Damien Hardwick set to coach most VFL-AFL games in history without a finals win
JON RALPH
Herald Sun
April 14, 2016
DAMIEN Hardwick has enough coaching headaches without worrying about the type of milestone he will notch on Friday night.
When the ball is bounced against West Coast at Subiaco Oval, he will have coached the most games in VFL-AFL history without a single finals victory.
He eclipses former Richmond centreman Bob McCaskill’s unwanted record, the North Melbourne and Hawthorn coach notching 138 games without any September glory.
If Bob was alive he would share Hardwick’s pain, his Roos running into a Carlton-sized roadblock in 1945 before going 4-32 in two seasons with Hawthorn.
You can twist statistics any way you want — Hardwick has also guided the Tigers into successive finals (three in fact) for the first time since 1974-75.
But it is another reminder of the vast challenges in front of Hardwick and his Tigers, who seem further from that finals triumph than ever.
Richmond fans are realists, filthy at the sloppy start to the year and botched opportunity to nail Collingwood late.
Yet they are aware key injuries to skill players Brett Deledio, Shane Edwards and Chris Yarran in a team that lacks that commodity have cruelled the first month.
What does gall them is Hardwick’s mixed messages of the past few days, the dramatic change of narrative for a club so optimistic only weeks ago.
Just days before Round 1 Hardwick brimmed with positivity, adamant a fast start to the year would rocket his side to the top four.
“We have got to make sure we get the good start we are after,’’ he told Fox Footy.
“We haven’t had a good start in the last three years, the best we have been is 3-3.
“There is no doubt if you start well you will finish well. We are looking to get off to a fast start.”
Now Hardwick says the Tigers are taking a step back to move forward, a policy that seems to have been made on the run.
It doesn’t wash, not when Hardwick has spent a full six years building a list and game plan.
Football supporters are smart — they have never watched more football, never been more aware of list management, never had a better bulldust radar.
If Hardwick had alerted those fans early about the growing pains associated with the fast-tracking of Daniel Rioli, Jayden Short, Corey Ellis, Ben Lennon and retooling Kamdyn McIntosh as a defender, they might have understood.
Instead he promised all-out assault on the first month of the year.
The investment in the quickly improving Rioli and Short has been worth it, the positional change of McIntosh is a tick, the development of Ellis and Lennon still very much a work in progress.
If he bolsters the midfield with his most dangerous midfielders the forward line all of a sudden looks thin on X-factor.
If Ivan Maric returns for Shaun Hampson his in-close aggression won’t match Hampson’s tap-work: conundrums lie everywhere.
In truth, this season is a mirror image of 2015, the club giving up 46 points a game from back-half turnovers compared to 13 for the miserly Western Bulldogs.
Last year after the Tigers coughed up 92 points from Benny Hill-style turnovers against North Melbourne in Round 6, Hardwick finally got the mix and the ball speed right.
The Tigers won 13 of the next 16 games.
One of those wins was a stirring Friday night encounter against unbeaten Fremantle at Subiaco Oval.
McCaskill, a soldier in two wars who at one stage won six straight flags with Sandhurst before his VFL coaching stint, was labelled the Prince of Coaches given his coaching prowess.
In the Sporting Globe in 1946 he spoke of non-negotiables like desire and application, saying footy had three fundamentals: “To get the ball, to protect oneself, and to dispose of it constructively.”
It is not too late, but unless Hardwick’s players begin to dispose of the ball constructively that finals win will remain as elusive as ever.
MOST GAMES COACHED WITHOUT A FINALS WIN138 games — Damien Hardwick at Richmond
138 games — Bob McCaskill at North Melbourne and Hawthorn
137 games — Alec Hall at St Kilda, Melbourne, Richmond and Hawthorn
132 — Ken Judge at Hawthorn and West Coast
128 — Arthur Olliver at Footscray
NOTABLE FACTSBill Stephen coached 258 games at Fitzroy and Essendon for one finals win
Chris Connolly had only one finals win in 126 games with Fremantle
Alastair Clarkson has 16 finals wins from 22 finals and four premierships from 262 games
Hardwick is one of only five coaches in AFL history to coach a team in three finals, and not win any of them: Dick Condon (Collingwood) 1905-06, Len Smith (Fitzroy) 1958, 1960, Arthur Oliver (Footscray) 1944, 1946, 1948, Allan Joyce (Western Bulldogs) 1994-95.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/damien-hardwick-has-coached-most-vflafl-games-in-history-without-a-finals/news-story/388a2b10a03a2dc155fd7a0464ae493a
