Damien Hardwick doing the hard yards at Richmond Glenn McFarlane
From: Sunday Herald Sun
August 14, 2011 HIS first 22 months at Punt Rd have been heavy going, and the Tigers coach admits there's plenty of work to be done on the long road ahead.
THE message from AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou to the entire Richmond Football Club at a recent meeting at Punt Rd was blunt.
Unless you are able to get out of the bottom bracket in the AFL's football expenditure "arms race", you will struggle to win that long-awaited 11th flag.
It's something that Richmond coach Damien Hardwick knew was an issue that was slowly being addressed internally, but it is never nice to hear the cold, hard facts as delivered by the AFL boss.
"It does (hit you) when you hear the CEO of the AFL delivering the bullet right between the eyes that you are really going to struggle unless something changes," Hardwick said.
"It probably hit our playing group hard that we are really going to struggle to compete with the bigger clubs unless we increase our footy spend."
There is almost a chasm between the clubs capable of massive football department spendings compared with those who can spend only what is prudent.
As Hardwick noted in an expansive chat with the Sunday Herald Sun this week on his first 22 months at Punt Rd, and hopefully the long road ahead, he is buoyed by the fact that the AFL - and the current Richmond administration - both view this as an important issue.
"To the AFL's credit, they are changing the way funds are delivered, which is a godsend," he said. "I think it is a great initiative by the AFL and it will be something that will even the playing field."
It's also something that he speaks with Richmond chief executive Brendon Gale on a semi-regular basis as the club seeks new revenue streams to give itself the best chance of somehow ending three decades of pain.
The issue of the "football spend" is not something that Hardwick dwells on.
He is - as he was as a premiership player with Essendon and Port Adelaide - the ultimate competitor, who has never really worried about overcoming the odds.
He is more intent on the development of his playing group.
But he knows he has to keep abreast of where the football spending goes, and what the Tigers can do better to get value for money.
That includes hopefully adding to the eight GPS units (worth $4000 each) the club has access to this year, while the majority of the Tigers' rivals have 22 to cater for each player on the field.
To the next level it also includes the club's decision to sell two home games interstate this season - decisions made in consultation with the coach.
"Benny (Gale) asked me my opinion about that and I said, financially, where we are at right now, we need to sell those games," a frank Hardwick said.
"We need to get up with the big boys with our footy department spend, and one way we can look to do that is to sell those games.
"It's not something we want to do, and once we start getting more games into our players, and start challenging for the finals, we won't have to do it."
The vexing issues with those two sold games - against Port Adelaide in Darwin and Gold Coast in Cairns - is that the Tigers narrowly lost both.
Transplant those matches to the MCG and they almost certainly would have won.
That would have taken the current ledger of 5 1/2 wins to 7 1/2 - a significant difference.
But Hardwick insisted: "Regardless of where those games were being played, the way we played, we didn't deserve to win."
These football spending issues are being used as an excuse - Hardwick has never subscribed to excuses either as a player or in his 40 games as coach.
They are simply the facts.
The coach insists that the Tigers' development graph remains on the ascent, despite the fact that the club sits half a game less than the six wins it achieved in his debut season as coach.
With today's game against Sydney at the MCG, and contests against Melbourne, Adelaide and North Melbourne to come, it still has a chance to end the year with a better ledger than 2010.
Hardwick says he is more confident in August this year than he was in August last year of the trajectory.
He has been really pleased with the club's work in attack this year, with the continued development of Ty Vickery, with the way Vickery has worked with Jack Riewoldt, and with the greater spread of goalkickers.
"That was definitely what we were after," he says of the spread that has four players who have kicked 20 or more goals. Last year Riewoldt was the only one.
The Tigers have pumped more game time into their younger players. If you were to look at the top 30 players at the 17 AFL clubs, comparing age and games played, Richmond would likely come in at second-fewest to Gold Coast.
And the club's best and fairest results this year are likely to emphasise just how young this group is.
"That's exciting for our club; the top five could be between (Dustin) Martin, (Trent) Cotchin, (Brett) Deledio, Vickery, (Alex) Rance," he said. "And you throw in Riewoldt and a few others, and they are aged between 19 and 24."
On the flip side, Hardwick says the most frustrating aspect of the season was that the defensive strategy was cruelled by injuries.
"Probably the most disappointing thing is that we had a number of injuries to guys who we had plans for," he said.
"(David) Astbury goes down, (Dylan) Grimes goes down. (Daniel) Connors has barely played and Kel Moore hasn't played a game."
Hardwick is also mindful that the club has not been able to take the strain off young midfielders Cotchin and Martin, and with that comes the need to develop some more midfielders to run through the rotations.
"We are asking a 21-year-old and a 20-year-old to play like 25-year-olds, and we're going to kill them if we ask them to keep doing that."
But Hardwick is learning about the group all the time.
"The encouraging thing for us is that we know what we have to do to get to the top, and that is to keep pumping games into those who we think will become our next premiership players," he explained.
"Everything we are doing is with that in mind.
"It is easy at times to go out there and spruik that message, but the reality is that we are where we are because we are trying to get ourselves out of a hole that we have been in for a long time. The reality is that it is going to take some time."
Hardwick has first-hand knowledge that the second year of a rebuild can be difficult. He experienced it at Hawthorn as an assistant to Alastair Clarkson.
"The second year is always the hardest," he said. "It's funny, I do see the parallels (with Hawthorn) because I have gone through it."
But he says the hard yards that he and the club - including their long-suffering and sometimes volatile fans - are enduring will hopefully be worth it in the end.
"I can understand the supporters' frustrations," he said. "Don't get me wrong, I like to win."
"But you can either choose to compete or choose to win. I would rather win.
"You can sit there and put out a side that will compete week in and week out or you can actually try to do it right so that we can get to the big one.
"We have won 10 (premiership) cups and we just have to wait to get our next one, the 11th.
"We have got some fantastic people in place now with (president) Gary (March), Brendon (Gale), and (general manager of football) Craig (Cameron). I liken that to a backline.
"We are all on the same page, the club is going in the right direction, we just need to have the patience to get there."
If that means making hard decisions or putting himself at risk, then so be it.
He made no apologies for telling Shane Tuck and Brad Miller at the start of the season that if a younger player better suited to their roles were ready to go, the younger player would most likely be picked.
Both accepted it without any issue, though both Tuck and Miller have played their way back into the team, having played six and 10 games respectively this season.
"You have to have one eye on the game at hand, but you also need to have one eye on the future going forward," Hardwick said.
"Shane has been outstanding in the way he has handled that, and that's why he is much loved by the coaching staff and the players."
The coach has "definitely not" put a pen through Tuck's name for next year.
Hardwick said: "Regardless of whether I am here at the end, I want to make sure that we get the start right.
"The funny thing is when you start something, you have got to begin with the end in mind.
"You look at what it will all look like when we finally do salute and then you work your backwards from there, and that's what this footy club is starting to understand."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/damien-hardwick-doing-the-hard-yards-at-richmond/story-e6frf9jf-1226114331915
