Kingsley presence at odds with policy
Caroline Wilson | May 6, 2007
The Age
IF DARREN Gaspar fell victim to his own poor form and a better-late-than-never youth policy at Richmond, then surely the new Tiger who should have lined up this evening at the opposite end of the ground against his old side will struggle to get another senior game.
Kent Kingsley will not play against Geelong, the team whose goalkicking list he headed for four successive years until 2005, but instead the Coburg reserves.
The 28-year-old came to Richmond as a pre-season draft experiment, a somewhat discredited, much maligned but supposedly handy forward who would fit well into the Tigers' attack, particularly at Telstra Dome.
Given the Tigers' poor record with recycled players over the past five years and the club's continuing insistence on recruiting veterans, Kingsley was seen as a particularly poor choice. And even more so, given Terry Wallace's stated belief that the club's premiership clock had some time to tick before reaching high noon. The Cats had lost patience with the erratic player and there was little interest elsewhere.
But Kingsley made his mark over the summer. On-field, his pre-season gave every indication he could become a regular senior player; off-field, he directed a bitter parting shot at Geelong's Mark Thompson and his coaching team by pointing out Richmond trained harder and better.
Kingsley has criticised his old club and its culture, but it was the coaching criticism that would have hurt Thompson, given his persistence with the player against a chorus of dissent over the years.
But the other side of the coin is that Richmond's decision to take him was part of a culture that the club's recruiting chief Greg Miller criticised when he came to the club on the back of the failed Paul Hudson purchase and yet continues to perpetuate. For heaven's sake, if there is a massive gap in Richmond's list, fill it with youth. Finally, though, a line in the sand appears to have been drawn with the Gaspar axing.
Kingsley's promising pre-season came to an end in February when he damaged his ankle and required surgery. He had not played a round of football at any level until last weekend when he played a half for the Coburg seconds. Today, he will return to that side because the senior Coburg side has a bye. It is tough to imagine any scenario where he would now take the spot of one of those emerging young forwards that Richmond supporters have been urged to anticipate.
Today's goal-to-goal-line should start with Luke McGuane at full-back and then Graham Polak, Brett Deledio, Cleve Hughes and Jay Schulz. That is hopefully where the future lies for Richmond.
While Kingsley was not a costly experiment, to be brutal, it looms as even less successful than the somewhat pointless season Mark Graham spent at Tigerland back in 2005. Graham might have been a popular member of the senior group and played senior football for Richmond — a feat no certainty to be matched by Kingsley. But the truth is the risk, and a cheaper one at that, would have been better taken on an 18-year-old.
Because if Gaspar has been overtaken by Polak, Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls and McGuane, then surely Schulz, Hughes, Danny Meyer and hopefully Richard Tambling on his forays up forward must all prove a formidable weekly challenge to Kingsley.
We learnt, incidentally, if we didn't know it already that Schulz's poor kicking last weekend was an aberration. That assurance came from the mouth of his manager, Liam Pickering, who, in an odd casting decision, is now a special commentator for Foxtel and said so in the telecast of the West Coast win over the Tigers. Surely this undisclosed conflict exposed the fact that player-managers must make a career choice between promoting, managing and guiding the careers of players for profit and independent commentating.
Gaspar was dropped for a variety of reasons. Richmond denies it has conceded the season, but it is true that a finals appearance — while never expected — now looks an insurmountable challenge. Surely the one-time leader and club champion was not dropped because Polak, McGuane and Oakley-Nicholls played well but as much because he played a poor game against West Coast and in even his best performances this season had no real impact.
And speaking of conflict, Gaspar's manager, Ron Joseph, criticised the decision, made a pointed comment regarding the now fateful choice made between the full-back and veteran defender Andrew Kellaway at the end of last season and dubbed coach Terry Wallace a spin doctor. All of which would have been fair enough had Joseph not become a Kangaroos board member earlier this season, a position he stood for declaring he would sever all of his player-agent roles.
Joseph, by all reports, has thrown himself into the challenges at Arden Street and has honoured his pledge to his members by proving a hands-on director, although that should not have included threatening in these pages several weeks ago to try to lure another client, Cameron Mooney, from Geelong to the Kangaroos.
Richmond recognised some weeks ago that Wallace's media career had moved a little out of control in some areas and urged the coach not to write about his old club, the Western Bulldogs. If Joseph is working to secure the future of the Kangaroos, he, too, should control his outside interests.
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