Wallace tells Richmond what they need.

mcuzzy

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#26
Two weeks ago on 3AW David King was trying to convince Walls (who loves Gus) that Gus is, and will always be an ordinary player, and doesn’t really have a long term future, and quick as a flash, Walls replied with “And that’s one of the reasons you are no longer with the club” Kings silence after that was gold. :)
hahaha! :D can't stand walls but that was a very good call!

what i want to know is why they are getting wallace to do this? is it to piss everyone off or are they doing it for a laugh?
 

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#27
David King = twit. PO back to Norf.

Wallace = tosser of highest order. Used his press conference announcment of leaving RFC to say sorry to Western Bulldogs. F**k off dog, you have zero integrity and will always be hated by the Richmond faithful. Spewing that he ever wore the jumper.
 

SA TIGER

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#28
"Roll up, roll up and hear the greatest dud on earth!"

Seriously, I cannot believe his involvement in the media still lingers like Neil Craig's tenure with the Adelaide Cows!
 

Rayzorwire

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#32
This could actually be a very useful tool for us. Draft the exact opposite to what Wallet says and we can't lose.
Because in your opinion tug, Wallace was somehow in charge of recruitment while with us and is responsible for who we drafted when he was coach?

If so, I guess you'll be the first to give him a pat on the back seeing 13 players from the side who played on the weekend were recruited during the Wallace era (along with four from Frawley's era and five from Hardwick's), plus Foley who's an automatic inclusion, Post, Morton, Rance, Gourdis, Browne and Nahas who will probably all be with us for at least next year, plus a handful who are now getting games at other clubs.

Drafting works in roughly 15 year cycles - in our current case, our club's best players recruited 15yrs ago as 17yr olds would be 32 this year.

We have no players left from the five drafting years between 1994 and 1999 (players now aged ~28 - 34), not one single player from half a decade of drafts.

In the five years from 2000 to 2004 while Frawley was coach we picked up five players (our 24 - 28yr olds, the prime age players Wallace had to work with) who are still on our list.

Ten years of drafting prior to Wallace

Newman
Jackson
Moore
Tuck
White

Five years of drafting during Wallace's tenure

Deledio
Tambling
Foley
Jackson
McGuane
Thursfield
Edwards
Reiwoldt
King
Morton
Cotchin
Nahas
Cousins
Graham
Rance
Vickery
Collins
Connors
Post
[Gourdis]
[Browne]


Which strike rate do you prefer tug? Can you find five consecutive years where we've drafted better? Do our five best drafts ever match the above? Can you grudgingly admit the Wallace era was the best we've ever done and a big improvement on the past?

When Wallace took the job it was under condition of promise from the board that we would never trade another first round draft pick while he was coach, because as he so correctly stated, doing stupid things like that for too long is what had left us with the dreadful list full of gaping holes he inherited in 2005.

He gets blamed for drafting badly - not true, his era represents a total reversal of the drafting policies that have made us weak. Look above, we have plenty to build with compared to the past, Hardwick inherited a list that was young, but had very few positional holes and a ton of potential.


Terry Wallace has no credibility, how is he still circling around the media?
No credibility because he was a champion player, or because he took the Dogs' average list to multiple finals and handed the famous Essendon side still widely recognised as the best of the modern era their only loss for the year, or because he's had a very successful career in the media, or because he couldn't get a Richmond side full of average battlers, weak veterans and kids to the finals soon enough?

How are your own achievements in life going compared to his? Should we restrict public comment to people with fewer significant life achievements than Wallace?


His selfish nature and inability to deliver what he promised...
Selfish how Baz? Because he promoted the club as required? Because he was good at it? Because after the board had rejected his sensible 2011 future projections of when our list would be ready to blossom (which are spot on, as so many of his calls were) and he'd been hounded for his job by the coterie groups and former players from the first year onwards, he went into self-protection mode?

He promised us a group ready to challenge by 2011. We have the foundation of that and Hardwick has done well building on what he started with. I don't see any failure there, I see a necessary seven year recovery from a decade of the worst drafting and trading imaginable before we will be ready to compete with the best again.

Did I miss some other promise?


