Tigers footy boss in dawn dipMichael Gleeson
The Age
5 May 2016Richmond football boss Dan Richardson joined the Tigers players in a dawn dip in the bay this week as the club tried to bond after a difficult week and start to the season.
The early morning walk in the water at Kerferd Rd, South Melbourne, came after at least one of Richmond's so called top-up players, wingman Shaun Grigg, went to see Richardson on Tuesday for clarification on his position at the club after comments about recycled players Richmond had brought in.
It is understood a number of Richmond's mature recruits were troubled by comments from the club about trading in mature players and were concerned about where the comments left them.
"Yeah I went in the water with the players. It was simply one in all in," Richardson said.
"I took it upon myself to go in with them after I heard they had organised one themselves not because anyone had done anything especially wrong, but they thought it would be a good thing for them to do and I just thought why not? I'll join them, it was one in all in .... I got a good welcome from the boys."
Richardson said he had discussions with Grigg this week but the decision to join the players in wading into the bay on Wednesday morning was not related to that conversation.
"That was unconnected. I have discussions with players all the time about where they sit so that was fine. I had a chat to Shaun but that as not unusual. He knows that, especially in the form he is in at the moment, he is an important player for us," he said.
Richardson said in a radio interview on Monday the club was paying the price for having recruited a blend of mature players and drafted in young talent several years ago.
The comments were intended to reference the fact the rebuilding of the club's list had coincided with the dilution of the draft pool through the arrival of the two new expansion teams and so out of necessity they needed to blend older and younger talent.
Richardson is understood to have been thinking of mature players who had been brought in but already left the club and the elite players the club had been denied access to who were now performing well for the Giants and Suns when he made the radio comments.
"We couldn't take eight years to rebuild. We needed to become competitive a bit quicker than that. But at that time all the best talent basically for the next four to five years was going to be going north [to Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney]," Richardson said on SEN.
"We're seeing the likes of GWS reap the rewards of that now. Our strategy wasn't just to go to the draft like a lot of clubs did because we knew that would probably take six to eight years and we've seen that with the likes of Melbourne.
"We didn't think Richmond fans would accept an eight-year rebuild. We turned it around in four, which I think was a terrific achievement.
"We're paying a price in the sense that we knew that that mature-age talent would get us to a point but not take us to the next level, which was always going to be the hardest part. While it's been disappointing somewhat to not win a final, it's been a good achievement to play finals for three years in a row for the first time for 20 years for the club."
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/richmond-tigers/richmond-v-hawthorn-tigers-football-boss-dan-richardson-joins-players-in-dawn-bay-dip-20160505-gon5b7.html
