Until either Kim Hagdorn, Tim Gossage or Karl Langdon come up with something all that will be written or said will only be cloak and dagger. 
Kim must have heard you Tucky
Richmond should end Hardwick doubtBy Kim Hagdorn
Sports News First
2 March 2012RICHMOND is almost certain to retain Damien Hardwick as senior coach beyond this year.
So, the sooner it is done the better.
Reappointment of the senior coach will be the benefit for everyone in the AFL community, especially Richmond as an organisation, Hardwick as the coach with future plans as well as his players.
It seems only a matter until theEssendon and Port Adelaide premiership tough nut is reaffirmed as Tigers coach for a further tilt at generating potential finals glory at one of the competition’s genuinely traditional organisations.
Everything from around Tigerland indicates that Hardwick has an powerful rapport and respect among his player group and there is a genuine commitment to continue mounting a serious assault at making finals and staying in the top eight for a sustained period.
That strong bond can’t be ignored and surely won’t be, by president Gary March as well as his board of directors and chief executive Brendon Gale.
There is a coterie group lurking around the edges of Richmond with renewed Tigers premiership ambitions that continues to make noises behind the scenes of establishing a slush fund to ultimately attract triple flag winning coach Mick Malthouse back to Punt Road.
Malthouse is out of coaching this year for the first time in almost 30 seasons after a highly contentious succession plan implementation from Pies officials to replace the coaching great with Collingwood legend Nathan Buckley.
Malthouse engineered a West Coast Eagles pioneering flag heists in 1992 and ’94 and then took Collingwood to a euphoric 2010 premiership among his 664-game career that started with Footscray back in 1984.
He is probably even oblivious to clandestine endeavours to lure his coaching talents back to Richmond where as a ruthless back-pocket he was a member of the Tigers 1980 title-winning unit under then coach Tony Jewell.
But until March and Gale quash all raging speculation of a Malthouse appointment it will continue as one of the AFL’s biggest stories of the 2012 season.
That sort of uncertainty, if the Tigers hierarchy are committed to Hardwick’s development plan, can only linger unnecessarily.
Hardwick and his young Tigers have an especially rocky start to the 2012 premiership home-and-away campaign and realistically could be almost out of finals chances by the end of April.
The Tigers start with Carlton and Collingwood, before taking on an equally young and emerging unit in Melbourne all at the MCG.
Then it’s down the road to the unsavoury Simonds Stadium against reigning premiers Geelong and then an Etihad Stadium engagement with a star-studded and 2012 top-four candidate West Coast in Round 5 on Sunday April 29.
Unless Hardwick and his Tigers can pull off a few surprise wins over four genuine premiership fancies for this season as well as knock over the Demons, it is potentially a horror start for Richmond’s finals prospects.
Even after that highly confronting start to their season, the Tigers still face the likes of Essendon, Hawthorn, St Kilda and Fremantle in a four-game block between Rounds 8-11, before an outing at a foreign Skoda Stadium against Greater Western Sydney.
If the Tigers are genuinely committed to Hardwick, as appears to be the case from informed AFL insiders, then a more appropriate time to confirm that faith is nearer to now rather than later.
http://www.sportsnewsfirst.com.au/articles/2012/03/02/richmond-should-end-hardwick-doubt/