So basically he's saying it doesn't matter how great he was, with the average list he was "given" he had no hope of being a great coach at Richmond, so in short he thinks he's a great coach.
His head to head record with worse sides against Sheedy, Matthews, Malthouse, Thompson - the 'great' career coaches - testifies to the fact that he's a gun matchday coach who wasn't lucky enough to arrive at a club at the right time. Very comparable to Laidley - awesome tacticians and football thinkers, not so great with the people side of coaching.


as soon as i hear this guys ridiculous sounding voice i run for it..
Yeah, I run when I hear gay people talking, or Indian people for that matter - especially the boys, and old people, and people with speech impediments - especially the really ******ed ones, and people from Un Zud, and children...what is wrong with them all? :rolleyes:


You wasted 5 years and lost a lot of respect our club had Wallace.
Yeah, I mean look at our drafting record prior to Wallace above and combine it with our past finals dominance Jisha, we were a well respected club just hiding at 16th for a breather when Wallace took over. :D

Then established the rules and policies behind our best drafting period ever; boosted membership significantly; did tireless work in the media to promote the club for sponsors and members which contributed notably to our financial turnaround; gave us three competitive years out of five using his considerable matchday coaching skills to improve an extremely medicocre playing group that had zero depth; and despite demands from the board and coterie groups for immediate success from the day he walked in the door to the day he walked out, still simultaneously managed to balance competitiveness in the present with drating for the future, leaving our list in the best shape it's been in since we shafted KB for not rebuilding a disaster zone soon enough.

I can see an endless list of excellent reasons to set him on fire and drag him through the streets on this thread, he's the worst employee we've ever had and we deserve revenge.
 

the ranger

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#33
Rayzor, i usually appreciate your posts and all but...that post is way overdoing it in defence of Wallace. I know you liked him as coach but come on. One minute you excuse him as not being in charge of recruiting and then you want to give him credit because more players remain on our list from his reign than Frawley's. Frawley's reign was a disaster in terms of acquiring young talent. Wallace's recruits are very recent and most of them showed nothing under Wallace. The few who were good under him were mostly either givens at their draft position (Deledio, Cotchin) or were guys that he didn't necessarily want (Cousins, Riewoldt).

Wallace promoted the club but it was all smoke and mirrors. He spent more time in the media talking than he did communicating with the young players that should have been his priority. He was a good match day coach and was perhaps in some ways the coach we needed in between Frawley and Hardwick, but at the end of the day, his report card bears a big fat F.
 

Tigerbob

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#34
Lol @ Rayzorwire.

How do you explain his non appearances at training on numerous occassions?

What about the change of gameplan the night of the Carlton game 2009?

What about his insistance on drafting Jordan McMahon?

What about the self promotion of Tuesdays with Terry?

What do you say for numerous amounts of our young players who said he never spoke to them during the season?

What about his demand of a send of game?

Basically we all got sold by the salesman, happy to put my hand up and say I thought he would be good for our club, I quickly found out we got sold a lemon. Old silvertongue had only one fan by the time he left and that was Browny. But even he will tell you that Terrys time was up at Tigerland and he lost confidence in him.

Love your loyalty to the guy, but move on mate, you won't find any support from anyone anyway. Wallace was no good for our club, he lacked integrity and honesty and lost the playing group due to this.

Hardwick has those qualities in spades, you will find our players would jump in front of a bullet for him, even the guys struggling to get a game at the
moment.
 
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#35
Wallace may have drafted these players but he was unable to get them playing well. He was reliant on Richo, Bowden, Brown and the like, who were either already here or traded for as "off the shelf" already developed players. That he had the talent on the list makes his inability to develop them even more damning IMO.

Whilst it's fair game to criticise rayzorwire's defence of Wallace, it's a bit rough to compare him to a holocaust denier.
 

Heisenberg_

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#36
David King = twit. PO back to Norf.

Wallace = tosser of highest order. Used his press conference announcment of leaving RFC to say sorry to Western Bulldogs. F**k off dog, you have zero integrity and will always be hated by the Richmond faithful. Spewing that he ever wore the jumper.
He also tried to take credit for their success.
He is just a terrible bloke and is hated by all supporters of his previous clubs.
 

