Sacked podcast: Danny Frawley tells-all on sacking himself and Richmond’s plot for Terry Wallace

He’d already been sacked, but Danny Frawley was determined to stay on and see out the year at Richmond. The club repaid him with one of the most bizarre requests you could imagine. LISTEN NOW

Danny Frawley was sacked during the 2004 season.

Danny Frawley has revealed Richmond wanted coach-in-waiting Terry Wallace to sit in his coaches box for the last four weeks of 2004.

He also remains adamant no sacked coach should ever finish the season.

Frawley coached Richmond into the 2001 preliminary final but with the Tigers 4-9 in his last season, resigned but agreed to coach out the last nine games.

He told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast it was in hindsight a “disastrous” idea, with Frawley having to stop to dip his head in Port Phillip Bay to “feel alive” in those final weeks.

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As the AFL Coaches Association’s chief executive, he told every sacked coach they should move on instead of contemplate coaching out the year for the good of the club.

Frawley read the tea leaves before he was the next coach ruthlessly sacked by Richmond but admits the farcical idea to allow Wallace into the box came out of left field.

Wallace was appointed in early August and while he only started officially on October 1, the Tigers wanted him to get a head start at Punt Rd.

That request from Richmond powerbrokers to have their new coach sit in the coaches’ box with the outgoing one was never directly conveyed to Wallace, nor was he interested in doing it.

Terry Wallace watches on as Richmond take on Sydney in 2004.

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“I had lunch with (footy manager) Greg Miller, (manager) Ricky Nixon and (president) Clinton Casey on the Saturday of the bye and the sacking was a week away or whatever. I said, ‘Let’s get on the front foot here’. I always thought I could read the play well, so I argued I would resign.

“The easiest thing would have been to put my hand up and say, ‘It’s all over’.

“They said , ‘Do you want to coach on’, and I said, ‘Yeah’.

“I am a country boy. It never dawned on me not to. When I became the AFLCA chief executive the first thing I said was never coach on.”

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Frawley said those nine weeks were extremely challenging, as the Tigers lost every game and the administration hired Wallace with a month remaining on a five-year deal.

“I had to jump in the water just to clear your head and feel alive. It was tough because if I had (of) known Plough - and it wasn’t his fault - but he was appointed with four games to go. I won’t swear, but that was terrible.

Danny Frawley was sacked by the Tigers in 2004.

“There was no doubt (I should have quit). When I saw him on The Footy Show with his family, with four games to go I am thinking, ‘What the hell?’.

“And it came through, and this didn’t come from Plough either, but it came through a couple of channels, would it be OK for Plough to sit in the back of the (coaches) box. I said, ‘Guys, this is not happening’.

“I won’t mention names, but that was a bit silly to ask that question.”

“My stubbornness probably stemmed a bit from Shawry (Tony Shaw). I was with him when (he coached on at Collingwood). The stubbornness can get in the way of having the clarity to move on. But that’s the way I played my footy. I didn’t have a lot of talent. I was probably like that Monty Python film. No arms and legs but still biting your knee caps off.”

President Leon Daphne departed as part of a revolving door of administrators in Frawley’s five seasons at the club.

Clinton Casey and Greg Miller announced Terry Wallace as Richmond coach during the 2004 season.

“Not having a go at anyone, but I had five footy operations managers and four CEOs and I had a president in five years there. I had no continuity there,” Frawley said.

“Leon Daphne, to his unbelievable credit, he was the guy who gave me the job. Unbeknown to me, I think he said when he had to sack Wallsy and get Jeff Gieschen in, that he would never be a president for another coach taking over. He took the responsibility for getting the next coach, which was me, and he took me out for lunch two days later and he said well done getting the job, by the way I am resigning. I thought, ‘That’s not what you want to hear’. You can see why he would have been such a great president, being so true to his word.”

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