Does Richmond need on and off-field upheaval and blood-letting, asks Mark RobinsonMARK ROBINSON
Herald Sun
August 7, 2016THE weirdness of football slaps you in the face when you consider Collingwood and Richmond.
Both team are on 32 points, having won eight matches and lost 11, and the angst at both clubs clearly is on different sides of the ledger.
At Richmond, coach Damien Hardwick is under siege and the board, led by Peggy O’Neal, is staring at an extraordinary general meeting because a group, now known as the Malvern crew, thinks the board needs change.
The difference between Richmond and Collingwood is that Richmond has made finals in the past three seasons and expectation has fuelled the current volcanic emotion about the Tigers.
It’s dangerous to take sides in a board battle, but how anyone can pot the board for wiping out a $5 million debt, enticing 70,000 members and building a successful operation off-field is beyond belief.
Change is important. Change because a group of people wants new ideas and direction at the club is beyond reasonable argument.
That said, there will be change of personnel at board level. At least two directors will retire and there will be robust manoeuvring from both inside and outside the club about filling those positions.
Damien Hardwick will coach in 2017 so the noise about whether he should or shouldn’t is largely irrelevant.
- Attributed to...
If there is an extraordinary general meeting, then there will be upheaval. The new group, if it gets up, will probably want to sack Hardwick.
If successful with its ambitions, it will cost the club a million bucks to sack the coach. They want a bloodless coup. But there’s nothing of the sort.
Upheaval indeed looms, which the club and the AFL don’t want a bar of.
There are two battle fronts at Richmond.
Board spills take no prisoners. Already, prominent Richmond fan Joe Russo has had a character assassination from media figures. I don’t know Russo, but if you believe what you read, he is an associate - don’t you love that word - of allegedly unsavoury types.
Those who know Russo say he is a sincere and honourable man who only wants what’s best for Richmond and who is now considering legal action against said media types for their portrayal of him.
Anyhow, he’s an early casualty and there probably will be more.
On the field and in the football department, which surely is the area of single most concern, the Tigers are in a spot.
It’s weird again that some of the commentary now says Friday night’s win over Collingwood was just “one game” and it covers the cracks.
But just imagine if the Tigers lost by 90 points. That one game would’ve possibly been a coach killer.
So if a loss was supposedly so alarming, then surely the win has to deliver a sense of reassurance.
The point is, Hardwick and his team were under siege and 22 young men stood up against a team which had been playing pretty solid football since the bye break.
Four goals behind after 10 minutes, they could’ve easily found it too hard. They didn’t. It wasn’t a win for the ages, but don’t dismiss it as just another game.
Tigers fans saw what they wanted to see. In the second quarter, three Tigers gang-tackled Rupert Wills and the Tigers won the free kick. Albeit frustrating because we don’t see it every week, it was the kind of approach that gives hope for the future.
Yes, there will significant change in the football department at the end of the season. Assistant coaches will go and recruiting and development will be savagely assessed. Still, the argument surrounds the coach.
Hardwick is an interesting type. He doesn’t care about “external noise’’ and sometimes gives the impression that only he knows what’s right for Richmond and everyone else can get stuffed.
He’s been accused of giving mixed messages this season, but a season of mixed results can do that. He has stuck fat, however, with his belief that his team had to change personnel and, because the results dictated it, he has played plenty of kids.
They were on offer against the Magpies: Markov, Marcon, Short and in recent weeks we have seen Castagna, Drummond and over the season the emergence of Daniel Rioli, Corey Ellis and Connor Menadue. There’s eight kids. There’s the immediate future.
Hardwick will coach in 2017 so the noise about whether he should or shouldn’t is largely irrelevant. I’m not fussed either way, but the symbolism of Hardwick
being swamped by his players in the rooms in the post-match is too powerful to ignore.
The win and the emotion is one of the reasons why Peggy O’Neal won’t really be drawn on the coach. Because to her it’s not an issue.
No, her concern is the board.
In her presidential speech on Friday night, O’Neal urged for stability.
“Stability at this club has been important,’’ she said. “Good clubs are stable clubs and it has been a key to our improved performance on and off the field in recent years.
“Stability and change actually go hand-in-hand. Stability allows change.
“Instability and change become chaos and I refuse to let that happen to this club. Some have tried to suggest that stability has come at the expense of change. That is utter nonsense. This is a very different club to the one it was even as recently as four years ago.’’
Inspiring words won’t quell the agitators, however.
If, after one terribly disappointing season, the agitators want to turn the club upside down, then they can knock themselves out with their endeavours.
But does one bad season require such upheaval?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/expert-opinion/mark-robinson/does-richmond-need-on-and-offfield-upheaval-and-bloodletting-asks-mark-robinson/news-story/833b6eb3a82c6172c78a3a01d24a7931
