Tough conversations with Damien Hardwick revealed in new book on Richmond 2020 premiership

Midway through 2020 Damien Hardwick was struggling, but some harsh words from Brendon Gale led to a remarkable change of course.

Trent Cotchin and Damien Hardwick hold up the premiership cup, but 2020 wasn’t always looking so positive for the Richmond coach.

Richmond chief executive Brendon Gale urged coach Damien Hardwick to “get his act together” and ditch his negative mindset in the weeks after AFL football resumed in June as the coronavirus pandemic shook the game to its core.

Six weeks on from the Tigers’ back-to-back premiership success, it can be revealed how concerned senior club figures were about Hardwick’s demeanour after the season’s mid-year restart and how they believed it was impacting the team’s performance.

A new book documenting the Tigers’ 2020 flag, The Hard Way – written by Konrad Marshall – details how a series of “stern” conversations with Gale, president Peggy O’Neal and general manager of football performance Tim Livingstone changed Hardwick’s mindset in time to reshape the club’s premiership defence.

Gale said reports kept coming back to him about Hardwick’s “attitude”, with O’Neal telling the CEO he “needed to be strong” with the coach.

Damien Hardwick with Richmond CEO Brendon Gale after the Grand Final.

“Damien, as coach, is the most high-profile leader of our club,” Gale said in The Hard Way. “The shadow he sets as a leader is very, very powerful. And he did struggle with it, and I think that was reflected by what we saw on the field.”

“We had to say, ‘We put our faith and trust in those who make these decisions, mate’. That was important. People are making these decisions based on advice, on evidence, on epidemiology. So even if you’re not sure they’re right, we just go with it. We don’t question.”

Hardwick conceded after the Tigers’ 31-point Grand Final win over Geelong he initially couldn’t see the rationale behind some of the AFL’s COVID rules, especially separate training groups for players required for socially distancing. His frustration even saw him tear some COVID-safe posters off the Punt Rd walls.

It took “a very stern talking to” from Gale and Livingstone to change his mindset, as Hardwick said: “They don’t care who you are — they’ll give you the sledgehammer at some stage to make sure you get your act together.”

O’Neal sensed how “irritated” the coach had become after speaking to him at Punt Rd after the season resumed.

“He just had to be more positive,” O’Neal said. “And I remember saying to Damien, ‘Whoever does this best … will win. They will. And that can be us’.”

The Hard Way by Konrad Marshall

Livingstone acknowledged Hardwick took some time to deal with the initial measures put into place to allow the AFL to kick-start its season after an 82-day shutdown.

“Look at his background,” Livingstone said. “He’s an accountant, and he looks at the numbers and the statistics and the logic behind it, and he didn’t see things adding up, and he found it frustrating.”

Gale said in The Hard Way Hardwick’s attitude came from a sense of frustration that all the plans for the club’s premiership defence had been turned on their head by the pandemic.

“You go into the year as the reigning premier, you set the pre-season up, and you go in with optimism, off the back of a proven formula and system that delivers results, and all of the sudden that system is dismantled,” Gale said. “And we’re a team where that system is the bedrock.

“All of sudden what I always considered our greatest strength became a concern, because if we can’t keep sharpening this saw, if we can’t prepare and train the way we’re used to, it’s going to be more than challenging.”

Hardwick ultimately took on the advice and the Tigers thrived when they moved to the Queensland hub, even allowing for a few indiscretions and hiccups that made headlines.

The book – which follows Marshall’s highly successful 2017 book Yellow & Black and 2019’s Stronger & Bolder – also reveals how the club leaders swung into action to deal with the Kebab-gate controversy, when Tiger youngsters Sydney Stack and Callum Coleman-Jones broke protocols and copped hefty suspensions, plus the themes Hardwick used to get his players back on track after a qualifying final slip-up.

# The Hard Way, the story of Richmond‘s 13th premiership, Konrad Marshall. Available December 10, RRP $24.99