Terry Wallace has walked away from Richmond after coaching 95 games at the club. Obviously Wallace wanted to choose the time and the place to fall on his sword and saw the Tiger’s victory over Fremantle as the best time to leave the club. He leaves the club still with hope of making the finals, after only winning the two of the first 10 games of the year.
Wallace will coach the Tiger’s clash against Western Bulldogs on Friday night. It would be fitting for him to coach his last game of the year for the foreseeable future against the club he coached for six years. Expect the Tigers to come out and fight for their coach’s last hit-out.
Wallace has said that he is not going to coach in 2010, but he is still young, at 50 he is no shrinking violet. He can definitely coach in a couple of year’s time after taking a back seat in the football world for a couple of years.
There is a lot of speculation about who will replace him which is detailed beautifully on this AFL website story. Amongst the contenders is the green caped fatso, also known as one of the greatest coaches of all time (and thinks he invented aboriginal football) Kevin Sheedy. Although I won’t say that it won’t happen, it’s clearly not as likely as one of the assistants stepping up, at least for the time being as a care taker at least, if they win a few I suspect they will stay.
So the question is ‘What now for Wallace?’ Well there are a few solutions; he goes and does media, ish don’t think so, he takes up a management, more likely but where? He isn’t exactly known for his list management credentials.
I don’t think the problems at Richmond can all be blamed on Terry Wallace though. There are football department problems that have been around, that have meant that players haven’t developed in to fantastic players like they have for Hawthorn and Geelong. Not to mention that they have a lot of their problems dragged out in the media, their media manager should be shot, that’s half the reason Wallace is out the door. The players have also not been performing, nobody would have expected their list to do so badly this year, even if I coached it, let alone someone who has built it and is a proper coach. You can’t lay all the blame for Richmond’s performance on Terry Wallace’s doorstep, it’s the whole club’s fault, and it almost always is.
As for if Wallace was pushed or not, I couldn’t care less. It is of no consequence to anything, it’s the one thing they have managed well this year. They stuffed up the earlier attempt to fire him, this time it was much more dignified. Wallace had nothing to gain by coaching the year out, unless by some miracle he thinks they will make the eight (again ish don’t think so). Let’s hope for his sake they win on Friday and he can go out on a high of two wins in a row, hurray!
Tags: Terry Wallace
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