Champ's loss not the end of Tigers: Wallace
By Melissa Ryan
The Age
June 1, 2005
Richmond must not succumb to "hysteria" surrounding Nathan Brown's shattered leg, Tigers coach Terry Wallace said yesterday as he urged fans not to give up on the team playing finals this year due to absence of the star player.
Wallace said the immediate challenge for himself, the team and the club to pick themselves up after Brown's devastating injury was "one of the great challenges that I've been involved in with a footy team".
With the fourth-placed Tigers to take on competition leader West Coast at the MCG on Saturday, Wallace said he had been careful to keep emotion out of his dealings with the players this week, and said their desire to finish in the top eight had not been dented by Brown's injury.
"It's an interesting challenge for our whole group and it's an interesting challenge for our footy club," Wallace said. "How do the fans handle it? Do they pack up shop and wait to see what happens before they come out to support us? We're playing against the No. 1 side in the competition on our own home ground. Do we pack the joint out with a united front?
"I've tried to keep away from the hysteria of the whole thing. I think the guys are strong enough within themselves.
"It was only a week and a half ago when Browny came out and spoke about backing his boys into the top four . . . and now he's sitting in a hospital bed with no opportunity to do so. That won't be lost on our guys. But to say are they going to go out and try any harder or do anything more or less than what they do for a normal game, I think that's a little bit insulting to them."
Wallace said he would keep faith in the structure of Richmond's game plan and seek Brown's goals from different sources. But he said it was "a tad ridiculous" for people to expect a quick fix, whether in the form of inexperienced teenager Brett Deledio or players such as Andrew Krakouer or Kayne Pettifer being expected to find "another 10 per cent" when they were already delivering all they could.
"If we get the ball inside 50 often enough, you'll find it's quite remarkable that someone steps up and kicks them if the delivery is good enough," Wallace said. "Someone always steps up and that's what we need to do. The reality is we haven't got a 66 (-goal) goalkicker within the footy club.
"What we've got to try and do is get those three goals a game out of the position. That might mean three people kicking one goal each in rotation out of that particular position. It won't be one person kicking 40 goals in the second half of the year to replace Nathan."
West Coast has lost 13 of its past 17 games at the MCG, and Wallace expected the premiership favourite would be seeking redemption after their shock loss to Collingwood.
"They were probably due for a loss, weren't they?" he said. ". . . They hadn't been beaten for the year and every side in the competition has had a down day - that was perhaps their down day.
"I don't think the Eagles are vulnerable anywhere. They have got a pretty fair track record just about everywhere."
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2005/05/31/1117305618243.html?from=storyrhs
