Tiger fall was 'inevitable'
Jake Niall | May 24, 2007 | The Age
RICHMOND president Gary March has called the Tigers' decline this year an "inevitable" result of retirements and injuries and revealed the club had been braced for a tough year in either 2006 or 2007.
March, who assumed the presidency from Clinton Casey shortly after Terry Wallace took over as senior coach, explained that Richmond's descent from ninth to the ladder's lower reaches was the result of a massive loss of experienced players over the past two years, combined with the absence of its most influential players Nathan Brown and Troy Simmonds.
March predicted, however, that the Tigers would climb back up the ladder to vie for a spot in the eight next year, and were capable of pushing the top four in 2009.
The Tigers president said the club had lost veterans Wayne Campbell, Greg Stafford, Andrew Kellaway, Darren Gaspar, Mark Chaffey and Rory Hilton, since the end of 2005, when Campbell and Hilton finished up. He said the upshot of the exodus was that Richmond's team last weekend had an aggregate of 1500 games of experience, compared to Sydney's 2900.
"We knew that one of either 2006 or 2007 was going to be a tough year … We knew that at some stage — we had 300 games Wayne Campbell, Greg Stafford 200 games, Mark Chaffey just shy of 200, Andrew Kellaway just shy of 200, Darren Gaspar just on 200. Rory Hilton well over 100. It's certainly a lot of experience that's out of the side."
March said the exodus of veterans exposed the club's lack of 100-game players, or the middle bracket, that could carry the team, but that it would improve significantly as Brett Deledio, Andrew Raines, Richard Tambling and Nathan Foley pushed towards 70 games.
"Something had to give at some stage." March said he had expected the ageing group's demise to hit "last year or this year … it sort of happened this year instead. That's not an excuse."
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