Richmond president plays it cool Samantha Lane
The Age
May 24, 2014 If the AFL's first female president is peeved, she's concealing it expertly. If Peggy O'Neal is tempted to retaliate personally to comments recently broadcast about her - some of it subtle criticism, some of it as subtle as a sledgehammer - better judgment is winning the day.
The backdrop is this: Richmond is on a serious losing streak and, naturally, is being picked apart. Jack Riewoldt has spoken out of school again and has, legitimately, incurred open admonishment from his besieged coach. Amid the general angst, the Tigers' new figurehead, O'Neal, now eight months in the role, has, in the minds of some, contributed to the problem by taking a less-is-more approach to media.
The dialogue on that front has gone something like this: Peggy O'Neal has been silent. Peggy O'Neal is invisible. When will she speak? Why won't she speak? It's wrong she won't speak. She must speak.
Amplified scrutiny of a club aiming to at least match, this year, the week-long finals appearance it made in 2013 - an aim Richmond already appears to have flunked - is unsurprising. What has surprised, even troubled, some hardened footy heads at Tigerland, however, is a desire from some parts bordering on bloodlust to grill the president.
''What does she bring to the table that makes her a great president?'' ex-Essendon great-turned-football commentator, Matthew Lloyd, asked about O'Neal on television earlier this week.
The next day, the Richmond president was doorstopped by a reporter and cameraman in the Punt Road Oval car park. She was asked if she thought she was being treated unfairly and whether she was hiding from the media. It wasn't the most pleasant way to arrive for board and committee meetings, but the irony of the situation at least provided O'Neal some amusement in retrospect.
Since O'Neal's media commitments have become a talking point, it's relevant to declare she committed to an extended interview with Fairfax Media months ago. May was pencilled in then and turned out to be a particularly interesting month for the club and the chair of its board to make good on the pledge.
So, about this recent critiquing of her presidential conduct and credentials - is it standard footy parry and thrust? Or does O'Neal somehow connect it to the fact she's treading new ground as a female leader?
While not seeming at all surprised by the second proposition, O'Neal does not bite. ''I've wondered about the point of him asking that question,'' she says after listening to a verbatim recounting of the question Lloyd posed about her credentials, which had been brought to her attention by many others well before.
''I didn't see it, I've only heard about it, but I thought it was unfair on the people around my board table who have elected me president. He called into question their judgment.
''I'm confident in their confidence in me. And I'm confident that I have the skills to be president.
''I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He may have been genuinely curious, though it's easy to find out what my qualifications are; my CV is usually available online, and he could call and ask me at any time.''
The condensed version of O'Neal's professional background is that she is an American who has become one of the pre-eminent superannuation lawyers in her adopted country. Since immigrating to Australia in 1989, O'Neal has been a partner at commercial law firm Freehills, acted as a consultant in a federal government review of superannuation, become a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and accepted numerous non-executive director positions on commercial boards.
A proud Richmond home owner, on a street where Tiger icons Jack Dyer and Graeme Richmond once resided, O'Neal sits on the boards of three National Australia Bank wealth management subsidiaries and is a director of the Australian government's Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation. She still acts occasionally for select legal clients, now as a consultant to legal firm Lander & Rogers.
After attending her first Richmond game in 1993, invited by the wife of a lawyer colleague, O'Neal - a basketball and gridiron fan in the US (she even played the latter growing up) - became hooked on a sport she'd identified as the sporting heartbeat of her new home town.
She sponsored a player, Ray Hall, and was subsequently asked by club legend Neville Crowe to lend her legal expertise to the organising committee that founded the Tommy Hafey Club. O'Neal's passage to Richmond's board followed what, to her, was a surprise request from former Tiger powerbroker Greg Miller to discuss the idea over coffee.
She became a Tigers director in November 2005 and then, late last year, after one of Maurice O'Shannassy (still Richmond's vice-president) or former cricket boss Malcolm Speed was widely expected to succeed Gary March as club president, it was O'Neal who won the vote unanimously. Did she contemplate, then, whether football, for all its talk about promoting females to influential posts, was truly ready to embrace the major breakthrough?
''I didn't dwell much on that. I felt Richmond was ready,'' O'Neal says.
''It also occurred to me, when I was asked, that you can't keep thinking women should be involved and then, if it comes your way, not take it.''
Asked what kind of AFL president she wants to be, O'Neal says: ''Intelligent, fair and firm.''
She will take to the presidential pulpit on certain issues, but has no intention of proffering regular opinion on matters on which others are better qualified to present. That approach, she says, fits with Richmond's modern ''media matrix''.
Last November, in a radio interview, O'Neal outlined the club's expectations for 2014. She said that playing finals would be a pass mark and set the additional challenge of winning one. Six months later, with the team sitting on two wins and six losses, both notions seem fanciful and the burning question is why.
Without betraying boardroom confidence, O'Neal divulged this week the club's football department boss, Dan Richardson, was sent away from Tuesday's meeting of directors with questions he is expected to report back on at the hierarchy's next scheduled meeting in June. Tony Free, Richmond's sole ex-league player director, would also ''do a bit more digging'' on his clear area of expertise, O'Neal says.
But to launch a full-scale review of Richmond's football department now, like Geelong infamously did in mid-2006 before it won the 2007 flag, would be ludicrous, O'Neal contends, given the thorough exercise the board went through before Damien Hardwick's re-signing in December. O'Neal has also publicly backed the head coach with unqualified support this week, but says the team's predicament doesn't cause her to reach out to him directly. The pair last spoke meaningfully, O'Neal says, maybe a couple of weeks ago.
She acknowledges Hardwick has lost considerable experience from his panel this season, with Justin Leppitsch and Wayne Campbell decamping, but gives the impression it's for others to explore whether this - or anything else - is a factor in Richmond's on-field decline.
''I think highly of Damien and he knows he can call me, and I can call him, if ever I need to,'' O'Neal says. ''I don't know that I can bring anything to his day-to-day other than to say 'we're here together and we're all in this together'.''
In contrast, O'Neal speaks with club chief executive Brendon Gale most days and dismisses outright that he has been anything other than focused on his job despite the fact he was recently interviewed for the AFL chief's job.
Richmond's debt may be wiped and its membership is at record levels, but winning games is the club's stock in trade. While recognising this sporting reality, O'Neal gives short shrift to theories that the problems at her footy club are any deeper than the results posted by the team thus far.
O'Neal's message is that, on all fronts under her reign, Richmond intends to stay the course. She's just not about to apply for a daily television or radio slot to provide running commentary.
''It's been a long time since Richmond was volatile,'' she says.
''But that sort of decision-making caused us to lose our way for a long time and I think everyone at the club now is determined and committed to that not happening again.''
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