How nothing has changed.

[waiting]

Its tough being a supporter of the Tigers. You love them but that love is surely been tested over the journey. 27 years to be exact. Most marriages dont last that long these days and its a testament to that love that we are still supportive and endure such heartache(year after year).

Anyway back to why i am posting this thread.

I came across this article written by Robert Walls back in 2003. Now i know what many of us think of him , his opinion and his time coaching the club.

Well here it is.!

Walls rates the Tigers for 2003
« on: March 16, 2003, 12:15:26 pm »

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The Tigers have to find more avenues to goal than their three talls if they are to have an impact this season, reports Robert Walls.

Too many question marks hover over Punt Road. Tiger supporters would love to be excited about the season ahead but few dare to. They know disappointment lies just around the corner. Some of the queries that concern them are:

Will emotional coach Danny Frawley after three roller coaster years at the helm show a steadiness that is needed?

Will skipper Wayne Campbell, who last year earned his fourth club best-and-fairest award, get some fair dinkum on-field leadership support from the likes of Darren Gaspar, Joel Bowden and Matthew Richardson?

Will new recruit Justin Blumfield dig deep for the yellow and black after gliding on cruise control for the Bombers the past two years?

Will ex-Blues coach Wayne Brittain make a significant difference to a game plan that has relied too much on Richardson and Brad Ottens kicking goals from contested marks?

Will some small/midfield forwards be developed who can contribute 30-plus goals per season?

Will injured senior players in Brad Ottens, Ben Holland, Rory Hilton, Mark Dragicevic and Duncan Kellaway return to their best form?

And above all, can the basic skill level be drastically improved of a team that continually turns the ball over with sloppy foot and hand disposal?

After slipping 11 rungs to 14th on the ladder in 2002 I think the Tigers are in for a couple of slowly developing seasons. They just have to find more avenues to goal. You dont win many games when you average less than 12 goals a game.

Only three players kicked 20-plus goals in last years wretched run. They were Richardson, Brad Ottens and Greg Stafford, all giants.

This team has become too predictable, opposition coaches know if the Tiger talls are controlled then they cant win. The good news is that ageing veterans in Matthew Knights, Steven Sziller and Paul Hudson will be replaced by youth.

Encouraging signs were shown by young Tigers Mark Coughlan, Aaron Fiora, Ray Hall, Ty Zantuck and David Rodan.

Over the past two decades Tiger fans have learnt to be patient. They will have to be so again.

WHY THEYLL MAKE THE EIGHT

The Tigers have an abundance of courage. Led by the Kellaway brothers, the team is rarely found guilty of not having a dip. The inclusion of Wayne Brittain to the coaching panel will help senior coach Danny Frawley and the players. Tall, competent, and sometimes match-winning marking forwards in Matthew Richardson, Brad Ottens (albeit for the second half of the season) and Ben Holland, always loom as dangerous men.

WHAT WILL HOLD THEM BACK

I think Richmond has too many weaknesses to make the finals. The defence is tough and hard-working, but doesnt provide enough dash and delivery. The midfield lacks pace and size. The Tiger runners, apart from Johnson, wont physically work over anyone. And the forward line is too one dimensional. If the talls arent marking and kicking goals, history says they are no chance to win. And now with Ottens being injured and out of action for three months things look grimmer than ever.


I just wanted to bring this article up and highlight what was brought up 6 years ago by Walls. We as supporters could see and still see the problems , an ex coach could see them and years later could still see them as a media person.

Why i wrote that last paragraph? Well Wallace was in the media i think 2 years before he got a lucrative 5 year $2.5 million contract. If Walls could see these defiancies how come Wallace couldnt. ?

Look we have gone down that path with similar questions but if you go through that article above(which i found here just going through old articles to pass the boredom working nights) and there are areas we have still not improved and some areas we have gone backwards.

How can we fix these?

Would a mass cleanout solve most of our "ills" ?

Would delisting or forcebly retiring Richo solve our forward problems?

Would a new coach solve the problem with our skills which have deteriorated over Terry's term with supposebly a better list, a turning of over 20+ players.

