Riewoldt stalls on new deal Caroline Wilson
The Age
June 17, 2013 Stalled contract talks between Richmond and its gun forward Jack Riewoldt have become a growing concern at the club, with Greater Western Sydney confirming again that Riewoldt remains firmly in its sights.
The unsigned 24-year-old, like teammate Dustin Martin, remains at odds with the club over money.
Riewoldt and Martin head a list of nine big Tiger names coming out of contract at the end of the season.
It was that situation, coupled with a number of financial demands deemed unrealistic by the Tigers' list management team, which recently prompted the club to urge its senior group to consider the collective sacrifice required for September success.
Of the nine, only Brandon Ellis is understood to have come to terms with Richmond. The club is expected to announce in the coming days that it has re-signed the teenaged star for a further two years.
A bid to extend Nick Vlastuin's contract until the end of 2016 is also on the cards.
Tigers football boss Daniel Richardson called a meeting of the senior group before the round-10 game against West Coast in which he and his recruiting boss Blair Hartley addressed the players.
They reportedly reminded the group that successful teams were required to make sacrifices in order to remain together.
Richardson and his team appear determined to end a period of almost two decades in which Richmond, unsuccessful for three decades, has overpaid a small group of stars in order to retain them.
The view from board level down is that Richmond can now offer its players good facilities, big games, quality coaching and player development along with - most significantly - a genuine prospect of playing in finals.
Riewoldt and his new manager Liam Pickering are working to achieve a three-year deal for the dual Coleman medallist, who was praised on Saturday by coach Damien Hardwick as having his most successful season.
With Riewoldt and Richmond significantly apart over the financial size of the contract, GWS chief David Matthews told Fairfax Media that his club was ''super keen'' to look at luring Riewoldt to the Giants.
He said Riewoldt, along with Lance Franklin and the Brisbane Lions' Matthew Leuenberger, remained their most sought-after potential recruits.
Riewoldt already earns more than $500,000 a year and Martin well over $400,000 in deals reached by former manager Ricky Nixon when GWS was in its formation stages.
Martin, now managed by Ralph Carr, is understood to be significantly further apart than Riewoldt in his contractual talks with the club, although both have indicated they want to stay at Richmond.
Reece Conca, Dylan Grimes, Alex Rance, Jake King, Daniel Jackson and Chris Newman are also out of contract at the end of the season.
Former skipper Newman and the club remain mutually keen for the 31-year-old to play on next year. Early last year, Brett Deledio signed a five-year agreement worth close to $3 million.
Richardson, who managed captain Trent Cotchin before replacing Craig Cameron as Richmond's head of football in February, has previously denied the club faced a salary cap squeeze.
The first sign of the harder line on player payments came with Cotchin's new deal, an agreement that was announced late last month with little fanfare given that both parties had hoped for a four-year agreement.
The deal was halved because club and captain could not come to terms over a longer financial deal.
Cotchin told 3AW on Sunday that he was ''backing himself in'' to fulfil his expectations over the next two seasons in a bid to sign a longer deal next time.
It is not known whether the Hartley-Richardson address to the players mentioned the lessons of other clubs but the example of Geelong - where star players have been prepared to sacrifice some individual reward for team success - was not lost on the Tigers, with the team poised to play finals for the first time since 2001 and only the third time since 1982, when it lost the grand final to Carlton.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/riewoldt-stalls-on-new-deal-20130616-2ocic.html
