Just in case we missed anythiing, this is a summary of the interview:
GL: Is it your most difficult time in footy?
TW: I’d say so. From a coaching point of view, never had a losing streak like this one – four was the most at any one time. Been a trying time, to say the least.
CW: Much was made of preseason media briefing. She wasn’t the only one critical at the time, but she was critical. Looking back, was it a self-fulfilling prophecy to say that you weren’t going to be super competitive in an ongoing sense until 2011?
TW: Never said we wouldn’t be competitive till 2011. What was said that we might have 12 months holding pattern, depending on the development of some of our younger players. And then thought that there was a window of opportunity to improve in the next 18 months, but our list management wouldn’t be in the shape that we would like it in, in the shape that WC Eagles are in now probably for another 3 or 4 seasons because of inherited problems of the list.
CW: Greg Miller admitted it backfired.
TW: Absolutely. He wouldn’t do it again, because you don’t get the opportunity of reporting it yourself. He thought there were only two or three reporters there, but other reporters who weren’t there jumped onto the issue and didn’t think it was reported right from day one.
CH: You interpreted differently to what Caro wrote.
CW: We’ve talked about it, but in PR terms it hurt TW. It coincided with a Bulldogs article which he copped criticism for as well. Greg Miller also said it was too difficult for Terry to write about the Bulldogs now.
TW: He hasn’t heard that from anyone at the club at all, but I want to move on. He was asked to write an article about the Bulldogs by the Herald Sun. He wrote it as honestly as he could. He gets into trouble because he’s brutally honest. Not intending to change that.
CW: How are you and Greg? She thinks he’s made poor recruiting decisions and thinks he took too long for clean out for what TW says is necessary to make the club rise. Is he the man to lead us out of the mire. He’s got lots of roles. Are you two in alignment with what’s happening at the club?
TW: Absolutely, a hundred per cent. One of the reasons he went to the club was because Greg was there. If you see the amount of work he does – corporate wise etc to get the funds to help the footy department, running a recruiting division and keeping them together when we didn’t have a recruiting officer, done an inordinate amount of work.
CW: Has he had too much to do?
TW: I think he has, but that’s not his fault. That’s where we were at that stage. From the time he arrived, we were the lowest of the low from a budget point of view and the lowest spending of any club in the competition. Knew that when he took on the job and knew that it would change over the next couple of years. Greg has been the main one to be really pushing that along.
WC: 10-0 – you’ve escaped scrutiny from media. Does he consider himself an untouchable?
TW: He gets his fair share of criticism on talkback radio from people with axes to grind. Coaches at certain times in their contractual situation, more so than anything else, if people don’t believe there’s any chance of anything happening - he thinks that this has been what has been so good at Richmond, that there hasn’t been any question from the board of management about the situation of where he’s at and we’ve been really stable from that point of view. What happens, he doesn’t thinks the media don’t write about the questions if there’s not going to be a question there.
CH: Why didn’t you clean the place out two years ago? Why didn’t we go down the Alastair Clarkson path.
TW: We believe we did clean it out. We turned over 12 players in the first year. Asks if you can turn over 20 in a year lol.
CH: But you did top up – Mark Graham etc.
TW: One or two. Certainly there wasn’t anyone we took that was costing us anything.
CH: Supporters want to see youth come through rapidly. Hawks further progressed.
TW: Are they further progressed on the back of 23 and 24 year olds or are they further progressed on the back of 19 and 20 years olds. Got guys like Boyle coming through – that group of 23-24 years olds that they’ve got that we haven’t. So they were already in the Hawthorn system.
CH: (Thickhead) But have we played those guys?
TW: We haven’t got those 23 and 24 year olds. Re not playing Cleve Hughes and JON – the Hawks haven’t played Dowler and Muston as well. That’s why the Hawks are in such great shape because they’ve still got those kids coming through as well. We didn’t have 23 and 24 years olds and that’s our greatest problem. If you expect 18 and 19 years olds to deliver, they won’t stand up.
GL: Isn’t it time now we start playing the kids or is it going to be too much for them.
TW: We’re rotating and turning them over with players of a similar age bracket. Against Adelaide – we only had one player (Kingsley) over 21 that was available for us to play. All we had available was kids. If we were just sitting there and saying they’re the best kids for our future, we would just play them. We’re still playing the guys who deserve a guernsey. We’ve got so many the young kids because that’s our lot. So we’re replacing a Riewoldt with a Hughes or a Schulz with a Hughes, all around the same age bracket.
CW: Do you regret describing the club as a train wreck?
TW: From a list management point of view it was, and we just had so many players 26 and above that were going nowhere. Talk about a club that were perennial 9th and at some stage we had to get rid of those guys to give ourselves an opportunity. It went further. It went to our feeder club at Coburg who were 26 and 27 years as well.