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Heisenberg_

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#37
Lol @ Rayzorwire.

How do you explain his non appearances at training on numerous occassions?

What about the change of gameplan the night of the Carlton game 2009?

What about his insistance on drafting Jordan McMahon?

What about the self promotion of Tuesdays with Terry?

What do you say for numerous amounts of our young players who said he never spoke to them during the season?

What about his demand of a send of game?

Basically we all got sold by the salesman, happy to put my hand up and say I thought he would be good for our club, I quickly found out we got sold a lemon. Old silvertongue had only one fan by the time he left and that was Browny. But even he will tell you that Terrys time was up at Tigerland and he lost confidence in him.

Love your loyalty to the guy, but move on mate, you won't find any support from anyone anyway. Wallace was no good for our club, he lacked integrity and honesty and lost the playing group due to this.

Hardwick has those qualities in spades, you will find our players would jump in front of a bullet for him, even the guys struggling to get a game at the
moment.
What about the fact that 2 of his 5 drafts he and Greg Miller thought it was wise to draft only 3-4 players and two of them were recycled.
If you honestly think we would be on track for finals in 2011 with the way Wallace was going about it, no set gameplan, almost no communication with his players and sitting on his arse doing SFA in his office during training sessions when we are at the bottom of the ladder is an absolute disgrace when you are on 500k a year as senior coach.
He would not have cut back the list that he as the senior coach put together at the end of last year we would be going absolutely nowhere and would be full of players with no confidence in themselves because their ****wit head coach never put any time or effort into coaching and developing HIS players.
Writing 10000 word essays will never change the fact you are 100% wrong rayzor
 

tigers_of_old_08

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#38
Dear Rayzorwire, by your own admission, the board rejected Wallace, the Coterie groups rejected Wallace, former players rejected Wallace, hell, the CURRENT players rejected Wallace and rebelled, and let's not forget the overwhelming majority of RFC members and supporters rejected Wallace, and yet you still expect us to swallow your version of his "success"? at the club? :rolleyes: With all due respect I think youre still dizzy from all his spin.

 

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Thread starter #39
When Wallace took the job it was under condition of promise from the board that we would never trade another first round draft pick while he was coach, because as he so correctly stated, doing stupid things like that for too long is what had left us with the dreadful list full of gaping holes he inherited in 2005.
2002 draft:
Kane Johnson for JasonTorney and pick #2 #18 #32
Justin Blumfield for pick #28

Jay Schultz with pick #12
Tim Flemming with pick #41
Daniel Sipthorp with pick #62

So in a draft where we could have had #2 #12 #18 #28 #32 #41 #62 we've ended up with no one. Frawley's reluctance to develop his own players has hurt us a lot more than Wallace has.
 

W. Smithers

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#40
A friend of mine works on the show. He saw Wallace's notes in his change room.

What the Tigers need:

Trade early pick for Mitch Hahn.
Use only three ND picks, one on a slow reject from opposition team.
 

tugga

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Moderator #41
Because in your opinion tug, Wallace was somehow in charge of recruitment while with us and is responsible for who we drafted when he was coach?

If so, I guess you'll be the first to give him a pat on the back seeing 13 players from the side who played on the weekend were recruited during the Wallace era (along with four from Frawley's era and five from Hardwick's), plus Foley who's an automatic inclusion, Post, Morton, Rance, Gourdis, Browne and Nahas who will probably all be with us for at least next year, plus a handful who are now getting games at other clubs.

Drafting works in roughly 15 year cycles - in our current case, our club's best players recruited 15yrs ago as 17yr olds would be 32 this year.

We have no players left from the five drafting years between 1994 and 1999 (players now aged ~28 - 34), not one single player from half a decade of drafts.

In the five years from 2000 to 2004 while Frawley was coach we picked up five players (our 24 - 28yr olds, the prime age players Wallace had to work with) who are still on our list.

