Lucky 13?Jake Niall
July 9, 2011DAMIEN Hardwick is the 13th man to coach the Richmond Football Club since the Tigers won their last premiership more than 30 years ago. The roll-call of those who preceded him includes two club ''immortals'', a four-time premiership coach, favourite sons and outsiders, big names and battlers.
Four of the ex-coaches' club have prominent positions in the football media. Jeff Gieschen directs the umpires, Danny Frawley runs the coaches' association, Jade Rawlings is an assistant coach at the Brisbane Lions, John Northey operates a coaching website from Ballarat. Paul Sproule is the head of major events for the Tasmanian government. One, Mike Patterson, is deceased and another, coaching legend Allan Jeans, is seriously ill.
Among this discarded dozen were hard men, fair men and some who found the job too hard. None were successful and long-lasting. Terry Wallace, the last man to take on the tantalising challenge of taming the beast, observed that only one of those Richmond coaches - Northey - coached another club (Brisbane) after leaving Tigerland. Northey was a rare instance of a Tiger coach who left of his own volition - a decision that ''Swooper'' says he regrets.
Robert Walls, the career coach who came to Richmond as a result of Northey's defection, admitted that he perhaps shouldn't have taken on the job (1996-97). ''In hindsight, I think I'd run my race as a coach.''
Tony Jewell, the sole member of the dozen to have taken the Tigers to the top, was sacked 12 months later, because the club worried it would otherwise lose a favourite son, Francis Bourke. ''They were scared of losing Francis. I was never a favourite,'' said Jewell, who subsequently served on the club board for more than a decade. By the time the 1980 premiership coach returned for an even shorter second stint, the Tigers were in free fall.
Richmond has been the game's most consistent ''coach killer'', a Bermuda Triangle that has consumed more than a few good men.
''It's a poisoned chalice that he's got the opportunity of breaking,'' said Wallace of his successor. Wallace felt Hardwick had a ''massive greater chance'' of success than those before him because he had better young talent and Richmond was putting resources into football. But Hardwick does not dwell on the past. For Richmond of 2011, the past really is another country. On the day Hardwick was appointed in 2009, he couldn't contain his enthusiasm for what shaped as a difficult assignment, given the club's list deficiencies, sizeable debt and the imminent gutting of the draft by the new teams. The scale of the task ahead was underscored by last weekend's Blue murder, a 103-point loss for which Hardwick apologised.
The task of reviving Richmond, a giant that has been more comatose than sleeping, has proven seductive. Even Walls, a Carlton man, recalled how the hairs would stand up on the back of his neck when the Tigers were winning and the yellow-and-black army found voice. Wallace couldn't resist the devil's candy, choosing Richmond over Hawthorn, where he'd played in three premierships.
Hardwick didn't choose Richmond. Richmond chose him, putting its faith in a tough back-pocket accountant from Essendon (and Port Adelaide, then Hawthorn assistant coach), just as Essendon had handed the keys to Richmond's back-pocket plumber, Kevin Sheedy, after the Tigers' 1980 premiership. Hardwick won the position following a laborious process that became like a Survivor series, as candidates were slowly whittled down.
One beaten candidate was Rawlings, who had been caretaker coach after Wallace finished up mid-season in 2009. Rawlings, an assistant to Michael Voss at the Lions, said Hardwick was the right man to coach the Tigers. ''He was the right choice … I know from the players I keep in touch with, they're very positive about him and how he treats them individually.''
Of the dozen men who have coached the Tigers since 1980, The Saturday Age spoke to all but two - the deceased Patterson and the gravely ill Jeans. Barry Richardson, Richmond coach in 1977 and 1978 and a mentor to several coaches since, also offered his view of Hardwick.
The former coaches were asked for their assessment of the incumbent, and how he was placed to succeed in a task that had been beyond them, for whatever reasons.
If the past coaches represent a kind of ''ex-wives club'' for the faithless Richmond Football Club, all have got over the divorce and moved on. Overwhelmingly, they were optimistic about Hardwick and his chances, though Bourke tempered his positivity with the rueful observation: ''But I thought we were on the right track five years ago and I thought we were on the right track five years before that.''
Hardwick's summary of the task is as straightforward as the man, who is said to coach with a single-mindedness that Denis Pagan detected when the fair-haired kid from Upwey captained the North Melbourne under 19s in 1990 (Pagan got him to Essendon when coaching the reserves in 1992). ''We have the plan and the energy,'' said Hardwick. ''We just need the resources that will allow us to properly execute it.''
Hardwick said obtaining the necessary resources, the raison d'etre for the ''Fighting Tiger Fund'', was Richmond's ''greatest challenge''. ''I don't think it's overly complex,'' he said. ''You simply need a clear vision, a plan that will deliver that result and the resources to make it happen. It is the final piece of the puzzle that is our greatest challenge but one we are meeting head-on as a club from the top down.
''I also think the clubs that are successful today have had to hold their nerve at different times along the journey. There are always bumps along the way and you need resilience and strength of character across the whole club.''
The past fortnight certainly has been bumpy. The Tigers were beaten by Melbourne, a team with a similar age profile, and then annihilated by the maturing Blues. It should be noted that the ex-coaches spoke to The Saturday Age just before the Carlton massacre, surely Richmond's worst loss under the accountant.
