Gaspar once a prince, now a pauper
23 August 2004
Herald Sun
Trevor Grant
IT'S the time of year when some AFL coaches start looking backwards and wondering what might have been.
Ah yes, the illuminating value of hindsight.
Richmond coach Danny Frawley called upon it yesterday when he said he might have changed his decision to stay until the end of the season if he knew his replacement would be appointed before he finished up.
"In hindsight, if I knew that was coming down the road, I might have looked at the other way," he said.
"Ideally it would have been great to see (Terry Wallace's appointment) happening after round 22. But it's all been done for the club. It's part of football. You move on."
Frawley might also have summoned a little hindsight as veteran defender Darren Gaspar sat glumly on the bench while Richmond attempted to avoid the ignominy of the wooden spoon yesterday.
Indeed, it seems like only yesterday Gaspar was commanding attention and money in quantities reserved for the superstars of the competition.
In fact, it was late in 2001, after Gaspar had earned all-Australian selection for the second successive year. Fremantle was trying to lure him home, with a $3 million carrot.
Richmond, high on the whiff of success that had suddenly overtaken the club, fought off his WA suitor with everything it had, including about $500,000 deducted from the pay of eight of his team-mates.
Richmond won this battle by paying Gaspar about $2.5 million over five years. Now, using a little hindsight to polish up the glasses, you would have to wonder whether it has lost out big time.
It's a conclusion that is hard to avoid watching Gaspar fumble and stumble his way through a supposedly critical match and end up being dragged out of the contest because he wasn't up to it.
Once he was the prince of full-backs; a sharp, brave, quick-witted, action-man whose preferred method of disposal of an opponent was asphyxiation, especially if you dared try to go one-on-one.
Not only could he shut off the air supply to a full-forward, he could launch counter-attacks with swift, devastating results. Today he is a pale imitation without the pace to keep up, let alone lead the challenge in the back half. There were times yesterday when, amid the frenetic, desperate whirl of battle, Gaspar, 28, looked like a little boy lost.
While others were on fast forward, he was playing in slow motion. He had very limited input yesterday. And in those contests in which he found himself involved, he was picked off so easily.
His reaction time was painfully slow, allowing handballs to be smothered and runs blocked in an instant.
He was so obviously out of his depth that Frawley was merely showing his merciful side by taking him out of the game for the last quarter. And after the game, the coach asked for a little bit of understanding for the defender who won the Tigers' best-and-fairest in 2001, the team's best year under Frawley.
Yet again he pointed out that Gaspar, who had major knee surgery after breaking down last season, was always going to struggle at times without the benefit of last summer's training program. "It's always going to take a pre-season to get back somewhere near his dual all-Australian form," he said.
"When Rob Harvey does a knee you can ease him back through the mid-field. Darren, unfortunately, because of his credits, is always going to play on the dominant forward in the opposition.
"I'm sure the strength in his knee will come back over the pre-season. Maybe we rushed him back a bit early and he lost a bit of confident. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
"I'm sure with a pre-season under his belt he'll be back to somewhere near his best.
"Whether he gets back to that who knows ?"
Naturally it's with the value of hindsight that all the hard questions are now being asked, as Richmond, under new coach Terry Wallace, contemplates the awkward fact that Gaspar still has two seasons to run on his contract.
Most pointedly, how on earth could they have signed him for five years ?
It's a decision which leaves the unpalatable prospect of having a struggling veteran, who's worth little on the market, commanding close to the highest pay-packet in the club.
Of course, at the time, the same people asking the question were lauding the club's initiative in keeping him.
While that may be true, it highlights the dangers of the "buy now, pay later" mentality which so often overtakes football administrators.
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