Ten years of drafting prior to Wallace

Newman
Jackson
Moore
Tuck
White

Five years of drafting during Wallace's tenure

Deledio
Tambling
Foley
Jackson
McGuane
Thursfield
Edwards
Reiwoldt
King
Morton
Cotchin
Nahas
Cousins
Graham
Rance
Vickery
Collins
Connors
Post
[Gourdis]
[Browne]


Which strike rate do you prefer tug? Can you find five consecutive years where we've drafted better? Do our five best drafts ever match the above? Can you grudgingly admit the Wallace era was the best we've ever done and a big improvement on the past?
Appreciate your well thought out post Rayz, and maybe I should have put a smiley emoticon on my post as it was more in jest than anything.
But isn't it strange that finally we are seeing the likes of Tuck, Edwards, Connors and even King at times, flourish under a coach with the vision that we have needed for 15 years. Wallace offered nothing of the sort and prefered to blame his failure as a coach on the likes of Mitch Morton in front of the group.
I know which coach I prefer.
 

Spluff

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#42
So in a draft where we could have had #2 #12 #18 #28 #32 #41 #62 we've ended up with no one. Frawley's reluctance to develop his own players has hurt us a lot more than Wallace has.
Take a look at the 2002 draft, though. It was an absolute shocker - and combine that with the fact that we didn't know we were going to get #2 because of the Carlton punishment, we actually thought we were going to get #4, and we got more out of Kane Johnson that we would have from any of those picks.
 

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#44
I've said this many many times over the years to friends, colleagues, family and anyone else who has bothered to listen. As a die-hard swans fan of many years, in 2002 when Rocket Eade had to go and the swans board were thinking about going with Terry Wallet and in the end, people power made sure Paul Roos was given the job, I have just said continously that I am so relieved we got Roos instead of Wallet.


SOOOOOOOO relieved!!!!!!
 

"The Roar Is Back"

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#45
I've said this many many times over the years to friends, colleagues, family and anyone else who has bothered to listen. As a die-hard swans fan of many years, in 2002 when Rocket Eade had to go and the swans board were thinking about going with Terry Wallet and in the end, people power made sure Paul Roos was given the job, I have just said continously that I am so relieved we got Roos instead of Wallet.


SOOOOOOOO relieved!!!!!!
You just don't realise talent when you see it , champion player , super match day coach who was able to give only defeat to the best team in the current era and a very successfull media career .
Source :: http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showpost.php?p=18157203&postcount=32
 

Tribal

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#46
Maybe Wallace was a blessing in disguise.

His selfish nature and inability to deliver what he promised was no doubt the catalyst for Benny to want to come in and say enough is enough, we have to completely strip and rebuild, not only the list and coaching staff but culture as well.

In the past too many people behind the scenes seemed to be wanting the personal glory and not team players. Benny and Dimma appear to be the exact opposite. Yesterday I heard Robert Shaw say the best thing about Dimma is he is exactly the same bloke today as he was 10 years ago. Being Richmond coach hasn’t changed him one bit. A real team player. The exact opposite of the egotistical Wallace.
This!! :)
 
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#49
At the save the skins day twenty years ago I spoke with greatest player eva These are his exact words. In twenty years when all of these idiots are gone we will get a great coach, administration and finally a list that can play sadly I won't see it. His name Captain Blood Jack Dyer, Nostradumus. Great admin, Great Coaches and players that were 14 weeks ago the worst side eva ha, all great things have a small beginning and we will see greatness again and when we do I will let all of the neysayers know who we are and where come from, we are from Richmond the mighty Richmond. 9 weeks 9 wins and we will destroy all myths as for our list 2 inside mids and we will be great. 10 YEARS GREAT
 

Rayzorwire

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#50
Rayzor, i usually appreciate your posts and all but...that post is way overdoing it in defence of Wallace. I know you liked him as coach but come on. One minute you excuse him as not being in charge of recruiting and then you want to give him credit because more players remain on our list from his reign than Frawley's.
Thing is ranger, there's still dozens of people who blame Wallace far more than any other individual for the players we recruited and drafted while he was at the club. If those people insist on refusing to accept that coaches these days get only a partial say at best in drafting and recruiting, then they need to at least give Wallace credit for getting us the best batch of young players we've ever had to work with.

