Richmond must break endless cyclePatrick Smith | April 21, 2009
SOMEBODY must save Richmond from itself. Rarely do we see close up and so vividly a club implode as catastrophically as the Tigers.
It appears the only man not losing his head is coach Terry Wallace and he is the one the club appears so determined to behead. It is so gruesome the AFL must be tempted to send in an emissary to ensure the club from any more self-mutilation.
The loss to Melbourne on Sunday proved the club was at its own throat. After the defeat, somebody in the media found general manager Craig Cameron, which is worth an award on its own. Until then, it was feared Cameron had locked himself in a locker.
Anyway, the football manager said that it was unfair to Wallace and his family to speculate on the coach's future. To support that, he said: "I'm pretty confident Terry Wallace will coach next week." The naivety of that comment is frightening. It invites all sorts of possibilities, none of which involve Wallace retaining the coaching position until the end of the season.
Worse still, the president Gary March said yesterday morning that the club had a contingency plan for several eventualities, including a Wallace resignation. Why? Because the club is trying to force him out? Because by their insipid support for the coach, the board members hope he might just walk away? Contingency plan is a euphemism for no support. Only pride is keeping Wallace in the position. It is not the goodwill of the club.
This awfulness did not suddenly descend on Richmond. It has been in the stirring since the middle of last season when it was clear the president and the coach had a poisoned relationship. That Wallace was able to lead his side to win eight of the final 11 games of the year probably wounded the Tiger administration rather than inspired the possibility of a new era. That's how it looks to outsiders.
As the deterioration in the rapport between Wallace and March became a regular topic in football, Richmond had the opportunity to renew the coach's contract beyond this year, the last in a five-year deal.
Given the meritorious end to the season, an extension of the contract seemed a sensible and stable move. That the club did not, and given the uneasiness of the coach-president relationship, the failure to sign up Wallace again meant the uproar that surrounds the club now was certain to happen.
If, off the back of eight wins in 11 matches, Wallace did not secure a vote of confidence from the president and the board then it meant they had no intention of extending his contract, short of a premiership. But it also meant that as soon as the season gave a hint of unravelling then the pressure from the media and public to act on Wallace would prove unbearable. And so we have Wallace, less than 24 hours before his side played Melbourne, having to answer questions about his future - or lack of it - at Richmond.
As Richmond collected one loss after another, no one - not Cameron, March or chief executive Steven Wright - publicly and purposefully supported Wallace's tenure until the end of his contract. Cameron disappeared into his locker, March lost his tongue and Wright's whereabouts is still concentrating the mind of the missing persons bureau. Finally drawn into the mess yesterday morning, March brought up the contingency plans should Wallace no longer be coach. If, indeed, there was a contingency plan, it shows the contempt the club has for the coach.
That Richmond is a dysfunctional club was evident in the recruiting of Ben Cousins. Official after official - Cameron, Wallace and March - lined up to say that Cousins was not in the Tigers' plans for this season. And then, at the death, they recruited him. Mainly after Kevin Sheedy took on Cousins's football rehabilitation as a personal cause. That Sheedy would not be there to pick up the pieces if the Cousins selection turned turkey was, apparently, not even contemplated. Such haphazard planning, such a lack of vision, explains why Richmond is in the mess in which it now finds itself.
Wallace is finished at Richmond. If the club is not done with him, for sure he will soon enough be done with it. That the players run about like school children in a wind storm is understandable because they are at a club where nothing is certain, leadership is non-existent. At the most brittle part of this season - just four rounds old - the club's management disappeared, unable to respond in a manner that would soothe nerves, silence critics, give everybody breathing space.
When Richmond moved on coach Danny Frawley in 2004, the club had a poor list. The round-four team that played Melbourne on Sunday had just three remaining survivors from the round-four team of 2004 - Nathan Brown, Joel Bowden and Chris Newman. Matthew Richardson missed the 2004 match with a hamstring injury and Greg Stafford was injured. From Sunday's line-up only Cousins, Trent Cotchin and Kane Johnson would be automatic selections had they been available.
Richmond's problem is that this year's version is no better than the team that ran around in 2004: Bowden, Brown, Wayne Campbell, Mark Chaffey, Mark Coughlan, Aaron Fiora, Darren Gaspar, Ray Hall, Brent Hartigan, Chris Hyde, Johnson, Andrew Kellaway, Andrew Krakouer, Ben Marsh, Shane Morrison, Newman, Brad Ottens, Kayne Pettifer, Tom Roach, Jay Schulz, Greg Tivendale and Ty Zantuck. The easy out in 2004 was to blame Frawley, the easy out this year is to do the same with Wallace. Stick with Leigh Matthews' formula that a successful coach is 80 per cent reliant on a talented list. Whoever has the best list is the best coach is the reckoning of the four-time premiership coach. It would also apply that whoever has the most limited list is the most hamstrung coach.
It is the administration of March that must take the responsibility for Richmond's place of ridicule and contempt. Numb one moment, panicked the next. When Wallace is finally gone, March will herald a new era, a reason for hope, of expectation. Let the good times roll. Just like Richmond did when it sacked Kevin Bartlett for Allan Jeans, who lasted one year then gave way to John Northey, replaced Northey with Robert Walls, sacked Walls for Jeff Gieschen, got rid of Gieschen for Frawley and moved Frawley on for Wallace.
And sacked Wallace for more of the same.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25362353-12270,00.html
