WOULD RICHMOND OFFER HARDWICK THE SAME DUSTY COURTESY?By Andrew Slevison
SEN
18 May 2022Richmond coach Damien Hardwick told the media on Tuesday that superstar Dustin Martin would leave the club with his blessing if he chose to do so.
The comments were labelled as “strange and “unusual” by coaching great Leigh Matthews who believes it may have opened the door for a possible departure.
Earlier this week, Hardwick made some comments about his own future with the Tigers, admitting his journey at Punt Road will have to end at some point.
“I’m a Tiger man through and through now, but at the end of the day my time will come, there’s no question about that,” he said on Fox Footy.
“We’ve probably got a list that can continue to challenge and when that challenge point finishes is probably when Damien Hardwick walks away and someone else takes the reins.
“I’ve ridden a journey at this footy club and there comes a time where my journey ends.”
Hardwick, like Martin, is contracted until the end of 2024, but could his future in the game be at another club once his days with the Tigers are up?
Garry Lyon and Tim Watson discussed if the three-time premiership coach would be offered the same courtesy as Martin if indeed it ever came to that.
“Just say someone said that to Damien Hardwick about coaching somewhere else, would Peggy O’Neal say, ‘Damien Hardwick has given us such great value, he’s delivered us the most joyous of occasions in recent times and if he wanted to coach somewhere else he’d go with my blessing’,” Lyon asked.
Watson replied: “I don’t think that would be the same.
“He’s done great things for the Richmond Football Club, but he hasn’t been through what Dustin Martin has been through in recent times regarding the death of his father.
“I think that is a consideration in all of this, the mental health of Dustin Martin.”
Lyon: “You’re putting a lot of weight on that which is absolute reasonable and fair.
“This is just thinking, I don’t know anything, but sometimes we wait as coaches. In the end, ‘Clarko’ (Alastair Clarkson) goes out of the blue, maybe because he waited a bit long and then loses control of the situation and it blows up.
“Would it be a proactive move, not good for Richmond by the way, fans would be smashing the desk saying they don’t want Dimma to leave, but how long will he coach Richmond for? Does he get on the front foot and say, ‘it could be a good time for me to go and coach somewhere else’.”
Watson: “I think that always is determined by an opportunity that may present itself.
“Would GWS call Hardwick direct or his management and say, ‘look, is there any possibility that Damien Hardwick would sit down and talk to us, because we have identified him as our number one target to be our next coach’.
“Because you’re not going to get him out of Richmond unless you make him some sort of a ‘godfather offer’, a five-year deal at good money.”
Lyon: “Our industry, and we should be commended for it, hang onto our coaches until one of two things happen - they come to the end of their tenure, they see out their contract and its great, or they get sacked.
“Could Ken Hinkley be sitting there saying, ‘I’ve wrung this dry, but maybe it’s time for me to freshen up’? Could Damien Hardwick go, ‘three premierships, I love Punt Road, but maybe I can be deployed better elsewhere’?”
Watson: “The point remains that it’s difficult for the coach to go proactively and do what you’re talking about, unless somebody comes to them and says, ‘here’s an offer for you, you’re not going to have to go through the process, we have identified you as the man we want to coach us next’.
“That’s the only way you can move under those circumstances without putting yourself out there in the unknown. Which coach that has as secure job is going to do that? I jus can’t see that happening.”
Lyon simply cannot see Hardwick leaving Richmond anytime soon, but is intrigued by what may come his way down the track if rival clubs were keen to gain his knowledge and coaching prowess.
“If Dimma and Richmond got to the point where they said time’s end and Damien is thinking ‘that’s me for coaching’, gee there’d be some clubs saying ‘no it’s not Damien, we want to tap in to what you’ve been able to put in place at Richmond’,” he said.
“I think it would be a really aggressive move from him if he was to do it, given they’re in the eight, they’re playing good footy now, they might be able to gather themselves for another challenge.
“It is hypothetic, and this is the world we’re living in, if the Essendon footy club turned around and said, ‘hey, here’, would it give him something to think about?
“I’m extrapolating, I’m spit-balling.
“He has shown that he has been able to build a list and take them all the way.
“If I’m his manager, I’m saying, ‘do you want to coach for 10 years, Dimma?’, he says yes. ‘Well let me go and ask around the marketplace, let me go and talk to Essendon, let me go and talk to (other clubs), because I don’t know whether you’re going to have 10 more years at Richmond’.
“‘If you want to have your 10 years at somewhere else, well let me go and talk to the Giants’.”
Watson added: “That is a logical and reasonable way to look at your job.
“Although we say in football, because there’s an emotional attachment to everything, that it’s not necessarily the way you should go about it. Richmond people would say, ‘what are you doing, going out to find out if somebody else wants to employ you as their coach, that’s disloyal’.
“At the end of the day, he’s got a job to do and wherever he goes he’ll insert himself and give it everything he has the same way that he has at Richmond.”
https://www.sen.com.au/news/2022/05/18/would-richmond-offer-hardwick-the-same-dusty-courtesy/
