Bare with my opening here, you'll see where I am going with all this eventually. Foremost apologies for anyone who finds my words too aggressive or controversial, not my intention and I hope they are not read as such. In some areas i have simplified / generalised greatly merely for the difficult exercise of not making this too labourious to read.
I take a deep interest in coaching and club management, not just of Richmond but also how the other AFL clubs operate and other sports / codes.
I often like to closely watch and study parallel coaching careers unwind...for instance....Danny Frawley and Mark Thompson started at their respective clubs at the same time, one spiralled out of AFL coaching the other finally achieved the ultimate success. Without taking personal put-shots at them I like to study how they operate and the affect their decisions ended up making on their KPI's and end results.
Another similiar case, whilst their careers are not parallel, their "second life" as coaches certainly is...I am currently intrigued by Terry Wallace and Rodney Eade and the direction / results they are achieving at their respective clubs. Especially as (as was the case with Frawley/Thompson, though granted Thompson wasn't interested) Eade could have been our current coach in an alternate reality and they were both "highly touted" coaches by the media/football identidies.
Before even Terry Wallace was first appointed Richmond Coach I think few would argue the general consensus (still is?) Wallace was the better all round coach and Eade was the better match day coach. Eade was seen by many to be under-rated, especially by the so called media experts and some could not understand the fascination with Wallace and put it down merely to the only thing he truly did well was play the media. Point being, they were seen as fairly different coaches, both in the way they operated and in some cases, their capabilities, depending on who's opinion you asked.
I find it ironic both are in startingly similiar positions, despite their supposedly significant differences. Both are staring at the very real possibility of being sacked next season if their sides don't perform, questions are starting to be asked of just how good a "all round" coach Wallace is...his gone from being seen as a innovater and cunning tactitian at the bulldogs to being a car sales man in the eyes of many who never gave him a second thought before he was at Richmond. With the exodus of key figures in his club at the end of this season and the rumours slowly starting to generate around Eade, the ugly rumours of his Swan exit are starting to re-emerge.
To boot, a lad by the name of Alastair Clarkson who started at the same time as them at his respective club has come along and argubably over taken them in coaching performance on and off the field.
Over the years we have often debated our financial status, organisation structure, coaching methods or lack of them, how we patch things with list management, football department, off field support, etc when trying to discuss how to return our great club to it's former glory.
Like most things in life I don't think you can put it down to any one thing, especially once problems fester for so many years in organisations, they mutate and take on new life forms of their own. Which is why a common practice in business when new higher management comes in is to remove all the middle and most of the lower management and quite often turn over the staff gradually in certain industries.
We have a few key aspects of the club operating well in my opinion (i think our financial management for instance, for the first time in many years is excellent under our latest CEO who "suprise suprise" actually comes from a internationally credible background for a change), but we have other critical aspects failing abysmally in my opinion.
Personally I feel the source of everything is the Board. To me that is a massive understatement and yet so many supporters of so many clubs expect things to be turned around by gun recruit players, coaches, administrators etc. Not going to happen. I think a lot of supporters will accept a "average" board if the "sexy' parts of the club are attractive to them/well sold...and this is where I think things start to spiral down or slowly fester.
Reverse planning is often the best way to also trouble shoot and I feel our incessant problem of late is our inability to get our coaching decision right and therefore our list structure. I personally feel when you trace back our problems I keep coming back to our board decisions to get into a poaching war with Collingwood and the sacking of Bartlett as a coach as the first signs of serious arrogance, mismanagement and ineptitude at our highest levels of management.
From there we have gone into self preservation mode and worse yet gone outside of the club (not saying you can never do this, but you have to have a decent percentage of club men) and merely stumbled out of bed every morning to exist, one eye onthe future the other on our backs, rather than lept out of bed snarling and united, ready to pounce on the future.
The fact we have not successfully re-built this club once since the 80's is incredibly damning of the core/culture of our club. It confirms as fact we have never had the right leadership in place in nearly 30 years, either at board level or coaching!
I mention this now as i strongly feel we are going into the most important year of our club in 2008 since our fall from grace for close to 30 years. Next year is our 100th anniversary, the perfect platform for a new beginning and a launch into a new era. Current management at all levels must be held accountable next year, instead of this incessant "Oh we'll sack the coach....have a board spill, get a gun recruit, we'll spend more/less money...rubbish"
If we fall over next year there must be a complete purge of this great club and it has to be rebuilt by people who will bleed, sweat and cry yellow and black.
No matter what happens I will always support and love this club, but I want to have genuine pride and excitement about it too, not the false excitement of the anticipation of a new season. But a excitement born from seeing the next great Richmond Era building.
I am not a bright sider or a dark sider, I don't like either of those terms. I strongly share traits of both and can't see life so black and white. All I want is a accountable club that if nothing else I have faith in the processes that whirl in place behind closed doors. I want to know the heartbeat of the tiger and our former champions beats under Punt Road and is being listened to above all else.
I would love to know all of your opinions on this topic and centralised in one easy to find thread as various aspects of this would be spread over hundreds of threads I imagine.
They key point to this thread is not about coaching performances, miller, list decisions etc. We have all read/written that to death lately. My focus in this thread is what is the source of the problem at RFC is and how do we ensure we genuinely move into a new era constructively on our 100th birthday.
