The media sharks are already circling for blood.....--------------------------------------------
No favours for Wallace as Tigers draw difficult start to 2009 campaign
Stephen Rielly | October 25, 2008
IF there is a coach with more reason than any other to feel aggrieved by the shape of the 2009 draw, it is Richmond coach Terry Wallace.
The Tigers, who have not played finals in Wallace's four years at Punt Road, face four of the top eight sides of 2008 in the first six weeks of the season, including top-four teams Geelong and the Western Bulldogs.
They open the season against Carlton at the MCG, as they have for the past two years, then head to Skilled Stadium to confront the Cats in round two, play the Bulldogs at Telstra Dome in round three and then meet North Melbourne and Sydney, at the SCG, in rounds five and six.
Given what was learned from the 2008 season, the only game the Tigers will feel confident about winning in the first six weeks of next season is against this year's wooden spoon winner, Melbourne, in round four.
It is a seriously challenging start to a campaign that, one way or another, is likely to determine Wallace's future.
Apart from the lack of a single appearance in September since succeeding Danny Frawley at the end of the 2004 season, Wallace has witnessed the worrying departure of two important football department allies, Greg Miller and Paul Armstrong, in recent months and next season is the fifth and last of his contract.
While the Tigers can be thankful that they play premier, Hawthorn, and Geelong and St Kilda only once next year and travel interstate just twice in the second half of the season where there is also a run of seven consecutive matches at the MCG, the formative early months of the campaign are reminiscent of the exceedingly tough start to 2008 that saw the side win only three of its first 11 matches.
It was a run that, back in June, led Wallace to draw attention to how difficult it had been for his team which, with a softer second-half draw, won eight of its remaining 11 matches to miss the finals by two points.
"We are halfway through the season and out of our 11 games, we've played seven of those games against top eight sides and I don't think many people expected us to be beating those type of sides," he said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24547681-5012432,00.html