Denham: Don’t give us that rubbish DimmaJoshua Papanikolaou
SEN
15 Apr 2016, 01:54PMRichmond coach Damien Hardwick cannot legitimately justify his ‘half step back’ comment by suggesting that his team is still adjusting to replacing experienced players who have left, says Greg Denham.
A poor start to the season has the Tigers on the back foot with one win from three games and a tough match-up against West Coast in Perth has the potential to really see the club under pressure.
While explaining his post-match comments after the loss to Adelaide that the Tigers may need to take half a step back to take two steps forward he proposed that his second-tier players would need time.
“Where’s his memory? I mean Chris Newman, sure he had a great career and played 17 games last year,” said Denham on SEN radio.
“Ricky Petterd and Chris Knights? Bit players, played one game each.
“Nathan Foley retired without a game last year and Daniel Jackson retired in 2014, so don’t give us that rubbish and talk about your first and second-year players replacing these guys.
“There’s been so much stupidity coming out of Richmond… five weeks after reappointing a guy who you think is going to win a final this year you come out with we’ve got to take a step back.”
Denham went further and considered that the Tigers board may have inserted a clause in Hardwick’s two-year contract extension that would allow them to dismiss him if the team’s performance was not up to expectations.
“I was never against him being reappointed but what I said is they should have waited until halfway through the year or the end of the season, there was no rush,” he said.
“And if Richmond happens to be well down and well out of the eight at the end of this year why would you bother? Surely you’ve got to look at other options.
“Now they’ve painted themselves into the corner, the only thing I can possibly say is that – and I don’t know this for sure – but surely they must a contract with Hardwick that there’s a get-out clause if the club doesn’t win the games or finals they thought he would.
“Why else would you sign a guy for an extra two years? Finals is the measuring stick in the AFL.”
Read more at:
http://www.sen.com.au/news/04-16/denham-don-t-give-us-that-rubbish-dimma#I6pPIrxIEjhufeiC.99
