PODCAST: Brendon Gale interview
http://www.richmondfc.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/6301/newsid/150137/default.aspxSummary* Busiest time of the year for off-field staff. After the season it's straight onto list management for Hartley and Cameron and and for the Board budget process for next year. Bloodbath negotiating the fixture with the AFL doing the tough job trying to appease 18 clubs, there's the new membership campaign, renegotiating with sponsors, so on and so on ...
* Just seeing the ground come together is fantastic. Benny spoke to March who said it's probably the most important thing that has happened during his presidency. Benny Gale called the old surface a cow paddock. A few weeks behind as you need to build on a solid clay base. Removed 3000 cubic metres of soil. We've waited 150 years for it. With superior drainage we can open it up to our fans and open training sessions without having to worry about special events chopping it up if it's raining.
* Thinking long and hard about continuing the Fighting Tiger Find. Initially it was important to have a start and end. He thought initially $6m was a stretch but it's a credit to the generosity of our fans. The FTF is a great name and has great equity to it. There's ways we can continue to bring it life and we need think long and hard about it.
* Benny has a 5-year old boy so a father-son in 12 years time maybe.
* Free agency - has always supported it as it's fair. Players after a certain period of time should have a choice to determine their own futures. There may be some modifications after the first year but it's all about fairness. Advantage of Benny coming from the AFLPA is we could prepare to take advantage of it. Blair Hartley has prepared his own model over the last couple of years and we've taken it to market and picked up a couple of players.
* 2013 - need a really strong business to support so we can invest in the football dept. We've now improved our list, secured our best players, added new facilities. With better composure at critical stages we'll now doubt see the improvement from the team we're after.
