The lighter side of losing
Samantha Lane | June 22, 2007 | The Age
CRAIG McRae, a three-time premiership player with the Brisbane Lions, knows a lot about winning.
And with every week he has spent at Richmond — he joined the club's coaching panel and was appointed player development manager at the start of this year — he has learnt a whole lot more about losing.
But in his mind, Tigerland, even in a wretched 2007, feels nothing like the Gabba did nine years ago.
"Having been involved as a player and finishing bottom with Brisbane in '98, and now being in the position on the other side as a coach, it just feels so different," McRae said this week.
"In Brisbane the whole place was fragmenting. The administration was tearing apart and the spirit of the group was down. There were a lot of issues. The coach was being sacked.
"I don't think self-preservation's come into this group. When you're bottom you can think, 'I'll just do what I've got to do and I won't worry about anyone else', and I just haven't seen that.
"In Brisbane (in 1998) it turned into self-preservation. Everyone was worried about their own backyard."
Six clubs, including Richmond, had last weekend, and part of last week, off. After losing an away match to Fremantle on a Sunday afternoon, the Tigers who weren't playing for Coburg the next weekend extended their stay in Perth.
On Monday, they checked out of their city hotel and into a resort hotel on Scarborough Beach. They had a meal at a pub and then watched the Queen's Birthday Collingwood-Melbourne match.
In the evening, the whole group — injured pair and leadership group members Mark Coughlan and Troy Simmonds were also there — was invited to a barbecue at the Coughlan family's Perth home or, as young Tiger Adam Pattison described it, "The mansion on the Swan River. It was awesome!"
On Wednesday, the mid-season review was held back at club headquarters and the group was given Thursday to Sunday off.
It did not stop some team members from checking into the Punt Road weights room. Not long ago, the players had been called together and told to ask themselves whether they were truly striving to improve.
Richmond vice-captain Nathan Brown endured his fair share of barren times when playing for the Bulldogs. He admitted this week that he would not have predicted this Tigers team would have handled its winless stretch the way it had.
"I've been very surprised with how well the club's dealt with where we are at the moment," Brown said. "When you haven't won a game at the halfway point of the season you'd expect things to be going a little bit southwards and people not getting along.
"We've got so many young players, and not a heap of guys at the top level, but the camaraderie's been fantastic.
"Mainly because we've got a lot of young guys who have got a lot of exuberance and are very excited about playing football, and we've got some good leaders at the top like Joel (Bowden) and Kane Johnson."
By all reports, Jade Rawlings, a first-year assistant coach, has a fair dose of exuberance, too.
"At our normal evaluations of our game last week he got up and evaluated Craig McRae's performance in the Legends' game and got stuck into him," Pattison said. "We've still had a lot of humour in our meetings. I think that's helped.
"I get asked a lot, 'what's the attitude like, is everyone cracking it?', but it's definitely not like that. And I think that's driven by the coaches; they've just been really positive, they've said, 'we're working to a long-term plan'.
"And we sort of feel like if we can have a good second half to the season it's going to set us up for next year. We've looked at Hawthorn, who had a good finish to last year, and they're a young team and it's taken them into this season. And I think St Kilda, a few years ago, had a good second half of a season and then came out and won 10 in a row the next year."
Coach Terry Wallace believes that, even as the wait for the win lengthens, there is no reason for another blowout like the 157-point, round-six loss to Geelong.
"I don't think it will happen," he said. "We've been in most games for the year. I think we've had eight games where we've been within 25 points of our opposition.
"To me, that says that the group has been competitive in the way that they've played the game and just not had either the wherewithal or the experience, or the finishing powers, to be able to get the results.
"But certainly, from a point of view of endeavour and the way they've gone about their performance, I haven't had an issue. And while you don't have an issue it's easier for the group to remain relatively positive.
"We don't accept where we're at and nor should we, but certainly we've been working on what's been good about the place, what we can improve on, and where we can go, rather than looking at the opposite."
■There have only been 26 occasions when an AFL team has been winless after 11 matches. The most recent examples are Fremantle in 2001, which cost coach Damian Drum his job, and Sydney in 1993, which cost Gary Buckenara his job.
■Richmond's worst losing streaks are 15 (round 9, 2004 to round one, 2005) and 14 (round 11, 1961 to round 6, 1962). Before its round 11 draw against Brisbane Lions this year, Richmond had lost 10 in a row (taking in round 22 last year).
■This is Richmond's worst start to a season. Its previous worst win/loss ratios after round 11 were 2-9 in 1988, 1987, 1983, 1963, 1953 and 1912. In 1912, the Tigers had one win, 8 losses, two draws.
■As for winless seasons, there have been 13 in league history: St Kilda 1897-1899; St Kilda 1902; University 1913-14; Melbourne 1919; North Melbourne 1926; Hawthorn 1928; North Melbourne 1931; North Mel bourne 1934; Hawthorn 1950 and Fitzroy 1964.
Source: AFL
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