Tigers don't want excuses
Caroline Wilson | April 1, 2007
The Sunday Age
Richmond'S Terry Wallace, like all good coaches, is a great salesman. One reason the Tigers hired him was because they believed not only could he develop and coach talented up-and-coming players but also that he could sell hope to generations of disillusioned supporters.
Hope meant a 30,000-plus membership, sponsorship and big attendances. All of which Richmond has repeatedly proved it can achieve during even the briefest run of home-and-away success.
All of which meant more money to pay off the Tigers's stifling $5 million debt and to spend on the club's under-resourced, poorly structured football department that was costing far too much to run for what it was achieving.
All of which after two years and a significantly worse-than-average run of injuries, Wallace has achieved. In each season, the Tigers have improved. Never have they looked capable of challenging at the top end of the season and yet last year's ninth-placed finish was probably as good as the group was capable of then.
And yet even the best salesman can have a bad day. It happened to Wallace last week. In a bid to explain to journalists why Richmond was not yet ready to mix it with the big boys, he failed to close the deal. He went on the defensive before he had anything to defend.
Wallace, after a positive set of off-field figures had been put forward by the club's chief executive Steve Wright - who happily appears to be on the road to recovery from his debilitating illness - delivered what he insists was a reality check but what his rivals have claimed was an attempt to buy more time.
This column cannot begin to read the coach's motives. It is unlikely the disturbing halt to Nathan Brown's progress was in the front of his mind when preparing his figures, but the fact is that Wallace did not sell hope. He sold pessimism and, to some minds, excuses. He pointed out that the club boasted too many integral players aged 29 or over and 22 or under.
He showed a chart that clearly indicated a ninth-placed finish for Richmond this season, some improvement in 2008 and a genuine improvement in 2009. But the decade of opportunity, said the coach, would begin in 2011.
This would come as no surprise to Wallace's inner circle. When he first went to Richmond, he feared the lop-sided nature of the playing list would take a decade to correct. He did not necessarily desire a premiership during his five-year term but wanted to leave a list capable of achieving one.
The question is, why say so now? Particularly when the message to the younger playing group - along with Matthew Richardson, 32, Darren Gaspar, 31, Joel Bowden, Brown, Kane Johnson, Troy Simmonds and Kent Kingsley, all 29 - is that the time for the older brigade is now.
But the effect of Wallace's analysis was to suggest his team would not improve significantly this season.
Who is to say that Richmond's young brigade will have fulfilled their early promise by 2011? Who is to say the old brigade have two massive seasons ahead of them and could achieve a top-four finish?
The problem with all this of course is that football, like many of life's magical institutions, has a mind of its own. Things rarely work out according to plan. How can they in a sport boasting 22 elite athletes on any given Friday, Saturday or Sunday?
In 2006 Geelong had a team which all the experts believed was ready to win a premiership. The coach said the Cats could do it before round one after their gutsy pre-season premiership win over Adelaide. The administration believed the premiership clock was firmly set at high noon.
And yet Geelong failed to even reach the eight. Chief executive Brian Cook spent more than a month trying to work out what went wrong.
In 2003 the so-called experts got it wrong about Sydney, largely based on the club's apparently top-heavy list. This columnist was not the only one to tip the Swans to take the wooden spoon. We also criticised the club's recruiting.
Sydney finished third and was leading the Brisbane Lions at three-quarter-time in a preliminary final. Two years later the ugly ducklings were advised midway through the season by a very senior football administrator that perhaps they would be better to bottom out rather than finish around the middle of the ladder. Sydney won the flag.
In 1996 Andrew Plympton, Don Hanly, Stan Alves and the other heavy-hitters at St Kilda devised a three-to-five-year plan that would put the club in a position to challenge for the premiership at the end of that period.
The Saints reached the grand final the next year and came - without leading ruckman Peter Everitt who had been crucial all season - tantalisingly close to winning it.
Football fans are smarter these days. As the system has become more predictable, supporters have wisened up. But as they start each season, they enter it with hope. They don't want to hear about a hole in Richmond's playing list. Tiger fans want to walk into the MCG this evening to watch their club defeat Carlton.
As Denis Pagan is so fond of saying: "People don't want to hear about the labour pains. They want to see the baby."
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