Village idiots of the AFL are remade * Patrick Smith
* From: The Australian
* July 06, 2010 A MARK of a good sporting club is not so much what happens to it but how the changed circumstances are handled.
The reaction to a crisis, mini or major, is an accurate eye on any club's culture and soul.
With 40-odd young men on your lists in AFL football, it is always a combustible environment. Club officials are regularly quoted as saying that you cannot be a player's guardian 24 hours a day. It is a theory regularly proved right.
The answer is to create a mutual respect among the players and a club ethic that settles for nothing less than excellence. Combined, the two elements set a pathway that can achieve great things when followed.
Richmond began the season with a new coach in Damien Hardwick, a new chief executive in Brendon Gale and a relatively new football general manager, Craig Cameron. It set about rebuilding the club with a pledge not to compromise its principles, no matter what confronted the club.
The resolve was quickly put under pressure. Ben Cousins, the recovering drug addict and Brownlow medallist literally given a lifeline by the club the previous season, was involved in a fracas with a drunk teammate Daniel Connors after a round-three loss to Sydney. Connors was immediately suspended by the club for eight matches. Another three players, including Cousins, were suspended for one match.
Pre-season, Cousins was admitted to hospital with a gastric complaint. The obvious rumours abounded but the club stood by the player. Then came unsubstantiated reports that the club had to address his heavy drinking pre-season. Not so, said the club.
As Richmond struggled to win a match until round 10, commentators feared for the club's future and urged the AFL to step in with draft concessions. Richmond officials said no. It would fight back on the resources available to all AFL clubs for the wound was self-inflicted.
Such was the new belief within the club chief executive Gale effectively said the Tigers were not a charity case.
Now Cousins is in hospital again, this time because of a dangerous reaction to a sleeping tablet taken on Sunday night after the Tigers' thrilling win over Sydney. He is sedated and under observation in intensive care. Cameron told a news conference late yesterday that his true condition would not be known until later today. Nothing that was rightly required for the media to report the story precisely was withheld.
Richmond is finally a sophisticated club. It neither panics nor hides in the nearest cupboard. With four wins in five matches, the re-found self-respect is being replicated on the field. Supporters have been reassured there is only reason and no rhyme to the club's management. A madhouse has been reformed and setting standards for the rest of the competition.
St Kilda was plodding about as aimlessly as the old Richmond before coach Ross Lyon arrived at the club.
...
St Kilda and Richmond, once the village idiots of the competition, have been remade. Nothing fancy, nothing grandiose.
Just a belief in striving for excellence and a rejection of compromise.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/village-idiots-of-the-afl-are-remade/story-e6frg7mf-1225888241328
