Terry Wallace told Mitch Morton `You've cost me my job'
Jay Clark and Sam Edmund | May 20, 2009 09:32pm
A POST-MATCH tirade by Terry Wallace at forward Mitch Morton sparked the crisis meeting that saved Wallace's coaching career.
Wallace is believed to have put many players off-side with a bitter spray - "you've just cost me my career" - at Morton, whose last-minute blunder saw Richmond lose by three points to Port Adelaide on Sunday.
Senior Richmond players demanded meaningful on-field changes at yesterday's meeting with Wallace.
Captain Chris Newman and head of football Craig Cameron pledged their commitment to Wallace in front of a massive media pack, insisting there were no plans to remove him this season.
It is not the first time Morton has frustrated coaching staff and teammates.
Despite leading the goalkicking after six rounds, it is believed Morton was dropped to Coburg for a week for failing to put the team first. The clash against Port Adelaide was his first game back.
Newman said Wallace had the players' support and the meeting was designed to change elements of the team's on-field approach.
"I thought it was a good opportunity for the playing group and the coach to sit down and plan out a few things about where we are going to go in the future. We are sitting 1-7. We need to start to make a few changes on-field and start to tinker with that," he said.
Richmond's leadership group and Wallace were absent from Punt Rd training yesterday, holding the emergency meeting with president Gary March at his Port Melbourne office.
Wallace did not attend a board meeting as planned last night. Cameron and March briefed directors on yesterday's developments.
The coach spent the afternoon watching tapes of Essendon - Richmond's opponent in Saturday night's Dreamtime match at the MCG.
Wallace received a visit from former Richmond football manager and long-time friend Paul Armstrong.
Cameron denied the club considered sacking its besieged coach.
"What we discussed . . . was how we start to turn our season around from 1-7, and for all of us to be on the same page and heading in the same direction," Cameron said.
"At the moment Terry is our coach. He's our coach for the future, and we have set - as I have said a number of times today - the direction we want to take for the rest of the season."
Asked how Wallace was feeling, he said: "Terry's ready to coach us against Essendon."
March, who has indicated Richmond would only renew Wallace's contract if the club made finals, emerged from last night's board meeting to repeat that the position would be reviewed mid-season.
"Nothing has changed. I don't know how many more times we're going to say we're going through a process," March said. "Of course he (Wallace) was discussed. So was our football department, our finances and everything we normally discuss."
March denied Wallace and the players cancelled training.
"It wasn't crisis talks. It was more, 'How do we get ourselves out of this situation? Why aren't we getting over the line? What other things do we need to do to get back on the winners list?'," he said.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25509584-19742,00.html
