Tigers, Hawks bosses let the drift continue
Caroline Wilson
realfooty.theage.com.au
July 18, 2004
Richmond, like Hawthorn, is desperately searching for leaders. President Clinton Casey is no certainty to survive into 2005, although the signs for Casey now are better than they were at the end of last month.
Coach Danny Frawley is in caretaker mode until the end of the season and Frawley's successor should be named soon, although he presumably would like some assurances regarding the club's future, however desperate he is for the job.
Perplexingly, the club remains without a working chief executive despite the fact that the appointment of former Melbourne Grand Prix boss Steve Wright is close to one month old. The Tigers remain in crisis financially and facing key administrative and football decisions and yet Wright remains in Europe and his arrival at Tigerland is still weeks away. Wright should have started by now and not only for symbolic reasons.
But there has been one significant leadership decision taken this week and that was when Richmond announced that 26-year-old midfielder Kane Johnson would captain the club against St Kilda. The former Crow, in his second year at his new club, is now a roaring favourite to replace Wayne Campbell next season.
Campbell has accepted his time is over with one year remaining on his contract and, it would seem, no more than that left in his overworked body. Darren Gaspar appears not to have entered the club's captaincy calculations and the Tigers have been careful not to confuse Mark Coughlan's promise as a player with the youngster's leadership ability - certainly not yet.
It is pointless dwelling on how few genuine successors stand behind Campbell, just as there is little more to be said regarding the vacuum at Hawthorn, which lately has come to resemble less of a football club than a group of individuals trying to justify their positions.
The damage has been done and mending the situation could take years. Carlton recognised as much when it appointed the initially unwilling Anthony Koutoufides as captain and built around him an unlikely leadership group, each one chosen with a view to unearthing something. The Blues cut their losses and chose to give Nick Stevens at least a season or two to settle.
It should be pointed out, too, that not all great teams have clear captains. Hawthorn had at least half-a-dozen during the 1980s and early '90s, as did the Tigers a decade or so earlier. Grant Thomas is trying to reshape St Kilda into a similar model.
But Richmond fans who have done their homework will look a little wistfully to Skilled Stadium today and the visiting captain from Sydney, Stuart Maxfield.
In fairness, the Richmond administrators who let Maxfield go at the end of 1995 were desperately sorry to lose him and gained Gaspar in return, but few could have predicted that the 32-year-old Maxfield would become one of the most respected, if low-profile, captains in the AFL. It is possible to imagine Kane Johnson travelling a similar path.
Brendan Schwab, whose recruiting mission is not quite complete, faces a tougher obstacle. His ticket boasts some impressive names but, on paper, no world-beaters and the alternative choice as Tigers president can expect no favours from the AFL, whose administration is subtly siding with stability.
That Schwab is still talking to potential directors and has not yet paid Casey a visit demonstrates that he recognises this, although his supporters still believe he will do so. Casey has no shortage of detractors, but few seem willing to line up against him and rock the boat at a time when the club is on the verge of seeking a new, but more experienced senior coach.
There are subtle signs that his board will undergo further pruning and some additions in the lead-up to next February's club election; and that the current administration is fighting back and looking to lure some more former Tigers back to the club as directors or assistant coaches.
When the situation became desperate against Carlton in the 1982 grand final, it was Jim Jess who stood up for his club. Could it have been more than a coincidence that Jess, who remains embroiled in the game, was at Telstra Dome yesterday as a guest of Richmond?
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