That's the gist of what I wrote in the post you've referred to, my own personal belief is that Wallace coming in and forcing us to keep our draft picks marked a crucially important shift in club policy - one that overruled decades of bad practice from the board and far more recently, a couple of disastrous years of Miller trading our early picks: we could now have blokes like Fevola, Ball, Burgoyne, Lovett-Murray, Bradshaw etc. running around for us, instead we got genuine young stars from the draft.

Any side which can add players like Deledio, Cotchin, Reiwoldt, Foley and nearly a dozen other decent players (some of whom may well end up more valuable than the four aforementioned players) every five year draft cycle is eventually top-4 and maybe premiership bound.

I really don't get people mercilessly bagging a coach who was influential enough in his first years to put the policies in place which have led to us building a foundation for success at long last.

Frawley's reign was a disaster in terms of acquiring young talent.
Yes, to put it mildly, five 'decent' players with White one of them and the already mature Tuck - failing that badly in a 5yr drafting cycle continues to hurt you for 10yrs afterwards.

Wallace's recruits are very recent and most of them showed nothing under Wallace. The few who were good under him were mostly either givens at their draft position (Deledio, Cotchin) or were guys that he didn't necessarily want (Cousins, Riewoldt).
It's always a coach's cross to bear - many of the players recruited while they're at the helm are not able to contribute much until the next coach comes along. Bear in mind that ATM we're all thankful and appreciative that Hardwick is getting games into kids, but everyone here seems to forget that Wallace did do the same - e.g. got 50 games into a bloke like Edwards who is only this year physically ready to play AFL (and really showing the benefits of that), at the expense of a veteran who probably could have contributed more for Wallace in the then present.

Wallace promoted the club but it was all smoke and mirrors.
Mate, Wallace is on record saying that it would take until 2011 for our list to be back in seriously competitive shape - that was his reality. Later saying that we were 'locked and loaded' for finals in 2009 is merely him obeying the board's wishes - 'finals or else' - and trying his best to comply with those wishes when he knew in advance it would take everything to go our way for us to achieve what they asked.

He spent more time in the media talking than he did communicating with the young players that should have been his priority.
It's easy to throw 'should' around in hindsight, but the reality is all coaches have their strengths and weaknesses. 4-5 years from now we might be lamenting that Hardwick was exceptional at getting the most from kids and developing a good culture in those youngsters, but later keeps getting his pants pulled down at the tactical matchday side of coaching during the business end of the season.

We got a junior development coach for the first time under Wallace, we got a player welfare officer for the first time under Wallace, he'd never coached at a club with either, perhaps he was guilty of not getting the balance right between giving them the space to do their job and developing a more personal relationship himself with those younger players? You'll note that nobody who was playing regular senior football complained that they didn't get his attention often enough - just the Coburg regulars, who did, I might add, have a Richmond appointed coach to give them feedback in line with the general aims and wishes of the senior coaching staff.

Wallace is an outstanding analyst and planner because he spent a lot of time watching footage. That's how he can make calls like that Deledio is best at HBF playing a Goddard-type role and be right. FWIW, I don't see anyone on the 'sorry' thread who called him clueless apologising that he was right and they were wrong, nor anyone apologising that they bagged him for persisting with the likes of King and White. ;)


How do you explain his non appearances at training on numerous occassions?
Delegation Bob - right or otherwise. But anyone who implies Wallace didn't work hard enough ought to look at a photo of him at the start of his tenure and one at the end - he aged a decade in five years. I have no doubt whatsoever he'd be the kind of bloke regularly up at 3am looking at footage and toying with ideas. He gave it his best.

What about the change of gameplan the night of the Carlton game 2009?
Do you want to be more specific about how exactly the gameplan was altered?

Ultimately, Wallace knew that if we lost that night, our draw ensured that we would have a poor start to a crucial season and his career would be effectively over. I don't like coaches being put under that kind of pressure, I don't think it's constructive or helpful for anyone concerned.

