Media has lost its head
Patrick Smith | May 20, 2009 | The Australian
IT all appeared to be going to the formula, wretched and discredited as it was. Richmond had won just one match out of eight attempts so there was nothing for it but to bump the coach.
You don't mess with a rich tradition. See you later, Terry Wallace.
There did not need to be any sense in the decision or benefit from it, only acknowledgement that's how the club reacts to a lack of outrageous success. It is not peculiar to Richmond, but it is a process the club has made its own. The club's last premiership came in 1980 under coach Tony Jewell and since then the Tigers have reached one grand final, an 18-point loss to Carlton two years later.
Jewell went at the end of 1981, Francis Bourke went at the end of 1983, followed by Mike Patterson, Paul Sproule, Jewell (for a second time), Kevin Bartlett, Allan Jeans, John Northey, Robert Walls, Jeff Gieschen and Danny Frawley.
Then yesterday, it was Wallace who got the boot. Well, that's what the internet sites were telling us. The coach was sacked. The television and radio networks leapt upon it so quickly and emphatically that it was not enough that Wallace was gone but some journalists had even factored in his replacement and likely strategy to gain maximum value at the end of season draft.
The advent of the internet as a competitive and immediate provider of news has changed journalism for the worse. It is not enough now to be right - though that would help - but it is imperative to be the first. Checking of facts is considered an inconvenience, an internet brake and not a responsibility. That said, online readers of The Australian would not have been misled, kept up to date instantly and, most importantly, accurately.
What threatened to be lost in too many hours of journalistic shenanigans and self-indulgence was the very importance of the day itself to Richmond, a member of the VFL/AFL for 101 years.
Whatever the result it would be critical as to how the club was perceived by supporters and the public in general. And sponsors, benefactors and the godfather, the AFL commission.
If a group of frustrated players could revolt and have the coach sacked, then the Tigers' shambolic reputation would have become impossible to redeem. But if the administration was seen to stand by its previous declarations that Wallace would remain coach, the club would show a resolve and integrity that many suspected wasn't there when the Wallace rumblings started after the opening-round loss to Carlton.
Pivotal to the club's mature handling of the issue appears to be football general manager Craig Cameron. He controlled the circumstances from beginning to end - from captain Chris Newman's concerns on Monday to the midday news conference yesterday, which confirmed Wallace was coach and that suggestions to the contrary were plainly wrong. Neither did president Gary March waiver.
If March, the board and the football administration had handled the Ben Cousins recruitment awkwardly and the early season pressure on Wallace ineptly, then yesterday the club showed praiseworthy steel as all around it was the media which had lost its head. News bulletins last night said it was a chaotic day at Richmond. In truth, it was a chaos of the media's making.
Once the players present at yesterday's meeting with Wallace, Cameron and March were told that the club would stand by its public position of support for the coach, then a frank and open discussion followed. Given that Wallace was not going to re-sign it would have to be the players who forced the club's hand in sacking the coach. A little think music please.
Clearer lines of communication were one immediate and essential outcome. Whatever the exact grumblings the players had they were addressed positively. Which is just as well for the playing list at Richmond. Sitting with just one win in eight games and having thrown away a win over Port Adelaide through its own incompetence and indulgence, the players were not a stronghold of best practice themselves.
Under such circumstances it is worth players noting that incoming coaches do not have much time for player activists. If they sacked one coach, then they will sack another. New coaches tend to root out who they perceive as the troublemakers and have them moved on. Any deflection the players might have gained by moving on Wallace would have proved short lived. It is not just one career that ends when a coach is sacked.
So what loomed as a disastrous day for the club remained one for the media only. The Richmond administration and its players sorted out this from that and then publicly supported each other and, most importantly, their coach. There is still much for which to play.
Wallace is a proud man and superior coach and it clearly hurts him that - for whatever reasons - he has not been able to push his team into premiership contention. It may have seen him try to manipulate his cheer leaders in the media to soften his exit. His unsavoury departure from the Bulldogs after round 21 of the 2002 season continues to haunt him. He forever seeks to erase it.
Such has been Richmond's reputation that yesterday could have proved bloody and shameful. In fact, it marked the day a more mature, more decisive president reaffirmed his control; a determined, more confident football manager confirmed his influence and expertise. The players have been saved from themselves and, in the process, so has Richmond.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25509185-12270,00.html
