The game's up, Terry
Herald-Sun
July 20, 2007 12:00am
TERRY Wallace is doing one of three things. He's tanking, he's coaching badly or he's spin-doctoring beautifully.
Actually, he's probably doing all three.
Whatever it is he's been doing, he's been lucky as a result.
And for that, he needs to thank Chris Connolly, Neale Daniher, Kevin Sheedy, Denis Pagan and Dean Laidley.
The futures of that coaching quintet have dominated footy talk, sparing Wallace all scrutiny.
Wallace's Tigers have managed just one win from 15 matches this season. Not even Wallace would bother attempting to spin that into a positive.
Yet there have been no serious questions asked of him.
That Wallace has a further two seasons to run on his contract has stopped all debate.
It's almost OK that the Tigers appear nothing but a rabble, that the recruiting has been questionable at best, that the 2007 season was allowed to be written off just four days before it started.
Wallace's comments, made to select media in the Tigers' boardroom on March 27, were staggering at the time, and even more so in hindsight.
While he and some others at the club have been disappointed with some media commentary on the matter, Wallace, on that day, simply told the footy world to forget about the Tigers in 2007 and 2008.
Laidley would have been more justified to have uttered some of the rubbish Wallace did that day, yet look at what can happen when a man regains a steely determination to provide backs-to-the-wall leadership at a proud footy club.
And look at what can happen when a man puts his hands up at the start of a season and admits it is all just going to be a little bit too difficult.
Laidley's team sits third on the ladder, Wallace's last.
In case you've forgotten what Wallace volunteered, out of nowhere, on March 27, he said a "decade of opportunity" would kick in from 2011 and that 2007 would be a "holding pattern". He said opportunity "would knock" in 2009.
It was all said with accompanying graphics and charts that backed up his theory that premiership sides were well off with players aged 22-26.
It was, simply, something Wallace does very well -- spin.
It went down badly with many senior players.
This is Wallace's third year of a five-year contract.
Shouldn't the rebuilding work have begun in the 2005 season, his first?
Shouldn't he have refrained from drafting Mark Graham, Trent Knobel and Kent Kingsley during his time at the club?
Should he have given closer consideration to draftees Lance Franklin and Jarryd Roughead? Is he convinced the draftee he chose, Richard Tambling, will be a star?
Even the recruitment of Graham Polak from Freo in the last trade period is questionable.
Sure, he's been OK this year, but it's almost as if Wallace and his match committee have become desperate to convince the footy world getting him to the club was as inspired as snaring Tony Lockett.
The Hawthorn match committee, which steered the Hawks to a ridiculously easy win against the Tigers last Sunday, with Roughead and Franklin running amok, are still asking why Polak played as a loose man in defence.
As they say in football, Wallace has slipped under the radar this year.
Mostly, Richmond people have been prepared to back Wallace and everything he has brought to the club.
But there are a few asking questions now behind the scenes.
Kevin Sheedy is about to get the boot at Essendon . . .
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22101810-11088,00.html
