No excuse but 'crap' ground was costly: Wallace
Len Johnson | April 9, 2008 | The Age
TERRY Wallace said yesterday that Richmond had had up to eight injuries early last season as a result of having to train on substandard surfaces.
A day after AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou described the Tigers' Punt Road training base as "a crap ground to train on", Wallace said injuries caused in part by training on inferior ground surfaces had "ruined our season last year".
He queried Demetriou's choice of words, though he added that the AFL chief executive had been very helpful in the search for alternate training venues.
Wallace said Richmond had been more diligent in its player management this year as a result of getting "between six and eight stress-related injuries through training on inferior grounds", including Punt Road, last season.
Cricket commitments restricted Richmond to a couple of sessions at its traditional training base this season.
The training it has been able to do there has been compromised by the shape of the ground — the pocket on the Richmond station side at the Punt Road end has virtually disappeared — and the hardness of the surface.
Before the start of his weekly news conference yesterday, Wallace pointed out to journalists an L-shaped area of new surface around two sides of the centre cricket pitch area.
He said the club had spent $20,000 in the past fortnight on eliminating a significant drop from the wicket table to the rest of the playing surface "so we can run through the middle of the ground".
Elite performance manager Matt Hornsby said later that the issue related as much to the training load the club was able to place on individual players and the playing group as a whole as it switched from venue to venue during the pre-season.
"Last year, reactions to hard grounds impacted on our sessions and we have had to manage volumes or reduce sessions for particular players," Hornsby said.
While not going into specific injuries, Hornsby said the impact on players such as Nathan Brown and Chris Newman, both returning from leg fractures last year, had to be monitored closely.
"It's not just hardness of surfaces, but the consistency," Hornsby said. "Change in surface is as big a concern as hardness."
Richmond has trained at various venues including Victoria Park and, on occasion, Collingwood's training ground at Gosch's Paddock.
The club has also looked at developing a future training base at Craigieburn. For the present, it is seeking permission to train once a week at the MCG.
Wallace said he did not like to be in the position of using lack of a suitable training ground as an excuse for Richmond's on-field performances.
"It's been awkward, it's been difficult. We've really been in the situation of being nomadic. Others are in that situation, too.
"I would rather not be sitting here commenting about it because people just see you using it an an excuse, but it's clearly something we've got to get right in the future."
Richmond curator Paul Graham was not so circumspect yesterday in querying Demetriou's characterisation of his ground, telling radio station SEN that Demetriou seemed to be good at "… sucking down the champagne and crayfish …" but hadn't been as quick to reimburse the club for the repair of damage caused by post-grand final festivities held on the ground last year.
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