Tiger's tough day
Bruce Matthews | June 08, 2009
FRONT row of an old wooden grandstand was the spartan office yesterday for Richmond's new senior coach.
Jade Rawlings regularly clamped on the headphones to bark an order to his runner in a tin shed on the boundary line 40m away.
He made the 200km round trip to chilly Ballarat to fulfil a commitment to coach the Coburg Tigers and could only watch helplessly as Richmond's VFL affiliate succumbed by 50 points to powerhouse North Ballarat.
Standing in the rain on muddy Eastern Oval at three-quarter time to address the players, surrounded by 100 fans, didn't hurt Rawlings as much as the crushing loss.
"The VFL keeps you very level, sometimes in less than salubrious surrounds compared to the Etihad Stadium or MCG coach's box," Richmond's caretaker coach said later in the cluttered, but warm, visitors' dressing rooms.
"But I love the VFL, it's a great competition in which you deal with good, young players and staff here who are all enthusiastic professionals.
"The last 24 hours my whole life has turned around, really, with the amount of people who have been in touch.
"My commitment to Coburg has been 100 per cent since the day I got the job and I wanted to do this well today.
"I don't think I was distracted in any way towards this game.
"I was disappointed with the result, but the players had a go in tough conditions against a good team."
With cars parked two-deep on the outer wing slopes, a gluepot centre square and hand-operated scoreboard, it had the true feel of country footy with fans huddled in hoods and jackets to ward off the rain.
The slippery turf, mud-caked players and biting cold will be a distant memory when Rawlings picks up the phone in the air-conditioned coach's box at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night to start his AFL adventure against West Coast.
But, true to his word, he stayed in the present as Coburg fought back to within 32 points early in the last quarter before conceding a couple of late goals.
"I didn't want to touch it (the senior coach subject). I spoke to the Richmond boys yesterday after I had been appointed" he said.
"I wanted to make sure this (Coburg's VFL match) was to be done well and we didn't get distracted from the task."
For the first time, he had time to focus on Richmond during the drive home down the Western Highway last night. It all starts with a regular Monday player meeting at the Punt Rd Oval.
"There's a lot of work ahead of us in the coaches group, particularly the next couple of days, to put in place what we want to establish," Rawlings said.
"Tomorrow we'll do a far bit of planning and meet with the players."
Watching the game yesterday in a forward pocket was John Northey, a man who knows a thing or two about the caper as a past coach of Richmond, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25601783-19742,00.html
