'I thought about trading Richo': Plough's amazing confessionBy SEN
6 Feb 2018Former Richmond coach Terry Wallace has revealed that he thought about trading club legend Matthew Richardson when he was at the helm at Tigerland.
In 2016, Richardson revealed that Carlton made a strong play for his services and that then-coach Denis Pagan’s wife made him scones in a bid to lure him to the Blues at the end of the 2003 season.
However, Wallace told SEN Afternoons that discussions were had behind the scenes at Richmond about allowing the star forward to chase success elsewhere in the twilight of his career.
“It was being said for all the right reasons, not all the wrong reasons – which might sort of sound strange,” Wallace explained.
“We got to the stage mid-late my time at the footy club, which is getting towards the end of Richo’s time at Richmond. You get to the stage where you go, ‘is it better for Matthew to have an opportunity late in his career (to have success)?’
Wallace said that the conversations at list-management level never got any further than just that, but were done with the best interests of both player and club in mind.
“We never really got to the stage of having this conversation with him – he’d be driving around going, ‘what’s this all about?’” Wallace said.
“...We sat there and had conversation, ‘Would it be better for Matthew – he had played in such a poor period of the history of the Richmond footy club – would it be better for him to get that opportunity to go to a club, ala Brian Lake late in his career, have that sort of chance to become a premiership play and a star with a good side? Is that good for him?’
“At exactly the same time, what’s his value because he was still playing really good football at that stage? Are we better invested to get a couple of high-end picks?
“We’ve got (Trent) Cotchin, (Jack) Riewoldt, (Alex) Rance, (Brett) Deledio. Are we better getting one or two more for that next generation or journey?
“It got to the stage where we went, ‘they’ll tear the joint down.’ Matthew is so Richmond – as much as it might be good for Matthew and it might be good for Richmond going forward – it was such a big call that it never got off the ground.”
Wallace said that if clubs had the ability to trade future picks at the time – as they do now – it wouldn’t have made any difference in their decision not to trade the AFL Hall of Famer.
“We believed that Matthew was a generational player who was bring bums on seats that perhaps wouldn’t have been there if he wasn’t there,” he said.
“It was such an important component when we were still down that we could sell memberships and (have people) come through the gate.”
https://www.sen.com.au/news/2018/02/06/i-thought-about-trading-richo-ploughs-amazing-confession/