Would Craigeburn help implementing a better game plan/style , as the facilities are more upto AFL standards and dimensions.?

Will a new coach install much needed hardness, passion and courage amongst "all " our players ?.

Will a new coach install "playing for the jumper " in an uncompromising fashion and a mentality of not accepting "mediorocrity" ?.

Or is the "cancer" that has spread through the club over 2 decades be simply put down to..........................

WHATS BETWEEN THE PLAYERS EARS ?
CONFIDENCE ?


So nothing has really changed. Are the players,the club and coach(new), are they capable of finding the "cure" to rid the club of this "cancer" , or will we see another decade of pain before we see some pleasure and excitemnet in this marriage. ?


Waiting............(still)

 

[jokershoppe]

is our recruiting selections that bad or are we just not capable of good list and player development, probably both apply to us, look at the list the hawks are developing, god theres class everywhere. Looking at our coburg players last week, there disposal was awful, just like there coach rowlings career and kicking went

 

[Massai]

Interesting post, interesting to go back and read what Wall's wrote in 2003. Interesting that out of the young players he mentioned ONLY Coughlan remains a Tiger, the others are collective history.

To gain confidence, you need the right mindset between your ears. To get the right mindset, means having the right attitude and motivation, in turn that means doing the right training, extra training, learning everything you can from other "great or very good players", watching video of your own game and those of others you want to copy etc etc etc.

Does Richmond do any of this with its players, do the players do any of it themselves?

Answering the first part, Richmonds Player and Leadership Development over the past 2 decades has been nothing short of woeful. For too long the club was focused on just pure survival late 80's and into the early/mid 90's.

Almost 15 years later, Richmond still seem to be stuck in the mud, wheels spinning and getting nowhere other than sinking down into more mud (perhaps the UK Top Gear show could come out here and do a show on RFC). If RFC was a car, it would be right up in the top 10 worst built cars ever.

The club has not put money into the football department for years. When Terry Wallace arrived as Coach, there were bits of torn up paper floating around, paint flaking off the walls and the list goes on, so pride in appearance internally at the club was not there, clearly the maintenance of the place was not being done or if it was it was a paper the crack job. The ROT had well and truly set in. If the appearance of an organisations facilities looks bad the chances are pretty good that whatever belongs inside that building is not going to perform either.

Old Navy saying, "Sloppy Ship equals a Sloppy Crew" and its always been correct.

Richmond fall right into that category, have done for years.

Craigieburn when it gets up and running may finally address the issues of player development, player leadership etc, time will tell but it will have to be a lot better than the old PR.

The second part regarding the players themselves and what they want to do, again hard to tell. Clearly there are some players at Richmond who take pride in their effort, they train the house down, work hard on the field and make the effort to win the game.

Sadly however, too many do the opposite, they turn up for training, go thru the drills, listen to whatever the coach is saying possibly totally disinterested, then shower, change and go home, come back for the game, do a couple of things on the field, lose the game, shower, listen to the coaching staff after the game, go home and put their feet up and probably say to themselves "did the best I could, don't blame me".

To that end the RFC Board should be demanding answers not only from the coaching and football department staff, but the players themselves. If that means a player is singled out for a dressing down by the board, so be it. Wake up call to the player, they've got the following 3 options. Get their act together, head down bum up extra training etc and get the performance up to scratch, they can ask to be traded out of the club (which club in their right mind would want to take a Richmond player right now) or not have their contract renewed and be delisted.

The problem with Richmond is that for too long it was focused on survival, its now survived but in the course of surviving its forgotten how to run the football side properly. You can blame umpteen people, be they the various Boards, the various coachs and staff and the various players and you can also blame us the members etc who have been demanding performance and premierships, then demanding blood when things have gone badly wrong in the past, as well.

The only way out is to get Craigieburn up and running, but in the mean time work can be done to address the players skill issues with extra training sessions surely, after all that is what the coaches are supposed to be there for. Recruitment will become an issue over the next few years, the young players have to be developed properly and that means that Richmond will have to pour a lot of money, blood, sweat and tears into doing it, otherwise in 2015, another Robert Walls article will appear saying exactly the same things as the 2003 one above.