Tigers battle leadership void
17 April 2007 Herald-Sun
Trevor Grant
AS RICHMOND'S much-awaited revival temporarily loses traction, the club's director of football, Greg Miller, says the team is suffering from a lack of leadership.
Miller, head-hunted four years ago to try to rid the club of its losing culture, is adamant the Tigers are on the right track, despite three successive losses to start the season.
However, he said the thin ranks of capable leaders would continue until the young recruits from recent drafts are ready to take command.
"There's no doubt some of our leadership group are out of form and there's probably an issue with the fact that (captain) Kane Johnson has got to do a hell of a lot of leadership on his own," Miller said.
He said injuries to three of the club's six-man leadership group did not help. Troy Simmonds has played only one game, Nathan Brown is yet to play and Mark Coughlan is out for the season after a second knee reconstruction. The others in the group are Chris Newman and Joel Bowden.
"There's no doubt Kane Johnson carries a heavy load. I don't think it's so much an issue with leadership quality, more with depth," Miller said.
"We've got to hope from the next wave of players someone will emerge. It takes time for people to emerge and evolve and take on responsibility. You give them the tools. We have professional staff to come in and train them. But some of it is in their personalities."
Miller, who made his name as a recruiting officer, and later, general manager, at North Melbourne, said the recruiting philosophy from several years ago was having an impact on team leadership.
"We had a void in our recruiting in the late 1990s and early 2000s where we did quite a few trades. Therefore we are missing a whole bracket of players in the mid-age range," Miller said. "Thank God we picked up Troy Simmonds, Nathan Brown and Kane Johnson in our last trades. They are our best leaders."
Miller said when he arrived in 2002 there was a serious impediment to the development of strong leaders.
"I felt there was a problem with relationships between administration and players," he said. "Over a fair period of time it was them against us. That doesn't work in footy clubs.
"The leadership group was at odds with the club because there wasn't a mutual trust. That's gone now. We work with the players."
Miller also defended the club against accusations that the revival under Terry Wallace, who was given a five-year contract at the end of 2004, was not on track.
Richmond has gone from four wins and last in 2004 -- Danny Frawley's last season as coach -- to 11 wins and ninth in 2006. But the pace of revival came under scrutiny when Wallace said recently that ultimate success may not come until 2011. "The five-year deal was absolutely the right decision in terms of being able to make sure the members understood it's going to take longer than a couple of years to turn a list around completely," he said.
"In the first couple of years I reckon I got 50 emails a week. I now average two or three a week, although I must say I got 12 today, as I did after we lost the first three games last year.
"I have answered nearly all the emails, even the angry ones. It's funny that when you gave them the time of day and explained things properly they would come back with a thank-you for being heard."
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,21569274%255E19771,00.html
