That Wallace is still coach of Richmond is some sort of miracle: Patrick Smith

[one-eyed]

Rafferty, it seems, rules in Melbourne
Patrick Smith | July 30, 2008

THAT Terry Wallace is still coach of Richmond is some sort of miracle.

Before the start of last season he called the media together to describe the journey on which the club was about to embark. Nothing would come quickly, there would be highs along the way but 2011 would see the club ready to strike against the very best clubs in the competition.

For that was the year when Wallace and his football department would have the playing list at its peak. The right number of young kids, balanced with a blend of experienced players who had been hand-picked from the draft, all topped off with a core of veterans.

At the time Wallace was beginning his third year as coach of Richmond. He would be in his seventh year in 2011. Most of the media savaged the Tigers coach, saying that he had just condemned the club to at least four years of mediocrity. It was a total mis-representation of his position and he vowed never again to take the media into his confidence in such a way.

With him at that 2007 meeting was Greg Miller, who was all things to football at the club. He has gone now, sacked on the weekend, for no apparent reason. Not one at least that president Gary March could articulate with any conviction yesterday.

What has been lost in the flurry to denigrate Wallace's transparency and then Miller's demise is that the club is on the course the coach mapped out before the season in 2007. This year the club has won eight games with one draw and will fight out a place for the finals. As it stands now, Richmond is two points off sixth spot. Early draft picks Brett Deledio (No1, 2004) and Richard Tambling (No4, 2004) are influential performers and Trent Cotchin, taken at No2 last year, has made extraordinary progress without a pre-season block to sustain him.

This Richmond experience is important if we are to sit and study just what is going on at Melbourne.

Stuff on Melbourne ....

Connolly is a sacked coach with an eight-year plan and Stynes is an untried football administrator. But it is McNamee who is sacked and Wallace that is savaged.

Australian rules. What rules?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24098798-12270,00.html

[Stripes]

Good article.

What has been lost in the flurry to denigrate Wallace's transparency and then Miller's demise is that the club is on the course the coach mapped out before the season in 2007.

Powerful fact. We are on course and are now starting to see rewards for all the pain and it is a marvel that TW has survived all the negativity and impatience that has been directed his way over the rebuild. TW has been nothing but transparent with his plan and goals to make the club a consistent contender once again yet media and supporters have attempted to ravage him for being honest rather than applaude him.

I hope he is still around when his hard work begins to pay off so he has enjoy the satisfaction of knowing he has proved his critics wrong...yet again.   

Stripes

[yellowandback]

It is a stupid article written from a position of hindsight.  Lets say hypothetically in 12 months time the Tigers are in the bottom 4 and Wallace is sacked.  Will Patrick Smith write an article saying that Richmond were pro active in sacking G Miller and showed support to Wallace by letting him see out a 5 year plan doomed to failure?

No.

His job is to look for weakness, highlight it and then exaggerate the impact to his readership.  It has more impact. Like his short sentences. So there.

[Hellenic Tiger]

Patrick Smith is an inept football writer who has an utter disregard for the Richmond footy club even from when he was at the Age. It is journos like him who stay in the shadows when we do well yet have a viable and valued opinion piece when something goes awry or someone gets the chop at Punt Rd. Just like political journos favour a particular party and their questioning of pollys depending on their persuasion is either heavily scrutinised with a tinge of irony or apprehension or totally endorsing same as Footy journos. Not saying I won't read an article from a journo who does not support the Tiges but it seems journos who support the Bombers ie Smith Robbo Connolly are the most vehement agitators who write the most useless self righteous hypocritical crap you could ever wish to read.