Tiger future in Wallace's hands
11 August 2004
Herald Sun
DANIEL Jackson is a Year 12 student starting out at Richmond. He will be 23 and a 100-game player when Terry Wallace completes his contract.
The Tigers have invested their future in Wallace. Unconditionally.
They have given him a five-year contract and carte blanche to revive an ailing football club.
He will decide his principal assistants, who stays and who goes from the player list, and how the club plays its powerful hand in the draft.
It is a massive show of faith in one man. A massive commitment, philosophically and financially. Wallace has a solid reputation, but he hasn't coached in a Grand Final yet.
He will get an estimated $3 million over the term of the agreement, although there are those in the industry convinced the club and its benefactors will pay a total of significantly more.
Surely not, yet Clinton Casey, the president, is a man of means and needs.
The Wallace appointment is the ace of spades in Casey's poker game with Brendan Schwab and his cohorts.
Apart from the political points for Casey, director of football Greg Miller never has been accused of being frugal in negotiations with coaches and players.
On the credit side, given Wallace's marketing bent, he will earn his keep. He will "sell" the club in a way that will have Eddie McGuire nodding approvingly.
Yesterday, he appeared at the media conference at Punt Road resplendent in a dark suit, crisp white shirt and the numbered Richmond tie he earned from his (brief) time as a player. Nice touch.
Starting from the modest base of 11 games in 1987, he plans to become a life member at Richmond, as he is at Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs.
Five years is an extraordinary term. Yet, Richmond is an extraordinary challenge, and clubs were queuing up for Wallace.
Like those before him, he sees Richmond as a sleeping giant; unlike his predecessors, he seems equipped to jolt the giant into action.
First up, Richmond will set membership records before Christmas.
If you're not a Hawthorn board member or supporter, it is an exciting appointment.
Wallace knows his stuff, he will be embraced by the Richmond faithful, given their wretched history in the past 20 years, and he made the right noises yesterday.
The most significant of his observations was: "Supporters want to see their own players developed."
Based on that, the early draft choices this year will be invested in youth not expediency.
No more Fletchers, Marshes, Morrisons and Wellers from other clubs to fill holes.
Wallace said supporters wanted to see players start and finish at a club: first games and 250th games, like Glenn Archer has done with the Kangaroos.
"We know there's no short-term fix in football," he said.
It is a lesson Richmond supporters have learned the hard way. Now they know what lays ahead. Strangely enough, the majority will accept it this time.
Wallace wants stability, development and steady progress.
He is a strong performer in the media, and lived up to his reputation yesterday.
It was probably a piece of pie, really, given he had to call Jason Dunstall on Monday night to tell him he wouldn't be going home to Glenferrie Oval.
He described the call to his mate and Hawthorn's acting chief executive as "really, really difficult".
He said the spectre of Don Scott and political instability at Hawthorn had worried him, later adding: "The fit wasn't right."
Yet, Richmond was so confident of landing him, a highly-placed official declared it a done deal 10 days ago.
Wallace made it official when he called Miller at 9pm Monday. He bristled at suggestions he put Hawthorn through a charade.
Adelaide, Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs now jostle for front position in the hunt for a coach, with Rodney Eade and Gary Ayres and a bunch of assistants all waiting in hope.
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