Wallace to punt a losing culture
By Greg Denham
The Australian
August 11, 2004
TERRY WALLACE yesterday predicted a new winning culture at Richmond, but stopped short of declaring a time frame for success.
As revealed in The Australian on August 2, Wallace will take over from Danny Frawley at the end of the season and said development would be a long and difficult pathway.
"If you are looking at sustained premiership success, that takes a period of time," Wallace said.
Tigers president Clinton Casey announced yesterday that Wallace had accepted a five-year contract and would start in his position at Punt Road on October 1.
Football director Greg Miller, the man responsible for recruiting the former Western Bulldogs coach, also revealed the deal was as good as clinched three weeks ago at his second meeting with Wallace.
Casey said Richmond, who sit 15th on the ladder with just four wins after finishing 14th and 13th in the previous two seasons, offered Wallace a longer-than-normal deal because "there is no short-term fix in football".
"The board will provide the support and security for Terry to recruit and build a strong team that's going to produce some consistent performances for this footy club," Casey said.
Wallace said he wanted stability at Punt Road and would work towards a change of culture.
"I understand it's been a difficult time for all Tigers supporters and members and I'll be doing everything within my power to develop a winning culture back to the Richmond Football Club, getting it back to where it finally deserves to be," Wallace said.
Wallace said the opportunity to coach the Tigers would enable him to complete some "unfinished coaching business" that he had failed to achieve.
In 148 games at the helm of the Dogs, he won 79, lost 67 and drew two.
In almost six full years he got the Dogs into seven finals matches in four seasons. They were knocked out in consecutive preliminary finals in 1997 and 1998 by eventual premier Adelaide.
"Looking at the positives of Richmond, the efforts of both Clinton and Greg, and their professionalism in the way they approached all meetings conducted over a period of time, that made me super enthusiastic," Wallace said.
"I'm really hoping that there can be some stability within the Richmond footy club.
"It's something the club hasn't been able to achieve.
"I just thought that this football club was a club which has such a huge capacity to be one of the real strengths of the competition.
"I believe I can change the culture of the way the Richmond people are feeling about their footy club."
Wallace, 45, a life member at Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs, said he now had the chance to fulfil a long ambition to achieve something special with Richmond after a brief playing career in 1987.
After leaving Hawthorn following the 1986 premiership, the last of his 174 games with the Hawks, he played just 11 games for the Tigers the following year before moving on to the Bulldogs.
"For all the reasons I had when I first walked into the club, some of those dreams might now be able to be realised," he said.
Wallace, who was interviewed by Hawthorn last week, said he had not got close to reaching terms with the Hawks because there were "just road blocks in the way that didn't allow it to get that far".
Wallace said it would be naive to think a player cull would not take place at Punt Road at the end of the season.
"You would be kidding yourself on any side that has finished in the bottom four on the ladder if you didn't think that was going to occur," he said.
"I think you have to go down that path.
"The players have had an ugly year and I cannot make any promises to any player on the list."
Wallace, highly regarded as a master tactician and innovative coach, spent the best part of the past two years working in the media since controversially quitting as coach of the Western Bulldogs with one round remaining in 2002.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10407015%255E2722,00.html
