Thredbo hero talks courage to the Tigers
Geoff McClure
The Age
May 30, 2007
CYNICS no doubt will see some correlation between being trapped beneath the snow for 65 hours and a team finding itself in a deep hole of its own, but there was certainly nothing cynical about the speech delivered to Richmond's players on the eve of their match against Essendon last Saturday. For the speaker was none other than Stuart Diver, the famous survivor of the Thredbo disaster, who is now just weeks away from celebrating the 10th anniversary of one of this country's most amazing stories of courage and endurance. Truth is, Diver is a Geelong supporter but he was happy to put his club allegiances aside for an hour or so last Friday at the request of his good friend, Tiger president Gary March. "We asked him to talk to the boys because we knew it would be good for the younger blokes, in particular," March told us yesterday. "Terry (coach Terry Wallace) met him when he was in Melbourne for the spring carnival and said he would love to get him to the club one day and that's what we did. Stuart has been through a lot, not just Thredbo (in which he also lost his wife Sally) but post that, his second wife Rosanna was diagnosed with cancer just after they were married. His speech was also about goal-settings, not just in footy but life in general, and about how to keep looking for positives in everything. He tried to put his life's experiences into a football sense, that the players may be going through a few issues at the moment and explained mentally how they could deal with it." It's history, of course, that next day Richmond failed by only eight points to snare its first win of the season but Diver was in the MCG stands to witness a brave Tiger performance led by spearhead Matthew Richardson, who not only overcame some adversity of his own, by playing despite a serious face injury, but almost stole the game off his own boot in the dying minutes. "It was more than a worthwhile exercise," March said. "Stuart is a fantastic speaker. Troy Simmonds, who did not play, told me on Saturday night how inspirational he was. I got a lot out of it, too. Not only is he the most positive person I have ever met but he has such a fantastic outlook on life. He's an inspiration to us all."
Back in Tigers' den
STUART Diver was not the only big name who addressed the Richmond team at the weekend. So, too, did its former coach of five years, Danny Frawley, who answered a call from Terry Wallace to talk to the players before the game because it was the 100th game of Andrew Krakouer, whom Frawley lured to Punt Road in 2001. Frawley has remained close to the Tiger rover, as he has to his father, former Saint teammate Jim Krakouer.
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