From SEN:CEO Shane Dunne touched on the impending redevelopment of Punt Road Oval and the club’s desire to stay put in the heart of Richmond.
“Our ultimate goal is to keep Richmond in Richmond,” he said of the club’s iconic home base.
“We want us to remain at Punt Road for generations to come. To do that, with having only one oval, we’ve got to redo the oval, so there’ll be a period of our team where our team does need to train off site.
“We’ll minimise disruption to the team as much as possible over the next couple of years, but it will mean we have to train somewhere else for a period of time.”
The Tigers have entered a full rebuild in the wake of their successful three-premiership era.
Well before that back in 2010, Dunne’s predecessor Brendon Gale famously made a bold prediction by stating that the Tigers would win three flags and erase their debt by 2020. It remarkably came true.
But the fledgling chief says he is not in a position to make a similarly daring projection.
“I haven’t been as bold to put a number on that yet,” Dunne said when asked for a Gale-style prediction.
“It’s probably the most common question I get. Someone says to me, ‘Can’t you just go and say we’ll win five in seven or something ridiculous like that and aim for it’.
“But you think back to that time and the club was on its knees when Brendon came in. Not only on the field but off the field. That’s not where we’re at right now.
“Clearly we’re going to have visions and strategic plans that we’re working on and we’re well underway on that now. We know exactly where we’re headed with the list strategy in place, off-field we’ve got our major redevelopment, and there’s a whole range of things we’ve got to tick off in our strategic plan.
“We’ll build that next vision in the coming weeks and months.”
Source: SEN
