Only compromise can stop Richmond Patrick Smith
The Australian
April 19, 2010 RICHMOND is winless.
The prospect of the club improving that stat this season is slim.
Yet the Tigers are as well placed if not better than any club in the competition to once again be a force in the AFL.
The club is effectively about to be reborn.
What it grows up to be is in the hands of the new administration -- chief executive Brendon Gale, football boss Craig Cameron and coach Damien Hardwick. Gale and Hardwick are in their first year of service, Cameron his second.
Their task is a mighty one but it is an opportunity that few get in football. That is a clean slate. Too many clubs are burdened with traditions that blinker and blind. That is not Richmond's problem.
Decades of incompetency have washed away any sense of what it is to be a Tiger.
That takes some doing, for the club has been dominant. It has won 10 premierships but none since 1980. In the 30 years since it has played in just eight finals, one of them the 1982 grand final loss to Carlton. The last final was an 11- goal flogging by Brisbane in 2001.
The club has been so broke it has been forced to beg in public for its very future.
The club has been inept at recruiting, partly because it did not have the money to investigate likely prospects. Tradition cannot survive such ordinariness. At Richmond it hasn't.
Effectively, the new administration must see itself as starting up a new club. What Gale, Cameron and Hardwick do now will define the club in the future. Punt Road must be seen as a centre of excellence in everything.
Its young playing list may not be able to play excellently but it can train that way. Hardwick can coach excellently, Cameron run an excellent football department and Gale seek excellence from his staff. That must be the minimum requirement.
If they do not falter then the club will draw superior sponsors. The dormant supporter base will come to life.
If Richmond can stand for all things exceptional then people will queue up to stand with them. It will be admired by its competitors, players will angle to join the team. Success has many measures.
Winning is one, striving another. Over time, striving begets winning. That must be the force that drives the Tigers.
Only one thing can stop Richmond from becoming the No 1 sporting club in the country if it has a mind to. Compromise. If the Tigers mould their principles to circumstances then it will have no principles at all.
The club has started with good intent. Cameron had barely sat down in his new job when the club drafted Ben Cousins. It was handled in a manner that showed the club had no direction and precious little confidence in its ability to make the right choices.
Richmond changed its Cousins story by the hour. Coming, not coming, yes, no, thinking about it, ruled it out.
Eventually Cousins did go to Richmond and the choice has proved sound. In a club without strong core playing leadership, the premiership player, All-Australian and Brownlow Medallist has set a high standard at training and on the field. If nothing else the recruitment of Cousins showed the club that its supporter base was deep and broad. Membership swelled on the expectation that the club could -- with Cousins -- improve on its fast finishing ninth in 2008.
It came to nothing as expectation paralysed the club. Cameron calmly and swiftly headed off a selfish player revolt to have coach Terry Wallace sacked. Cameron held his nerve and his sense of decency. Wallace would leave before the season was over but the players could not claim his scalp.
Last week Cousins would be central to another decision that -- if the principles that drove it are held firm -- will shape Richmond. Cousins, along with relatively experienced players Dean Polo and Luke McGuane, was in the company of defender Daniel Connors who was mightily drunk and noisy. Cousins, Polo and McGuane were suspended for yesterday's match against Melbourne and Connors banned for eight games.
The decision clearly compromised the club's chances of beating Melbourne but not its principles. The club wants the players to maintain standards constantly, not every now and then. So even Cousins was put aside for a week.
True, Richmond was in a position where it could thump the table. It is rebuilding its list from top to bottom and that takes time and a lot of losses. Nonetheless, it did what other clubs have not and could not do. It set a standard of excellence.
Other clubs have tried to do a bit of both -- discipline and seeking victory at the same time -- and achieved neither. Look at Carlton and Brendan Fevola. The club refused to punish him because he was a potential match-winner. With Fevola under no threat of being held to account, the club suffered. The brand was bashed, the club lost the respect of the broad community. Collingwood has compromised, too. Coach Mick Malthouse will not suspend undisciplined players if it threatens the team's on-field chances. Unless, of course, they lie to him like Heath Shaw and Alan Didak did.
West Coast's leadership was humbled in front of the AFL commission when it refused to restrain the wild behaviour of a large group of players.
Essendon spent a summer considering what to do with Michael Hurley after he was charged following a kerfuffle with a taxi driver. The club looked lame and hesitant. Geelong, which has won two premierships in the past three years, banished Stevie Johnson when he continually stuffed up in 2007 and Matthew Stokes has only returned to the club this week after being charged with drug offences. Sydney, so admired as a club under Paul Roos, moved Barry Hall on after he could not keep his fists to himself. No compromises.
This is an exciting time for Richmond. Craig, Brendon and Damien's excellent journey has begun.
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