Richmond players undertake TAFE course
Chip Le Grand
The Australian
February 17, 2006
THE Richmond Football Club has gone back to school, with all players being required to complete a series of master classes on the finer points of the game.
If this conjures an image of Matthew Richardson flicking a spitball at the back of Darren Gaspar's head or an earnest David Rodan offering to clean the dusters, this couldn't be further from the truth.
Not when the teachers include Carlton premiership star Wayne Johnston, 282-gamer Andrew Bews, former Richmond and Collingwood goal-kicker Brian Taylor, former Hawk Andy Collins and retired Bomber Joe Misiti.
The idea was conceived by senior coach Terry Wallace and has become the pet project of long-serving assistant coach David Wheadon.
The theory, Wallace said, was to break down training into small groups of players and very specialised areas. Wallace believes this is where football coaching is heading, with more teaching to be done by part-time coaches and specialised consultants and less en masse by the senior coach.
The program is known internally as TAFE (Tigers At Football Education) and split into 35 specialist courses. Every course takes six weeks and finishes with a written report on the progress of each player. Players take courses relevant to their roles in the team and can be asked to repeat if necessary.
The courses on offer include tagging with Duncan Kellaway, playing as a small defender with Bews, kicking out of defence with former Geelong backman Tim Darcy, kicking into the forward line with Johnston, contested marking with former Essendon ruckman Steve Alessio, forward leading with Taylor, and loose-ball gets with Misiti and Collins.
To ensure a minimum standard of tuition, Terry's teachers were required to complete a short teaching course and develop a six-week syllabus with Wheadon. While some of the courses are being taken by Richmond coaches and senior players, teachers from outside the club have offered their services on a volunteer basis.
Wallace hopes this will change as the program develops.
"Where I think the game is going in the future is that you won't get a lot more full-time assistant coaches," Wallace said. "What you will see is coaches coming in and being paid for their expertise in the game."
Several of the classes were in session at Richmond training yesterday. As Taylor took some of the forwards through the fundamentals of leading, assistant coach David King instructed his charges on how to "run and carry". At the other end of the ground, the group belonging to assistant coach Brian Royal worked on defensive transition.
The Richmond players have completed their first semester of TAFE and started their second. Wallace said the teaching program had made this pre-season campaign one of the most time-consuming he could recall. In addition to their weights, recovery and skills training schedules, the players have three 45-minute TAFE lessons a week. During the season, the load will be reduced to two lessons a week.
"Physically, this pre-season hasn't been as demanding but time-wise, it has probably been more demanding," Wallace said.
"Last year I didn't know what I had and needed to find out, so I physically challenged the group. This time around I knew what I had and knew what we needed in terms of a teaching environment."
What sets the TAFE courses apart from specialist coaching at other clubs is the depth in which each subject or skill area is studied. It is one thing to tell a player how to run with an opposition star. It is another to turn the dark arts of tagging into a six-week course.
As Wallace explained, the course is not only about the mechanics of tagging, but how best to counter the possible response of opposition players, their team-mates, coaches and the umpires.
"Week one might be tagging at stoppages; how to play guys at stoppages, what you can do, what you can't do and what they will let you get away with," Wallace said. "The next week might be opposition players taking you to foreign positions on the ground."
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