Richmond AFL boss says lock it in to CairnsMurray Wenzel
Thursday, July 11, 2013
The Cairns Post RICHMOND boss Brendan Gale has urged any club considering playing a home game at Cazalys to ignore his side's on-field woes in the Far North and lock it in.
The Tigers CEO admitted he never thought they would lose both games to the Gold Coast when he signed the deal with the AFL, but that it had still been an off-field success.
With no premiership game scheduled for Cairns next season and the Gold Coast Suns only committed to playing as the away team, the future of AFL in the region is in limbo following this Saturday night's fixture.
But Gale backed the venue and the city to remain an AFL destination.
"I would hope and expect there should be games played up there next year and into the future," he told The Cairns Post yesterday.
"It's a huge positive for the community and the Richmond Football Club can't speak highly enough of the AFL Cairns football family."
When Richmond agreed to play three home games in Cairns in 2010 they were a young playing group with a big debt.
Now they are debt free, have more than 60,000 members and are pushing for a finals berth.
Gale said that was a prime example of how, off field at least, the club had benefited from its association with Cairns and why other Victorian clubs in a similar predicament could benefit from doing the same.
"I couldn't have imagined it would be any worse here last year, but in the circumstances it was when Karmichael Hunt kicked that goal," he said. "But I won't lie, as much as it was about promoting the sport up in Cairns, it was a commercial decision to come here and build financial strength."
"On-field aside, we couldn't be happier with our experience."
Now the club have developed into a team that wants to play finals year-in, year-out, Gale said moving more games away from the MCG was not an option.
"We are averaging 60,000 to our home games; we just can't afford to do that," he said.
He said the team had matured since last year's gutting loss in Cairns.
"The manner in which we lost last year was not in isolation. We're controlling the close games better now and that just comes with experience and we got that by playing as a young group in places like Cairns."
http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2013/07/11/245146_local-sport-news.html
