Richmond Tigers coach Terry Wallace is on death row
Mike Sheahan | April 14, 2009 12:00am
TERRY Wallace went into the 2009 season knowing nothing less than a top-eight finish would keep him in a job.
At a minimum. In reality, he would need one finals win, maybe even two, to earn him an extension at Punt Rd.
Three rounds into his fifth season, Richmond is winless and last on the ladder.
In the history of the final eight, only three clubs have lost their first three games and gone on to play finals.
Richmond isn't going to be the fourth.
The Tigers have won two of 12 quarters of football this year. They are a mess. The coach is on death row.
They play Melbourne, 15th, at the MCG on Sunday in what might be titled Sunday, Bloody Sunday -- the sequel.
Wallace's Richmond teams have won 35 of 91 games and, it might be argued, the group is only marginally more accomplished than Danny Frawley's wooden-spoon collection of 2004.
Coaches must be judged on their records; a 38 per cent win rate over four and a bit seasons simply isn't good enough.
Wallace's players continue to let him down, yet the fact is he picks his teams and the coaching staff in general must accept responsibility for the decision-making and skill execution of those players.
3AW's Rex Hunt, a Richmond premiership player, said after the Tigers' 47-point loss to the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium: "It's a dark day in the history of the Richmond Football Club."
What made the performance even worse was the broad view the Bulldogs played at 70-75 per cent of their capacity, yet still won by eight goals.
They didn't kick a goal until the second quarter, their first seven scores were behinds, and several of their better players had quiet afternoons.
The one mitigating fact for Richmond this year is its tough start: Carlton, Geelong (at Geelong) and the Bulldogs.
Those three have won eight of nine games.
Clearly, many of us were deceived by Richmond's statistically impressive second half of 2008, when it won eight of 11 games.
Of the eight scalps, only Hawthorn finished in the final eight. The Brisbane Lions were the next best and they finished 10th.
The question now is: Can the coach survive long enough to enjoy a more accommodating next few weeks?
Wallace said on April 3, after the first-round humiliation to Carlton: "We want to be judged over the next month."
They might be 2-3 at the end of that month.
Given the public utterances of president Gary March since the end of last season, I suspect the die is cast, but Wallace is entitled to that month.
What has cruelled Wallace is the pathetic performance against Carlton. Three honourable losses would have been acceptable to this point; sadly, only the defeat at Geelong came with any honour.
Yet it's hard to see how this group is going to get significantly better in a hurry.
The players who can help are Trent Cotchin, Andrew Raines, Ben Cousins and Kane Johnson, and maybe Jordan McMahon.
Cotchin is a future star who hasn't played this year, Raines is handy, McMahon is young enough, but is he good enough?
Cousins and Johnson are in their 30s, as are Joel Bowden, Nathan Brown, Matthew Richardson and Troy Simmonds, all of whom played against the Western Bulldogs.
The indictment on the coach is the failure of so many, particularly Richard Tambling and Jay Schulz, to develop in his time.
There's the failure of Jake King and Luke McGuane to improve their foot skills; the failure of the club to pick and/or develop a back-up ruckman for Simmonds.
Drafting? It's a recurring nightmare.
The best player in the game was Shaun Higgins, taken at No. 7 in 2005.
Dylan Addison went at 27 in that draft.
The Tigers took Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls at eight, Cleve Hughes at 24. Richardson remains Richmond's best player. At 34.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25330115-5015601,00.html
