Marching to a different beat
Michael Gleeson | August 2, 2008
WHEN Richmond lurked at the bottom of the ladder in recent years, it failed to have the conversation with itself it needed to have.
That discussion did not come until July last year when, nearly three years into Terry Wallace's term as coach, and after four years of Greg Miller's tenure as football operations manager, the club finally had the talk.
Richmond's president, chief executive, senior coach, coaching director and football manager sat together in Sydney with a blank white sheet of paper. They sketched the ideal modern football structure: players, coaches, recruiters. All the tools for success.
Reflected in the image of what they wanted was the sad reality of what they were. They had pulled back the blinds of self-delusion. Previously, they had been as Danny DeVito before the mirror seeing only Robert De Niro looking back. Now they realised they were just another short, fat bloke sucking in his gut.
It turned out to be the beginning of the end for Miller.
He suited what Richmond was but not what it wanted to become. The Tigers grew and the board believed it had also quickly outgrown its head of football.
The rationale, as explained, for the sacking of Miller was that as a one-man band, the former North Melbourne chief executive was tremendously capable. He was a jack-of-all trades, a deal maker and, foremost, a "football person".
He was affable and well-liked in the game, but he was not, the Tigers believed, a strategic thinker and modern manager for an ever expanding, multi-faceted department.
"We sat down in Sydney, drafted what we felt was the ideal football model and that was the first step. As we got more funds and were financially more secure, we would add to that, and I suppose we sat down and changed Greg's role a bit last year," March told The Age this week in an exclusive interview on the dramatic change at Richmond.
"If you think back to when Greg came, we were trying to just plug holes all the time and we were not a very professionally run organisation in a lot of ways. In that time, we have brought Steven Wright in as chief executive and more quality people into the administration, like Jeff Bond (learning), Craig Cameron (list manager) and Craig McRae (development coach).
"Certainly, if you look at it where Hawthorn were sitting and their structure with Chris Pelchen and other people there managing it, they were more advanced in terms of dealing with a young list than we were, so, yes, we are playing catch-up. But we are catching up and that is why you are seeing improvements now.
"We would like to think if we get into the finals this year, that would be great and our window would just start to open up. If we don't make it this year, it should start to open up next year. But whether it is this year or next, we know that we are close now and that when we do make the finals, we should start to become a consistent finals' side. We don't want to be in for a year and down again."
Part of the Sydney meeting last year was to initiate a process of continual review to ensure continual improvement.
The latest review, by March and fellow directors Maurice O'Shannassy and Peggy Haines, resulted in the recommendation to the board last Tuesday week to sack Miller.
"It was clear to us that we needed the head of football to drive change, not the board or the CEO, and we felt the type of skills we needed in bringing best practices in sports science and elite conditioning and all of those different areas across different divisions needed to come from the head person, and we didn't think Greg was suitable for that role. He is a good football person but not the man for that job."
The protracted process of dismissal was sloppy and unedifying. Learning of his likely sacking last Friday night, Miller disappeared and did not attend the Saturday night match to avoid becoming a distraction.
March respected that and did not comment on the reports of Miller's sacking that were fuelled by his conspicuous absence. The club kept quiet out of a determination to give Miller the news personally.
"The guy gave us six years and I felt he deserved a face-to-face for me to explain the reasons why. I like Greg and I respect him, I thought he deserved that," March said.
The timing was equally curious, coming as the side makes a surprise late tilt for finals.
"The reason we moved on it now was that we are well aware that there are other clubs in the marketplace and in the past, Richmond have lost a lot of opportunities to get good people," he said.
"If you look back, Greg actually did this with Danny Frawley. He got him to announce it mid-season (that his contract would not be renewed) when we knew (Rodney) Eade and Wallace were in the marketplace, so that we were first cabs off the rank.
"It's not unusual, other clubs have done it."
After making its decision to sack Miller, the board moved to its next item of business — a recommendation from Miller that Wallace's contract, which has a year to run, should be extended now by another year.
It voted down the push, but said the Miller decision had nothing to do with his Wallace contract proposal.
"It's never been about Terry," March said.
"Terry has a year to go on his contract. Terry will be judged on his ability to develop the list, he will be assessed on whether he has developed the list sufficiently to play consistent finals football. It doesn't mean he has to be in the finals, you just have to believe that he has developed the list to be a sustainable finals side. That is how he will be judged.
"Now you look at where we are today and it is a bit hard to make a final call on that. That assessment will come next year.
"So any thought we will be reviewing Terry at season's end is categorically wrong."
The board review looked at assistant coaches only to the extent that it assessed whether there were enough of them, not whether individuals should come or go. March says the club will add another assistant, possibly two, and will certainly add a development coach to help McRae. To achieve its butcher-paper ideal, the club knows it needs more people.
The first and most important arrival to build that structure came early this year in the form of Cameron as list manager. It was an appointment Miller feared would marginalise the role of club recruiter Francis Jackson, but it was an important addition to marrying strategy with intuition.
Even though it acknowledges Wallace has battled with an under-resourced department, the club's administration believes a fair assessment can still be made of his progress. "'Dean Laidley has been under-resourced, too," March argues.
The decision on Miller was taken by the whole board, so it doubtless also came with the approval of Tony Free, the former club captain drafted to the board to replace Miller when he quit as a director earlier this year. Free was brought to the board to re-introduce a players' feel but, having been out of the game for 10 years, he set about the task of becoming acquainted with contemporary football and has spent a lot of time since in the footy department understanding its working.
He has been perceived as the puppet master making the calls on the footy department and Miller's sacking. It's an inaccurate assumption, March says. "The decision on Greg was ratified at that board meeting, but our review had been going for some time and the realisation we needed to change had been known for some time, before Tony even joined the board," he said.
"We think Tony has got a really valuable contribution to make because he loves the club, wants it to be successful and he knows football. I don't think he has burnt his bridges at all with the board or the footy department."
Getting its structure right has been one thing, getting its infrastructure right another.
Richmond has secured financing — largely through an astonishing Federal Government investment in the proposed Indigenous Learning Centre — for the final and most important stage of the $20 million rebuilding of its Punt Road headquarters.
"Now it is not only us catching up on the rest, maybe for the first time we are going ahead," March said.
"It's about attracting people to our football club. If you are a young player in a year or two who decides he wants to come back to Melbourne, we are going to be a pretty attractive proposition: state-of-the-art facilities, walking distance to the MCG, inner-city Melbourne and a good young team and stable club. Like it was in the '70s when people wanted to come to Richmond, not just because GR (Graeme Richmond) was good at getting them here. We have had to get that back because it hasn't been like that for a while."
In a week that had echoes of old Richmond, this was a slice of old Richmond the new Richmond wanted to embrace.
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