New CEO happy to dance with the devil he knowsJake Niall | August 11, 2009
BRENDON Gale knew Richmond. And knowing the beast, he understood that taking on the Tigers contained great risks and even greater upside. The address - Punt Road - is a job description.
Many chief executives and coaches have found the siren call of Richmond irrestistible - the notion of restoring the down-at-heel Tigers to grandeur is inherently romantic, whether you're an ambitious outsider or, like Gale, a Richmond person.
For Terry Wallace, Danny Frawley, Greg Miller and a dozen others, Richmond was the devil's candy - they couldn't resist, and took the danger money. For Gale, it's the devil he knows.
Gale understood the institution, but he wanted some reassurance before giving up his safe, well-paid and highly respectable sanctuary at the AFL Players Association.
So he sought the counsel of a man whom he counted as a friend, one who could provide an objective, outside view of the club Gale left at the end of 2001, the last time, incidentally, the Tigers played finals.
He asked Andrew Demetriou about Richmond, ie, whether he should take the job as chief executive of a club that hitherto had been a Bermuda Triangle for a busload of coaches and administrators.
Demetriou's advice was encouraging. Yes, he told Gale, there are major challenges at Tigerland, but the potential rewards - ie, the potential of the club - were enormous. Gale had run the players' union for five years and while he'd enjoyed the work, he missed the week-to-week competition of a footy club.
And this wasn't just any club. It was Richmond, his club.
The AFL boss, with whom Gale has worked closely over the past five years in bedding down collective bargaining agreements, the contentious illicit drug code and codes of conduct for players, saw signs of the belated Great Awakening at Punt Road, portends of a better Richmond.
Gale had been first approached by Richmond president Gary March, who contacted the former 244-game Tiger once the incumbent Steve Wright had decided to quit for health reasons. Wright, diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a nervous disorder, had been told by his specialist that he ought to work ''in a low-hours, low-stress environment''.
Gale was interviewed by the majority of the club board for 2½ hours late on Friday. He saw March and vice-president Maurice O'Shannassy at the latter's Hawthorn home on Saturday and more or less accepted the job.
For March and his board, Gale's hiring is a significant coup. While the Tigers valued Wright's work on the two Fs - finance and facilities, especially the Punt Road redevelopment project - their craving for on-field success made Gale as irresistible to them as the club was to him.
Perhaps, as much as anything, Gale's appointment can change the perception of the club as an attractive place to work, as a place where careers flourish, rather than cease.
Gale brings a new level of connections and savvy. His knowledge of players, rival clubs - current and incoming - regulations and AFL plans makes him a considerable asset. Relations with the AFL hierarchy will be strengthened.
His rational, measured style will reinforce the methods of football operations chief Craig Cameron, who has been determined that the Tigers stick rigorously to a highly structured game plan in selecting the next coach.
The supporters might remain frustrated and angry as the club rebuilds, but at the coalface, rationality should prevail.
Gale obviously will become involved in the appointment of the next coach, even though he arrives mid-way through Cameron's process. As chief executive, he must have input in the hiring of the coach whose tenure - and legacy - will be forever linked to his own.
The Tigers will have Gale, a fresh young coach, plush facilities and have already reburbished the personnel in a more resourced football department. They just need better players.
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