Richmond coach unsure despite contract
July 24, 2007 - 4:10PM
The Age & Sportal
Terry Wallace has admitted that he may not get to complete his five-year contract as Richmond coach.
After posting respectable mid-table finishes in his first two years in charge, the Tigers have slumped to last spot on the ladder with just one victory and seem certain to claim the wooden spoon.
Wallace's position seems safe enough for now, with no suggestion that he will join Carlton's Denis Pagan, Fremantle's Chris Connolly and Melbourne's Neale Daniher on the outer this year.
But the situation could be markedly different in 12 months' time if the Tigers have not shown significant on-field improvement.
In the current unstable coaching climate, Wallace said he was not "twitchy" about his position and said he planned on fulfilling his part of the deal.
"I'm not getting twitchy but it's always disappointing when you see guys and you know and understand what they go through on a regular basis," Wallace said at his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
"My promise was when I came here that we were going to re-align the footy club in relation to developing our own players for the future rather than trading them in from outside," Wallace said.
"That's the pathway that I've put in place and that's the pathway I'll continue to go down until I get a tap on the shoulder and (I'm told) `that's not your job to do any more'.
"All you can do is, you've made a pledge and you just stand by your pledge."
Wallace said he hoped the Richmond board would honour his contract which runs until the end of 2009, while adding "that's not always the case in football as we know".
"I think that all of us knows that our time comes and it comes and goes and from where I am situated I'm just getting on with my job," he said.
"I think it goes through waves. This was always going to be a fairly unusual year when we had so many coaches close to the end of contract or coming out of contract.
"There was probably a little bit more stability in the previous few years.
"Going through the history it's always gone in crests and waves.
"I suppose that's one of the reasons why this football club - it wasn't just me, it was this football club - decided when I first started that they wanted a long term contract so we could try to realign the club to where we wanted to go."
Wallace's 'pathway' is enduring a pear-shaped third season as the Tigers languish in last position with a solitary win and the Richmond coach is concerned that the season may peter out.
"Clearly the three sides down the bottom of the ladder performed really poorly on the weekend," Wallace said.
"Has their season come to an end? Have they thrown in the towel? It's absolutely fair to speculate that, we're pretty keen as a group [to ensure] that that's not the case."
Wallace said that while it appeared Richmond was down and out on the field, it was actually progressing.
"What we can re-assure them [Richmond fans] is that we're heading in a direction and we haven't changed from the direction we want to head," he said.
"Sometimes you look like you're going backwards at 100 miles an hour when you're actually marching forwards.
"Those who are privy to what we are trying to achieve internally are confident that we are going forward.
"Those on the outside probably see us that we're going backwards."
Meanwhile, Wallace believes the AFL should address the current system which sees clubs benefit from finishing in the lower reaches of the ladder, although the Tigers coach admits he isn't sure what can be done about it.
"When I was a young person watching games, ninth position was better than twelfth position and that was the way that it was back in those days," explained Wallace.
"It's not necessarily that way now and I don't know whether that's a great thing."
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