While their views of Hardwick aren't uniform, there were many shared impressions and conclusions. One was that he was a straight shooter who was unlikely to buckle. ''I don't think he wavers at all and I think the players appreciate that,'' said Kevin Bartlett, the club and AFL legend, ex-coach and influential radio host. ''I think the last thing you want is people chopping and changing.''
Jewell, who thought Hardwick could lead the Tigers to a premiership one day, added: ''I like the way he's stuck to his guns, it's a simple game plan. He hasn't complicated things.''
Richardson also felt that the coach wasn't for turning. ''The thing that I noticed about Richmond, that I haven't noticed for some time or seen for some time is that even when things are going badly, they still maintain … their game plan or their structure or whatever.''
Northey's endorsement was perhaps the strongest. ''He appears to be the fellow who's going to, I think certainly with the way they're going about things, perhaps take Richmond back to where they were. You can see they are developing.
''I think the last five years they had previously have been an absolute disgrace, and looking at that, somebody had to do something and obviously Hardwick's the fellow who's generating things for the club as a whole.''
Walls met Hardwick on the international rules tour of 2000 in which the commentator was Australia's assistant coach. ''He's down to earth. There's no rubbish about him. He's hard-working, down to earth. He doesn't look for the glamour and the ego.''
Gieschen also offered an insight into Hardwick from direct dealings. The director of umpiring said that in their discussions, Hardwick ''was not focused on umpiring decisions from an outcome point of view''. He doesn't complain about umpiring.
As a club ''immortal'' and five-time premiership player (feats matched only by Bartlett), Bourke has been asked to perform ceremonial duties that have occasionally put him in Hardwick's orbit; on grand final day last year, he discussed the new Richmond coach with Hardwick's former teammate James Hird. Bourke liked Hardwick's resilience.
''He seems a decent person, doesn't get too demoralised by a situation that can be a bit downheartening if you do get smashed … he seems to have the ability to bounce back.''
Bourke, however, cautioned that Hardwick's fate would be decided at the draft table; indeed, he suggested that it might already have been determined, given the high turnover of players in the first two seasons.
''But ultimately his future will be determined, I think, by the ability or the quality of the people you've seen the recruiting staff draft over the last two years, which has been a significantly high number. His fate will be determined to a large extent by the quality of the boys that have come into the club over the last year or so.''
To Frawley, Wallace, Sproule and Bourke, recruiting/list management is paramount. They were, of course, speaking from (bad) experience. Bartlett emphasised the need to develop ''three or four'' stars that would become ''a point of difference'' between the Tigers and rival clubs. ''If Richmond can recruit as well as Stephen Wells at Geelong has over the last 10 years,'' Frawley said, ''there will be a statue of Damien Hardwick next to Jack Dyer.''
Bourke was no less blunt in explaining when asked why the Tigers had been so poor for so long: ''Because we haven't drafted enough champions.''
Sproule, whose extensive dealings with the ''Tassie'' Hawks gave him some insights into Hardwick (''seems very approachable, very open''), called recruiting ''the key issue'' for the coach. ''Missing the opportunity of [Jarryd] Roughead and [Lance] Franklin was just nonsense. It's just simple things like that that make a huge difference.''
Today, Richmond's huge holes are in defence and the ruck. Although they've been afflicted by injuries to tall backs, there's still an urgent need for a power defender and more class in the back six. Hardwick's youthful teams have not defended well.
''David Astbury, Kel Moore, Dylan Grimes, Luke McGuane and Will Thursfield have all missed football,'' said Hardwick. ''You need a settled back six that has played a lot of football together to create a real understanding and cohesiveness and we haven't had that this season. Having said that, the players we select need to take responsibility and I think Alex Rance is one player that has really stepped up. We have made some very basic errors at times this season and we need to improve in that area.''
Jewell is encouraged that the Tigers have done some serious pruning of the list. He had not seen such a cleanout since club godfather, the late Graeme Richmond, cut loose in the mid 1960s. ''He's starting with all kids, not trying to recycle, they're not trying to prop the side up, trying to sell the supporters they're going to make the eight and all that sort of stuff … they've done what coaches way back should have done but weren't allowed to. No one was game to take the risk of going to the bottom and starting again. Well, bloody good on him.''
Jewell called the cleanout ''a recipe for success'', noting that all of Richmond's better players, bar Chris Newman, were young.
This leads to Wallace's bullish assessment of Hardwick's hand, which included half a dozen potential guns, all of them first-round picks. ''You've got no hope without that half-dozen star players being in the right age bracket.''
Wallace's more salient point, however, was that Hardwick was working for a club that was finally allocating resources to football. In Wallace's early years, an overcommitted Greg Miller combined the roles of board member, football department head, recruiter and reputedly even chose the menu for a coterie function.
Wallace said Richmond now had ''designated people running those roles''. He wished to put on record that, ''the last thing I'm trying to do is make excuses or be critical''.
Both Walls and Northey put a premium on club unity, which had not been evident in their day. Walls sensed Hardwick had walked into a happier club. ''I just get the feeling the place is settled and happy.''
The club does seem relatively stable. Yet, for Hardwick to defy Richmond's coach-killing trend, he will need more. Besides recruiting, resources and unity, what he needs most of all at Tigerland, and what they intend to give him, is the coach's most precious commodity: time.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/lucky-13-20110708-1h6zb.html#ixzz1RY7KoTtZ
