Tiger chief denies about-face
Samantha Lane | July 9, 2009
RICHMOND president Gary March last night said he welcomed Kevin Sheedy's job application, but denied it was a U-turn on an earlier position that the veteran coach was not a good fit for the club.
Speaking to The Age last night from New Zealand, where he is on business until the end of the week, March insisted his pre-season appraisal of Sheedy had been given in an entirely different landscape.
"If Craig Cameron (Richmond's general manager of football) came back to me and said: 'My strong recommendation is that Kevin Sheedy is the best available coach' after we've gone through a thorough process, unless I found something really strange in Kevin's background that I think would be detrimental to the Richmond Football Club, we would go ahead with that recommendation like we did on the caretaker coach role," March said.
"If Kevin wants to go through the process, why wouldn't we put Kevin Sheedy through the process, given his experience?"
In an interview on the eve of the season, when Terry Wallace was still senior coach and Sheedy had only recently been recruited to Tigerland in a marketing role, March doubted Sheedy, whose 27-year tenure at Essendon ended in 2007, would ever be in the senior coaching frame at Richmond.
"This is only a personal opinion, so I'm not commenting for the rest of the board, I probably think that that time has passed," March said in the interview with The Footy Show in March.
"I think with the way the game is going, we're looking towards newer coaches with different ideas and different innovations. Kevin has now been out of the (coaching) game, it will nearly be two years at the end of this year, you're probably looking for someone to come into the game with fresher ideas, so for me I would have thought that time has probably passed."
The Footy Show did not broadcast March's responses about Sheedy at the time, but his comments were subsequently printed in a Sunday newspaper.
March said last night that before doing the television interview he indicated reluctance about discussing the position of Wallace.
Asked whether he still held the personal view about Sheedy's prospects of being Richmond's head coach, March said: "No, because I haven't sat down with Kevin to discuss whether he's spent a lot of time keeping abreast with the game and what his views are.
"I was asked a question, months ago, when we had a contracted senior coach about a particular person that was coming back to Richmond Football Club in a non-football role.
"Kevin had indicated to me that he wasn't interested in coaching. Since that time, we no longer have a contracted coach and Kevin has now indicated that he wants to put his hat in the ring for a Richmond job.
"I don't have any regrets with saying what I said then, and I'm thrilled that Kevin feels that he's ready to coach again … he's got a great record and it will be good to have someone of his ilk go through the process. Especially to compare against inexperienced coaches that are going to go through the process."
Sheedy met Cameron, who is steering the coach selection process, on Sunday to confirm he intended to submit himself to the exercise entirely.
Cameron yesterday denied that Sheedy's application had been divisive internally, although he agreed it had sparked considerable debate outside the club.
Presently, Sheedy is among roughly 15 candidates, though that does not yet include Nathan Buckley, who has signalled he will not begin coaching talks with any club until completing his commitments to the Victorian Country under-16 team next week.
"We're expecting that when it comes down to a final shortlist that they've been very thorough in their process and if they put up four senior coaches and no younger coaches, well that's the outcome that comes with it," March said.
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/rfnews/tiger-chief-denies-aboutface/2009/07/08/1246732379894.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
