Restoring Riewoldt to leadership group should be a high priority for TigersCaroline Wilson
The Age
Feb 15, 2017Jack Riewoldt's three-year omission from the Richmond leadership group presents as one in a long series of missteps that have accompanied the club's dismal on-field fortunes in recent times.
It is a misstep that looks certain to be rectified any day now.
Because it seems unthinkable that the Tigers should enter season 2017 with so much at stake still haunted by the collective admission that one of their best and most experienced players remains on the outer as far as his senior teammates are concerned.
The worst you ever hear about Riewoldt is that he can be selfish and that his moods are unpredictable. The best is that he is passionate and extroverted. Surely a player of his talent and intelligence with a tendency to the occasional sook or dummy spit is better kept within senior command.
Surely that should have been the reasoning some time ago. In Riewoldt's case he presents as a player whose shortcomings would have improved inside the group of playing leaders. He should have been encouraged rather than cut loose and certainly not for three years.
The strange and acrimonious departure of Leading Teams co-founder Gerard Murphy just before the midway point of last season left Richmond without a leadership consultant for much of 2016 until the appointment of former AFL football staffer Shane McCurry.
McCurry, who more recently consulted heavily at Essendon overseeing the rebuilding and restructuring of the Bombers football department after John Worsfold's appointment, is expected to lead the voting in of the 2017 leadership group at Tigerland this week.
That process is one in just a long series of stepping stones in what is clearly a work in progress. If leadership groups are as crucial to establishing on-field behaviours and off-field examples as football clubs claim them to be, then the Richmond version has failed since 2013 – the year Damien Hardwick first took the Tigers into September.
That was the year the fifth-placed Richmond lost the seemingly unlosable final to ninth-placed Carlton and the club at coaching and playing level has failed at every final since.
Having failed to address so many red flags that waved at the end of 2015 in football terms, Richmond chief Brendon Gale ordered a thorough review of that department last year, a season in which every leader at Richmond from president Peggy O'Neal down came under significant scrutiny, but notably the coach and the captain.
Certainly new football boss Neil Balme and his lieutenant Daniel Richardson would hope that McCurry and his methods receive more support at executive and board level than his predecessor.
Gerard Murphy moved at the end of last season to Port Adelaide, which has for the first time appointed an external leadership consultant. He is facilitating a new program that, albeit early days, has been lauded by the captain Travis Boak and his team and also Ken Hinkley and his assistants.
Murphy joined the Tigers at the end of 2014 and came highly recommended by Balme, who employed him at Geelong during that club's leadership reboot that began at the end of 2006 and reaped such historic benefits.
Although no one at Richmond will discuss what happened, it is understood Murphy's occasionally confrontational style put him at odds with some senior players, Riewoldt included. Either way his departure came as a shock to most players and even football staffers. In HR terms the handling of Murphy was one example among a series of missing links last year in the club's chain of command.
If the club's on-field leadership has been poor then this responsibility must be worn by Hardwick and his team of now largely departed assistants. Which is why, in a 2017 season that looms as the coach's last roll of the dice, a significant correction is required.
With every indication pointing to Trent Cotchin's reappointment, that correction at the very least should mean Jack Riewoldt is elevated to the leadership group.
It's no coincidence that high-priced and talented recruit Dion Prestia added his voice to what has been something of a summer campaign for his new teammate. A character that vibrant who shouts as loudly as Riewoldt does should be making his noise within the inner sanctum.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/restoring-richmonds-jack-riewoldt-to-leadership-group-should-be-a-high-priority-20170214-gucw0e
