested challenge to Mark LoGiudice's board. Ferraro purchased a club membership in August and was hesitant to take a position when first contacted by Fairfax Media on Friday.

But Ferraro later in the day denied he was planning to challenge the board, which was scheduled to meet on Monday and install Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner Kate Jenkins as a director. LoGiudice has also succeeded where many have failed and will finally streamline his group of directors to a workable eight come December.

Ferraro said that he had been approached several times to run but had come to the decision that LoGiudice and his team deserved the chance to set about rebuilding the club without external resistance.

"At the end of the day I'm not happy where the club sits," said Ferraro. "I'm not happy where it sits on or off the field but the board deserves the opportunity to improve our situation."

Some club directors believed Ferraro and Koutoufides had been looking to put together a rebel ticket – as reported by News Limited – although doubts surrounded whether that ticket was fully in place.

Broadcaster Tom Elliott and influential club great Fraser Brown also moved to distance themselves from the reported challenge although both men had looked at running for the board over the past two years.

Former vice-president Richard Newton and another ex-director Ryan Trainor, both disgruntled backroom Blues, are also understood to have assured club bosses they were not planning to challenge.

Surely any move to destabilise the club now would be a misstep of monstrous proportions. Particularly with a rookie coach just literally having taken on the job and surrounded by a largely youthful assistant coaching team.

Brendon Bolton's contract is not as loose as the club would have its supporters believe — he will receive decent compensation should he depart the Blues before three years is up, as he should — but his position remains precarious enough given the bold decision by Carlton's list management to take such a deliberate step backwards to move forward.

The last thing Bolton needs is a divided club. Even the veteran Mick Malthouse was set back by the likes of Bruce Mathieson publicly berating the Blues administration at his whim.

LoGiudice was one member of a deeply factionalised and poor-performing board but he remains a rookie chairman and deserves the chance to have a serious crack at rebuilding.

Having installed Steven Trigg, Stephen Silvagni, coach Bolton and by extension a virtually face-lifted executive and football team, LoGiudice has not backed away from the task at hand nor has he undersold the extent of the club's problems.

He fronted the AFL Commission during the second half of the season and received the albeit-cautious imprimatur the club required. As reported by Fairfax Media earlier this week the Blues remain fearful of becoming an AFL-run basket case.

There has been plenty of talk in recent years of the "old Carlton way" - the big hit, the quick fix and the short cut to success.

This so-called board challenge — one which to date has suspiciously failed to name itself — smacks of that.

LoGiudice, Trigg and this group, while they could well fail, deserve longer than 17 months to repair close to two decades of damage.