One-Eyed Richmond Forum
Football => Richmond Rant => Topic started by: one-eyed on April 19, 2010, 08:44:45 AM
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Only compromise can stop Richmond
Patrick Smith
The Australian
April 19, 2010
RICHMOND is winless.
The prospect of the club improving that stat this season is slim.
Yet the Tigers are as well placed if not better than any club in the competition to once again be a force in the AFL.
The club is effectively about to be reborn.
What it grows up to be is in the hands of the new administration -- chief executive Brendon Gale, football boss Craig Cameron and coach Damien Hardwick. Gale and Hardwick are in their first year of service, Cameron his second.
Their task is a mighty one but it is an opportunity that few get in football. That is a clean slate. Too many clubs are burdened with traditions that blinker and blind. That is not Richmond's problem.
Decades of incompetency have washed away any sense of what it is to be a Tiger.
That takes some doing, for the club has been dominant. It has won 10 premierships but none since 1980. In the 30 years since it has played in just eight finals, one of them the 1982 grand final loss to Carlton. The last final was an 11- goal flogging by Brisbane in 2001.
The club has been so broke it has been forced to beg in public for its very future.
The club has been inept at recruiting, partly because it did not have the money to investigate likely prospects. Tradition cannot survive such ordinariness. At Richmond it hasn't.
Effectively, the new administration must see itself as starting up a new club. What Gale, Cameron and Hardwick do now will define the club in the future. Punt Road must be seen as a centre of excellence in everything.
Its young playing list may not be able to play excellently but it can train that way. Hardwick can coach excellently, Cameron run an excellent football department and Gale seek excellence from his staff. That must be the minimum requirement.
If they do not falter then the club will draw superior sponsors. The dormant supporter base will come to life.
If Richmond can stand for all things exceptional then people will queue up to stand with them. It will be admired by its competitors, players will angle to join the team. Success has many measures.
Winning is one, striving another. Over time, striving begets winning. That must be the force that drives the Tigers.
Only one thing can stop Richmond from becoming the No 1 sporting club in the country if it has a mind to. Compromise. If the Tigers mould their principles to circumstances then it will have no principles at all.
The club has started with good intent. Cameron had barely sat down in his new job when the club drafted Ben Cousins. It was handled in a manner that showed the club had no direction and precious little confidence in its ability to make the right choices.
Richmond changed its Cousins story by the hour. Coming, not coming, yes, no, thinking about it, ruled it out.
Eventually Cousins did go to Richmond and the choice has proved sound. In a club without strong core playing leadership, the premiership player, All-Australian and Brownlow Medallist has set a high standard at training and on the field. If nothing else the recruitment of Cousins showed the club that its supporter base was deep and broad. Membership swelled on the expectation that the club could -- with Cousins -- improve on its fast finishing ninth in 2008.
It came to nothing as expectation paralysed the club. Cameron calmly and swiftly headed off a selfish player revolt to have coach Terry Wallace sacked. Cameron held his nerve and his sense of decency. Wallace would leave before the season was over but the players could not claim his scalp.
Last week Cousins would be central to another decision that -- if the principles that drove it are held firm -- will shape Richmond. Cousins, along with relatively experienced players Dean Polo and Luke McGuane, was in the company of defender Daniel Connors who was mightily drunk and noisy. Cousins, Polo and McGuane were suspended for yesterday's match against Melbourne and Connors banned for eight games.
The decision clearly compromised the club's chances of beating Melbourne but not its principles. The club wants the players to maintain standards constantly, not every now and then. So even Cousins was put aside for a week.
True, Richmond was in a position where it could thump the table. It is rebuilding its list from top to bottom and that takes time and a lot of losses. Nonetheless, it did what other clubs have not and could not do. It set a standard of excellence.
Other clubs have tried to do a bit of both -- discipline and seeking victory at the same time -- and achieved neither. Look at Carlton and Brendan Fevola. The club refused to punish him because he was a potential match-winner. With Fevola under no threat of being held to account, the club suffered. The brand was bashed, the club lost the respect of the broad community. Collingwood has compromised, too. Coach Mick Malthouse will not suspend undisciplined players if it threatens the team's on-field chances. Unless, of course, they lie to him like Heath Shaw and Alan Didak did.
West Coast's leadership was humbled in front of the AFL commission when it refused to restrain the wild behaviour of a large group of players.
Essendon spent a summer considering what to do with Michael Hurley after he was charged following a kerfuffle with a taxi driver. The club looked lame and hesitant. Geelong, which has won two premierships in the past three years, banished Stevie Johnson when he continually stuffed up in 2007 and Matthew Stokes has only returned to the club this week after being charged with drug offences. Sydney, so admired as a club under Paul Roos, moved Barry Hall on after he could not keep his fists to himself. No compromises.