Stuff Christmas! Bring on Season 2008! Time to roll up our sleeves and throw out the cliches.
I take a deep interest in coaching and club management, not just of Richmond but also how the other AFL clubs operate and other sports / codes.
I often like to closely watch and study parallel coaching careers unwind...for instance....Danny Frawley and Mark Thompson started at their respective clubs at the same time, one spiralled out of AFL coaching the other finally achieved the ultimate success. Without taking personal put-shots at them I like to study how they operate and the affect their decisions ended up making on their KPI's and end results.
Another similiar case, whilst their careers are not parallel, their "second life" as coaches certainly is...I am currently intrigued by Terry Wallace and Rodney Eade and the direction / results they are achieving at their respective clubs. Especially as (as was the case with Frawley/Thompson, though granted Thompson wasn't interested) Eade could have been our current coach in an alternate reality and they were both "highly touted" coaches by the media/football identidies.
Before even Terry Wallace was first appointed Richmond Coach I think few would argue the general consensus (still is?) Wallace was the better all round coach and Eade was the better match day coach. Eade was seen by many to be under-rated, especially by the so called media experts and some could not understand the fascination with Wallace and put it down merely to the only thing he truly did well was play the media. Point being, they were seen as fairly different coaches, both in the way they operated and in some cases, their capabilities, depending on who's opinion you asked.
I find it ironic both are in startingly similiar positions, despite their supposedly significant differences. Both are staring at the very real possibility of being sacked next season if their sides don't perform, questions are starting to be asked of just how good a "all round" coach Wallace is...his gone from being seen as a innovater and cunning tactitian at the bulldogs to being a car sales man in the eyes of many who never gave him a second thought before he was at Richmond. With the exodus of key figures in his club at the end of this season and the rumours slowly starting to generate around Eade, the ugly rumours of his Swan exit are starting to re-emerge.
To boot, a lad by the name of Alastair Clarkson who started at the same time as them at his respective club has come along and argubably over taken them in coaching performance on and off the field.
Over the years we have often debated our financial status, organisation structure, coaching methods or lack of them, how we patch things with list management, football department, off field support, etc when trying to discuss how to return our great club to it's former glory.
Like most things in life I don't think you can put it down to any one thing, especially once problems fester for so many years in organisations, they mutate and take on new life forms of their own. Which is why a common practice in business when new higher management comes in is to remove all the middle and most of the lower management and quite often turn over the staff gradually in certain industries.
We have a few key aspects of the club operating well in my opinion (i think our financial management for instance, for the first time in many years is excellent under our latest CEO who "suprise suprise" actually comes from a internationally credible background for a change), but we have other critical aspects failing abysmally in my opinion.
Personally I feel the source of everything is the Board. To me that is a massive understatement and yet so many supporters of so many clubs expect things to be turned around by gun recruit players, coaches, administrators etc. Not going to happen. I think a lot of supporters will accept a "average" board if the "sexy' parts of the club are attractive to them/well sold...and this is where I think things start to spiral down or slowly fester.
Reverse planning is often the best way to also trouble shoot and I feel our incessant problem of late is our inability to get our coaching decision right and therefore our list structure. I personally feel when you trace back our problems I keep coming back to our board decisions to get into a poaching war with Collingwood and the sacking of Bartlett as a coach as the first signs of serious arrogance, mismanagement and ineptitude at our highest levels of management.
From there we have gone into self preservation mode and worse yet gone outside of the club (not saying you can never do this, but you have to have a decent percentage of club men) and merely stumbled out of bed every morning to exist, one eye onthe future the other on our backs, rather than lept out of bed snarling and united, ready to pounce on the future.
The fact we have not successfully re-built this club once since the 80's is incredibly damning of the core/culture of our club. It confirms as fact we have never had the right leadership in place in nearly 30 years, either at board level or coaching!
I mention this now as i strongly feel we are going into the most important year of our club in 2008 since our fall from grace for close to 30 years. Next year is our 100th anniversary, the perfect platform for a new beginning and a launch into a new era. Current management at all levels must be held accountable next year, instead of this incessant "Oh we'll sack the coach....have a board spill, get a gun recruit, we'll spend more/less money...rubbish"
If we fall over next year there must be a complete purge of this great club and it has to be rebuilt by people who will bleed, sweat and cry yellow and black.
No matter what happens I will always support and love this club, but I want to have genuine pride and excitement about it too, not the false excitement of the anticipation of a new season. But a excitement born from seeing the next great Richmond Era building.
I am not a bright sider or a dark sider, I don't like either of those terms. I strongly share traits of both and can't see life so black and white. All I want is a accountable club that if nothing else I have faith in the processes that whirl in place behind closed doors. I want to know the heartbeat of the tiger and our former champions beats under Punt Road and is being listened to above all else.
I would love to know all of your opinions on this topic and centralised in one easy to find thread as various aspects of this would be spread over hundreds of threads I imagine.
They key point to this thread is not about coaching performances, miller, list decisions etc. We have all read/written that to death lately. My focus in this thread is what is the source of the problem at RFC is and how do we ensure we genuinely move into a new era constructively on our 100th birthday.
Stuff Christmas! Bring on Season 2008! Time to roll up our sleeves and throw out the cliches.
artyfest
