Plough tips quiet trade week
By Mic Cullen
10:30 PM Sun 05 October, 2008
RICHMOND coach Terry Wallace is all set for trade week, but isn't expecting to do much.
The Tigers have a generally young list with a smattering of older players, so it's not likely they're going to have a glut of offers for players from other clubs, and the club is building, not topping up.
But he's ready for mad Monday at Telstra Dome, even if the rest of the week will probably die down.
"It varies – it depends on how active you are and what's going on," Wallace said.
"You usually find that if you've got only one deal on the go, that it's manageable.
"The first day is ridiculous, because there's so many things being thrown around, and the likelihood of most of them is between one per cent and nil per cent.
"But once you get your teeth into 'that's where we're going, that's our priority', usually quite a bit of that work's already been done in the lead-up to trade week.
"Sometimes it's just sitting around in boardrooms waiting for the phone to ring, and everyone's scared to go out. You don't want to go and have that coffee with that extra strength and conditioning person just in case something happens.
"It's a very unusual week."
But he does have a method for dealing with it, even if it's not going to be used this year.
"A couple of years ago, I wasn't even in the country – I was in the US doing a bit of a study tour, and I actually found that better.
"I had a phone beside me, and it didn't matter if it was four o'clock in the morning – they could ring me at 4am and you jump up and have a quick cup of coffee and then have a bit of a chat to them before going back to bed again.
"That happened a few times – everything was fine, but I was going around looking at various sporting clubs, and that sort of stuff, and I might have gone there a couple of mornings a little tired ... but it was quite good, because you weren't just sitting around going stir crazy."
But no matter how you expect it to go, the only certainty is the uncertainty.
"This year will be interesting – I don't think that we'll have a particularly massive trade week.
“But then again, things can change very quickly."
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