This is an exciting time for Richmond. Craig, Brendon and Damien's excellent journey has begun.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/only-compromise-can-stop-richmond/story-e6frg7uo-1225855241942
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im starting to like fatrick smith
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LOL you want some mouthwash X or you gonna roll with that ? First nice thing fatprick sniff has ever written about us though, so i'm taking it as a sarcastic piece. :lol
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LOL you want some mouthwash X or you gonna roll with that ? First nice thing fatprick sniff has ever written about us though, so i'm taking it as a sarcastic piece. :lol
2nd good thing he has said about us in les that a week, i think he can see the bigger picture
smith is turning
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And that is exactly what Hardwick didn't do - The kids were in for a tatse 'Dea' was left on and will learn from the experience.
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Only one thing can stop Richmond from becoming the No 1 sporting club in the country if it has a mind to. Compromise. If the Tigers mould their principles to circumstances then it will have no principles at all.
Tanking, anyone?
Have to say I'm surprised at Smith's article - shows some vision and understanding for the task at hand - didn't think he was unbiased enough to see it for what it was.
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Someone was saying if Melbourne do not win 5 games they still get a priority in front of us even if we come last with no wins?
Can someone WP/MT who actually knows please elaborate. Confused
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I'm noticing our harshest critics are embracing what we are doing. For a long long time richmond fc has had zero respect bc most knowledgeable ppl have seen through their subterfuge for what they really are. Finally for the first time in decades the club is being run with transperancy and openness ie taking responsibility on the chin for past mistakes instead of lumping it on a scapegoat.
good article
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With the shift in the philosophy on how to fix Richmond comes a shift in alliances I suppose, each philosophy has its supporters, some of our 'hang in there' crew from the TW era have gone sour on us and vice versa. I hope we are on the right track, but, having hoped since we muffed that grand final against Carlscum in 82...I am getting worn out, we do have a finite life span...
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This is showing that when the people that look to put you down are seeing the direction we are going it can only be a good thing.
We have direction and a plan and sticking to it. That gains respect, in time it will help us massively. The press respect you and it'll get a hell of a lot easier off field. You weigh up a St.Kilda matter compared to the equivilent matter to a Richmond or a CArlton and the media will go to town on Rich/Carl.
Gain the media's respect and it can only help. We're on the right track albeit a long one.
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A very balanced piece by Patrick Smith. I agree with him 100%
Someone in the media actually looking at the big picture for a change rather than taking the standard "pot shots from the cheap seats"
The only thing I will add is that outside of compromising what's been started the only other thing that will stuff us up is a lack of unity. History tells us that when the going gets tough some people stir up trouble and cause disunity
We cannot let it happen this time
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Tell you what else might stop it, not compromise but complacency.
We've started anew. New coaches, new players, new CEO. We shouldn't assume that because we have a coach who has seen premierships happen and because we've been at the meaty end of the draft that success will automatically come along. Its all about development from here. Our raw resources - footy talent - aren't enough and won't be enough to get us success unless we have the very best player development in the league. If there are people who can't be developed or coaches who aren't getting results in their area of responsibility they ned to be moved on.
I'm sick of this formulaic view of premierships that if we just cop the losses and sit around waiting for these kids to get better then we'll have a great team. The teams that have lasting success typically don't bottom out.
Brisbane - no, Sydney - no, Geelong bottomed out finishing no lower than 12th and with a % a little lower than 90. Our % this season will be frighteningly bad.
Hawthorn are the exception and not the rule.
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Hawthorn are the exception and not the rule.
Especially given the players they won the flag with were not exactly those they got from tanking
Their current form suggests that their premiership was an anomoly, just like Port Adelaide making the grand final in 2007, only Geelong choked the 2nd time around and handed the cup to the poo brown and pee yellow coloured scum.
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As a long time suffering supporter like so many of you guys,I at times get pretty tired of these never ending new brooms and 5 year plans that get ushered in ,however i guess we have no other solution other than to keep trying to pull this club out of the mire.
i would think though that all the problems this club has would be eliminated almost instantly if on field success was achieved..firstly the hordes would fill the MCG once again,which would swell the cofers of the club ,and secondly sponsorship and players would want to be part of our club.....everything we do as a club should be geared to onfield success
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As a long time suffering supporter like so many of you guys,I at times get pretty tired of these never ending new brooms and 5 year plans that get ushered in ,however i guess we have no other solution other than to keep trying to pull this club out of the mire.
i would think though that all the problems this club has would be eliminated almost instantly if on field success was achieved..firstly the hordes would fill the MCG once again,which would swell the cofers of the club ,and secondly sponsorship and players would want to be part of our club.....everything we do as a club should be geared to onfield success
Totally agree