My worst loss, says Wallace
By Chloe Saltau
The Age
April 1, 2006
Terry Wallace last night described Richmond's "devastating" 115-point round-one loss to the Western Bulldogs as the worst defeat of his 171-match coaching career.
Wallace said Tigers fans had a right to be disgusted with team's first effort for the new season, adding that the players were "absolutely smashed in and around the footy" after half-time, when the margin was a redeemable 29 points.
"I don't think there's a person down in the Richmond change rooms who doesn't feel the same way," said Wallace, who must find a way of pulling the demoralised club together for next week's clash with St Kilda. "I've got to take responsibility for the result as the senior coach of the football club, but we absolutely felt we were ready for the season proper."
Hurting after the embarrassing loss to his old club, Wallace said he would appeal to his players' sense of pride in the jumper this week but was not yet sure whether to have a blow-by-blow post-mortem or drop the tapes in the bin and move on.
"There's the easy option of saying, 'Forget about it and get on with the next one,' " Wallace said. "But there's a lot you can learn sometimes. Until I see it in the cold hard light of day, I'm not sure which way I'll go about it."
The Bulldogs, who outran and outmuscled their opponents all over the ground, at the final siren were only a goal away from their biggest winning margin over any team. Wallace, meantime, was struggling to digest his worst defeat as a coach.
"I think it was (the worst), from what I can recall," Wallace said. "You don't sit back and think about all those wet, wintry days but I can't recall a worse one. The sun comes up tomorrow and we've got 21 games to go. We've got to make sure we get back on the bike and work at it.
"That would be, I think, the largest loss that I've been involved in as a coach and for that to happen in round one is very disappointing. It's a situation where your supporters are waiting and hoping that the season is going to unfold in the right way. It's devastating for everyone involved.
"If they're going to be able to get the ball inside more than 60 times, I really think that was the area we were smashed in tonight. I thought we were competitive until half-time. We were just humbled in the third quarter."
Wallace pointed to the loss of experience of former captain Wayne Campbell, Mark Graham and Rory Hilton, and the absence last night of Greg Stafford, Mark Chaffey and Ray Hall. But this was not an excuse for the size of the blowout, and the coach said he had no hint from his players at the half-time break of the debacle that lay ahead.
"There was a significant amount of heads dropping and that's always disappointing. I thought tonight we allowed the scoreboard to impact on our mentality. I thought they were mentally tired rather than physically tired," said Wallace, who was forced to revert to "ugly footy" by sending extra men to defence to stem the flow.
"It's what you do the following week. We can do nothing about what's happened tonight. You can sit there and lick your wounds but we can do zero about it now. What we have the ability to do is be able to do something about the manner in which we go about next week."
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/04/01/1143441344833.html
