I watched the 1973 Grand Final. That's how old I am.
I can remember the Richmond board wanting to change coaches every year. Sometimes, multiple times within the same year. For what? Where did it get us? It sent us backwards, every time. And the one time we had a decent coach- John Northey- look at how they treated him. Got us to a Prelim final- and then the board gave him the ass because he had the nerve to ask for an extra year on his contract. Ever wonder why we couldn't get any good coaches? Because the board treated them like shit.
Think back to the seasons before Dimma. We were an absolute joke. Danny Frawley and Terry Wallace. Dimma took that absolutely rotten team and put us into finals. Ok, so we haven't done so well once we got there. I don't like that any more than you do. In fact, it shits me to tears that we haven't been able to go any further. But our team and our club is in a much better position than it was ten years ago. Sacking Hardwick now- just after he's been given a contract extension- would be an absolute disaster for the club. Who would want to coach us after watching that?
Please don't think I'm taking a personal potshot at you- I surely ain't so please don't take it personally. If you want a dead man walking- Nathan Buckley. He has taken a literally premiership-winning team and reduced it to a run of the mill, B-grade side. How on earth he hasn't been given the Lemonade-and-Sars I'll never know.
