Hard to find security when you hit the top
By Caroline Wilson
realfooty.theage.com.au
June 27, 2004
Kevin Sheedy sat in the pub of an old friend late yesterday and told those who asked that he was happy to be patient for a couple of days. After all, Essendon had been patient with him.
Danny Frawley was spending the weekend at a Victorian coastal resort with his manager and trying to place the finishing touches of his exit from the ranks of AFL coaches.
Strangely, Sheedy has not been officially told that the Bombers have agreed to his three-year contract request. Some find it equally strange that Frawley has not yet quit. He knows the Richmond dream is over for him but a man has his pride. Now the ball is in his court.
Greg Miller and Clinton Casey put it there when they promised not to tap him on the shoulder until the end of the year. The entire industry is doing so now.
Not everyone on the Essendon board voted to offer Sheedy a three-year contract, but most did. And the vote to retain him after 24 years as senior coach at Essendon was unanimous.
The few who pushed for two years did so because they subscribed to the long-held philosophy that the veteran coach works better under pressure.
But they were clearly out-voted. Strangely, Sheedy has not been told yet of the board's decision, but it is understood that he will be offered a new deal in the next day or two with an announcement to follow quickly.
If Richmond were to act - and Sheedy emphasised again yesterday that no one at Tigerland had spoken to him regarding the coaching position - it would seem unlikely now that he would even consider an offer.
Sheedy, 56, has been sitting on a highly lucrative new two-year offer from Essendon since the start of the season. In April it was reported that he was questioning whether he was the right man to take the club into its next era and might not accept a new deal.
Now, having publicly negotiated with the Bombers for an extra year, he is on the verge of receiving that commitment and therefore could not in all conscience look elsewhere.
Sheedy was approached by a Tiger director before the start of the 2004 season, but the approach was not followed up and it seems that the dreamers who clung to the belief that he might return one day must finally wake up.
Sad, because it looked good on paper and with the football club having disintegrated on-field this season and showing signs of doing the same off it, Sheedy's personality, fame and strength could have provided the glue to a club without heart.
Working to remedy the situation is Miller, the unofficial Richmond chief executive officer, and president Casey, who will soon be the subject of a challenge. Casey and Miller have employed David Parkin to help them find the club's new coach.
While Frawley continues to plan the most dignified way to announce his imminent departure - he met manager Ricky Nixon nine days ago to plot the logistics and is reportedly out of town with Nixon this weekend doing the same - it appears increasingly likely that most of Frawley's football department will survive the clean-out.
The blame game at Richmond is being played with far more fervour than the game involving the Sherrin.
Another Nixon client, Rodney Eade, is the favorite to replace Frawley next season and if you had to place Terry Wallace at a football club today, that club would be Adelaide.
Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams has a clause in his contract that states he can field offers from rival clubs after June 30, which is clearly why that club is on ther verge of making him a new offer.
And so it should. Williams's team has performed remarkably well under adversity this season and suddenly looks again like a top-four contender.
The September bogy will continue to hover over his reputation but his winning ratio of close to 63 per cent must see him in contention for job offers from elsewhere, although it is difficult to believe that a man of Williams's pedigree would ever consider coaching the Crows. He is there to deliver Port's first flag and he knows it.
At St Kilda, Grant Thomas has transformed his club and deserves to be offered a new endorsement of three years when his board meets this week.
He reportedly told chief executive Brian Waldron on Friday that deals mean nothing and he would stand by his performance, but the truth is that Thomas's vision is now starting to make sense and his often-strange decisions are forming a pattern. A winning pattern.
With Frawley on the way out and Thomas, Williams and Sheedy on the verge of re-signing and Denis Pagan consolidating his position at Carlton, the coaching puzzle is falling into place. Perhaps the most difficult part of the jigsaw sits over at Glenferrie Oval.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2004/06/26/1088145021413.html