What about his insistance on drafting Jordan McMahon?
He spent his whole time at the club trying to get a backline that could rebound. After a series of drafting disasters with the likes of Meyer, Roach and Raines (and about ten other similar types), he headed into his 4th year with the board demanding finals and no decent rebounders bar Newman, who point-blank refused to take the game on and break lines. It's no coincidence that our improvement this year has featured the likes of Connors and Edwards breaking lines across half-back - that's what we've missed for many years and what Wallace knew the side needed to improve. Unfortunately, the kids we did have were not physically ready (or a headcase in Connors' instance) or still stunk at the role after a lot of games (e.g. Raines, Hartigan etc.).

If the board demands finals, you do your best to fill the most important holes you have as best you can. Wallace wanted to take the long term road to 2011 and use the draft, the board wanted 'finals or else' immediately.

McMahon, Hislop and Thomson are March's 'gift' to our list, not Wallace's.

What about the self promotion of Tuesdays with Terry?
Did he name it that, or say he'll give access to the media on Tuesday's and they came up with a catchy title for it?

How can it be self-promotion when he only answered questions about the club or football in general, not himself? He stuck up for our players constantly (even later in the piece when many of them were sticking a knife in his back), he always cast the club and its future in a positive light (a hanging offence apparently - selling false hope!), and every week our sponsors got just about the best deal in football for having their business featured prominently in the media - all from a club who'd been very bad at doing any of those things prior to him and paid heavily for it in sponsorship terms.

I clearly remember the years prior to Wallace when we couldn't get a positive story in the media for love or money, I clearly remember past Richmond coaches being a million miles out of their depth when it came to defending players, promoting the club or selling hope based on reality - I far preferred Wallace and many of you did too in the first years.

What about his demand of a send of game?
Can you actually prove that Wallace went to the club and 'demanded a send-off game?' That nobody just offered it to him and he accepted?

Love your loyalty to the guy, but move on mate, you won't find any support from anyone anyway.
a) I'm not loyal to Wallace, I just really hate seeing a lynch mob of people hanging someone on largely false evidence. I'd defend anyone in the same circumstances. Most people are carrying on with a level of vindictiveness typically reserved for an ex - just totally blind to any good points about that person.

b) I'm perfectly happy defending a position all by myself if I'm right. ;)

Wallace was no good for our club, he lacked integrity and honesty and lost the playing group due to this.
I think far too much is made of Wallace's supposed lack of integrity and honesty, basically because he really lacks charisma and does not come across as very likeable. Have a look at the ugly charade Voss led people through with Brown's injury this year - will he be remembered for lacking integrity and honesty? Nope, he's charismatic and generally well liked.

Wallace DID lose the playing group and his sacking was certainly necessary for that reason. However, I'd also argue that the complete lack of support for him from the board and others in positions of power at the club heavily attributed to the player's losing faith in his ability, as did the demands for 'finals or else' which forced him to try and re-jig all they'd been working on gameplan-wise in order to get a list still way out of balance into a pointless finals series.

Hardwick has those qualities in spades, you will find our players would jump in front of a bullet for him, even the guys struggling to get a game at the moment.
No doubt.

Ideally Wallace would have had a bloke like Hardwick as an assistant...as I'm sure you're aware, there's been no shortage of tension between Clarkson and the Hawks' playing group over the years, a people person and all-round good fella like Hardwick is ideal in those kinds of circumstances to bridge the gap between coach and player(s).

I always said Wallace chose his assistants poorly, but coming to a club like Richmond where he reversed our fortunes immediately in his first year with a fantastic coaching performance in '05 before Brown went down, yet still had numerous Machiavellian characters trying to put up millions to get Sheedy instead, plus the hype for Campbell to take over last year, I can fully understand why he chose the assistants he did.



Wallace may have drafted these players but he was unable to get them playing well. He was reliant on Richo, Bowden, Brown and the like, who were either already here or traded for as "off the shelf" already developed players. That he had the talent on the list makes his inability to develop them even more damning IMO.
You can't make players grow faster than nature allows Dustin. I'm sure Wallace would have loved Cotchin running through the midfield (not to mention having Martin available for him), Connors to become a desperately needed piece of the puzzle down back rather than acting like a whiskey swilling spoiled brat, Edwards breaking lines, Reiwoldt ruling the forwardline...unfortunately, none of them were ready, though all of them were given every chance to develop.

