Article in The Worst today says Big Rick would step aside if asked...
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=12&ContentID=155303
Hart 'willing to quit' dismal Dockers
15th July 2009, 6:15 WST
Fremantle president Rick Hart says he will step aside if the club “taps him on the shoulder” in the wake of the toughest loss he can remember during his eight-year term at the helm.
Hart, whose term finishes at the end of the season, has previously said he would be happy to continue if wanted.
Yesterday, he indicated he was only likely to continue if the club could not identify a successor.
Fremantle’s on-field stocks were dealt another blow yesterday when veteran Des Headland ruled himself out of Saturday’s clash with Brisbane because of hamstring trouble.
Speaking at the launch of the club’s Live The Dream program, Headland said he would miss at least one more week.
Much supporter anger in the wake of Fremantle’s one-goal effort against Adelaide at the weekend has been aimed at the club’s longest serving directors, Hart and Tony Buhagiar, with calls for them to be held accountable for the club’s lack of on-field success.
Hart said Buhagiar would finish after 10 years on the board this season and he was prepared to leave if it was in the best interests of the football club. It is likely both will be replaced, while vice-president Ben Allan is a member-elected director and faces an election.
A sub-committee which includes Fremantle board members Grant Donaldson and Brian O’Donnell is currently liaising with the WA Football Commission to identify possible board members and a new president.
“There will be two vacancies at the end of the season when Tony and my terms come to an end,” Hart said. “We will go through a process of identifying potential board members and what I will do is make a decision that is in the best interests of the Fremantle Footy Club.
“I have indicated that I will go on if they need me but if through this process they find an opportunity to identify someone else — I have always said eight years is a fair stint.
“If they tap me on the shoulder and say you have got to go as a result of that, I will be happy to do that.”
Hart urged supporters to stick with the club despite Saturday’s thrashing.
“I can’t remember a tougher one within the term that I have been there,” he said. “We were dreadfully undermanned and Adelaide are such a well-drilled unit that we just couldn’t crack them either way.
“We couldn’t get through their defence and they just swept the ball forward with plenty of options getting into the forward line.”
He asked supporters to focus on the big picture rather than one game.
“People can’t look at one game in isolation,” he said. “The plan is there, everyone knows what the plan is. As a result of that plan you are going to end up with a lot of youngsters in the team and when they play top sides sometimes you are going to get exposed.
“It’s the way it is as you develop players and it might be a two to three-year project but everyone is focused on that. It is the first year of that program and we won’t be deviating from it — it just has to evolve.
“This is the first year where a definite program has been put in place where there is going to be a definite focus on youth.”
Hart described his time at the helm as rewarding but admitted the club hadn’t come close to the on-field success he had aimed for.
“We have managed to get the club up and running as a very healthy AFL footy club but what we haven’t been able to achieve is the on-field success that we wanted,” he said. “We have had a couple of little snippets of it but it hasn’t been what any of us would want. I will always be involved in Fremantle because I love the club.”
PERTH
MARK DUFFIELD