Tough decisions the No.1 priorityJake Niall | August 27, 2009 DAMIEN Hardwick has already made his biggest call, which was to take the Richmond coaching position now, rather than serve two years under Mark Williams before taking the headphones at Port Adelaide.
Over the coming months, he will face a series of hard decisions.
Like a political leader, the choices he makes in his first 100 days might well determine whether he does what none of his predecessors have managed over the past two decades: Revive the Richmond Football Club.
These are the first tough calls ahead of him.
1. How to use Richo:Matthew Richardson will be offered a contract by the Tigers, and Hardwick made clear yesterday that he wants Richo, the new coach saying he still rated the game's oldest and most loved player among Richmond's top two or three.
Keeping Richo is a decision that was more or less made by the club before Hardwick's arrival, the new coach merely having to give his assent. One would assume that Richo, who said he wanted to play on, doesn't change his mind.
The question remains, however, of how Hardwick intends to deploy the 34-year-old, who revived his career by playing a quasi-midfield role, but who could still be played in his more traditional role as stay-at-home forward, where, despite his errant kicking, some rival clubs believe he poses a greater threat.
2. Jade Rawlings: One of Hardwick's first tasks will be to sit down with Rawlings and sort out whether the caretaker, who is contracted to remain on the coaching panel in 2010, can be part of his team next year.
If Hardwick feels uncomfortable with the notion of retaining the man who coached the Tigers for 10 games, Rawlings has made it easier for the incoming coach to lower the boom, having expressed doubt about whether the next coach would want him and ambivalence about whether he would want to stay.
While other decisions, especially those involving players, will be made in concert with football operations chief Craig Cameron, the Rawlings' call is very much in the hands of the two coaches.
3. Andrew Raines:Many list management decisions are no brainers. Delisting Cleve Hughes or Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls, for instance, should not exercise Hardwick's mind too much. Joel Bowden and Kane Johnson have retired, Ben Cousins will play on, Nathan Brown almost certainly won't - not at Richmond anyway.
Raines fits the definition of the tough call. He is a player who has disappointed over the past two years, a combination of injuries and poor form contributing to an inexorable decline in his standing since he was placed in the Rising Star Award in 2006.
The sheer number of probable delistings means that Raines is well down the pecking order of those under immediate pressure, though his position isn't assisted by the fact that Jay Schulz, Jordan McMahon and Jake King are all contracted for next year.
He might be put on the trading block, and it's unclear what currency he would hold.
4. Graham Polak:To delist Polak now, after his surprising return from an induced coma and a brain injury, would be a decision entirely devoid of sentiment - the proverbial Bambi shooting - for few players have can lay claim to such a stirring story. That said, Hardwick's rhetoric suggests he isn't a sentimental bloke.
That there is genuine uncertainty about what Polak can achieve in his recovery might work in his favour. More pertinent perhaps, is the fact that he is a spare parts key position player, and the Tigers don't have many of those.
5. The past players: Terry Wallace sought to neutralise the political influence of the past players by establishing a mentoring scheme. The apparent philosophy was that better to have them inside the tent and p----g out, than outside the tent and vice versa.
Hardwick seems unlikely to pay much heed to the past players, though he would be wise to make regular appearances on Kevin Bartlett's show on SEN. Hardwick is in a stronger political position than Wallace, by dint of the presence of new chief executive Brendon Gale, assistant coach Wayne Campbell and football director on the board Tony Free - a trio of teammates who can deal with any past player putsch.
6. How deep to cut:Richmond has a shallow list, with six over 30s, and another 8-10 players who would be delisted at a top-eight club. Hardwick and Cameron could conceivably cut a dozen players in total without blinking. The problem would be finding replacements in a diluted draft pool.
Is Hardwick willing to cut deeper, risking worse results in his first season or two, in the belief that the dead wood must be cleared? This will be one of the calls that defines his tenure as it did for Wallace.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/rfnews/tough-decisions-the-no1-priority/2009/08/26/1251001942733.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