The very few blokes who were old enough and big enough like Tuck, Jackson, Moore, White and King, all developed well under Wallace. He also managed to get a lot of games into the younger blokes despite having the demand for immediate success hanging over his head constantly. Guys like Reiwoldt, McGuane, Thursfield and Edwards are as advanced as they are now because they were given a lot of games early on and preferenced over players like Tivendale, Kellaway, Gaspar, Schulz and others who weren't taking us anywhere long term.

A majority of the older blokes like Richo, Bowden, Simmonds and Brown all played the best football of their career under him.

These things are hardly damning IMO.


...you still expect us to swallow your version of his "success"? at the club?
You're entitled to believe what you like t08, I think my initial post set out very clearly the contrast between the Wallace era and the unmitigated nightmare which was the decade before him. One era has left us in a very solid position for the future, the other was the cause of all our problems.

I also firmly believe that Wallace got as much success out of our group as any coach in the same circumstances could. I enjoyed our '05 and '06 seasons where we were just a fit Nathan Brown away from playing finals, I enjoyed '08 where we were again unlucky not to play finals, I think we had justified excuses from injuries in '07, and I'd much prefer to have been a Richmond supporter for the last five years than a Melbourne supporter. We had no tanking, no tainted future flags, and the three seasons out of four that he coached out completely, he got a better result than anyone would have thought our list could achieve until he raised the bar on our expectations through good coaching. Ironically, if he'd done a Dean Bailey he'd be better thought of - his amazing early success with a shit list ended up condemning him.

Sometimes success can be just not failing as badly as others would in a situation where it's nigh on impossible to achieve universally recognised success.


Appreciate your well thought out post Rayz, and maybe I should have put a smiley emoticon on my post as it was more in jest than anything.
Fair enough tug, yours was just first in line and a lot of people do blame solely Wallace for our drafting. ;)

But isn't it strange that finally we are seeing the likes of Tuck, Edwards, Connors and even King at times, flourish under a coach with the vision that we have needed for 15 years.
Tuck wouldn't be playing AFL football without Wallace's eye for talent, he went from being Frawley and Campbell's whipping boy to our best mid over the course of one pre-season under Wallace. No doubt Hardwick's influence has improved his football ~10%, but we have no evidence that Wallace didn't constantly ask Tucky to focus harder on the same things. In fact, this may be highly likely seeing he commented in his first weeks back in the media that Newman and Bowden needed to take the game on and break lines, not play individually safe football which hurts the team. He'd obviously been telling both that for years (demoted Bowden for it), this year after he's left Newman has taken the game on and he's been three times as valuable as he ever was under Wallace.

When a new coach comes in on a several year contract everyone's spot is up for grabs...perhaps that influenced these changes, perhaps Hardwick's just better at getting players to obey instructions? (though it helps if you're not a dead man walking)

Edwards improves each year he gets big enough to play senior football. I think Wallace did well by us getting ~50 games into him before Hardwick took over. I think he did the right thing by us holding Connors back and not rewarding a poor attitude with senior games - most of the disciplinary action he's had from the club was in the Wallace era...it laid a foundation for Hardwick's actions and Connors' turnaround at the least.

King's played better games under Wallace than he has this year (got Brownlow votes for them too), I think he and Wallace were victims of the gaping hole in our rebounding defender stocks and he was obligated to play where he's too short and can be exploited - he's clearly a run-with tagger, not a HBF or back pocket.

I know which coach I prefer.
Ideally we would have had a Hardwick style coach back in '05, along with a board that supported a full rebuild rather than a patch up job, and the financial strength to undergo that rebuild. Having said that, it may well come to pass that in the next few years as we get deeper into finals, the wheel turns and we less need kids babied through and developed, and more need a gun tactical matchday coach who can out-think his rival as Wallace so often did.

I really hope Hardwick's capable of being that master tactician, I have a lot of respect for the way he's gone about the role so far, but he wouldn't be the first 'bloody good bloke'coach to be outpointed by a better tactician on game day.
 
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