How Richmond stars Jack Riewoldt and Alex Rance went from heated clashes to become best mates
It might seem hard to believe but Jack Riewoldt and Alex Rance once didn’t like each other. Mark Robinson spoke to the superstar pair on the eve of the 2019 season as they reflected on the day it all spilt over — and how they got past their early differences.
Richmond
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From the start of their time at Richmond and for a long while after, Jack Riewoldt and Alex Rance didn’t like each other.
Competitors on the training track and off it, booming personalities who were centre-of-attention wannabes, these two alpha males ran with their own packs to the detriment of the Richmond Football Club.
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You might think it a long bow, but others close to Richmond say that if Riewoldt and Rance didn’t grow up and stop being the halfwits they were, the drought-breaking 2017 premiership might not have been won.
This story is more of a culture adventure, from not having it, then finding it, then allowing it to flourish, than a celebration of Riewoldt playing his 250th and Rance his 200th in Round 1 against Carlton.
Riewoldt wanted this story to be told, boots and all.
Once it was fists and all.
Their lowest point — and both say they are embarrassed by it — arrived late on a Mad Monday drink-a-thon out the back of the Cricketer’s Arms several years ago.
Rance, ever the prankster, was agitating Riewoldt.
He did something to Jack and Jack didn’t like it. Jack responded by striking out at Rance. “Yeah, he clocked me, not hard, but he clocked me.’’ Rance said. “I deserved it.’’
They laugh about it now. Not about the incident, so much, more about the awkwardness of the absurd and egomaniacal relationship which prevailed for so many years between these two so-called leaders.
“I look back now and think, what the hell were we doing?’’ Riewoldt said.
Rance: “When you’re young and in a team environment and you’re trying to find your way, you don’t know why you do things. I’m not a deliberately malicious person, but it’s interesting the things you do for attention or survival. It’s a fine line between joking and bullying. I was being such a hypocrite to judge someone else who was exactly the same as me by a different standard.’’
Neither hides the contempt they once held for each other, nor do they hide the respect and love they now maintain for each other.
“At the start, we were the same person who didn’t have the time for each other,’’ Rance said. “That became frustrating when we trained together, or were in the gym together. We’d rub each other the wrong way. We didn’t have patience for each other and didn’t see why. We were so similar, but the similarities were keeping us apart kind of thing. We are quite confrontational and we say what we think.’’
Did you like him? “Not initially. I mistook his confidence for selfishness.’’
You have to go back to appreciate the present.
Riewoldt, Hobart-born and son of local legend “Cabbage’’, was drafted No. 13 in the 2006 draft.
A year later, the Perth-raised Rance, son of AFL player Murray, waltzed through Punt Rd doors, having been taken No. 18 in his draft.
Dads were high achievers in footy and mums are life-of-the-party types, and their offspring scooped both qualities.
When Rance arrived, Riewoldt was already a senior player.
“Footy is a competitive environment and every season we have to line up on each other to try to get a game and early days I wasn’t getting a game,’’ Rance said.
“Jack was a star very early and so, it might’ve been jealously, it might’ve been envy, and I was so competitive, it probably got in the way of me seeing all the greatness he brought.’’
Young bucks with attitude, they also competed for attention.
“It’s amazing what you do for acceptance,’’ Rance said.
“Jack didn’t need to be a clown to be accepted because he was already really talented. When I came in, I needed to find a different angle, so when I was being a clown, for me that was to gain acceptance. It was, like, you’ve got everything, why do you need to be funny, outspoken and loud as well. Leave something for me kind of thing.’’
Riewoldt: “I was a prick, too. I’d take things too far … not be a great teammate. I would really take it to heart to try to beat him.’’
Soon enough, the two alpha males would be standing each other at training, the king of the defence versus the king of forwards.
And to make matters worse — which didn’t help culture — teammates were aware of the indifference they had of each other.
“It did fester in our groups because it was backs v forwards,’’ Riewoldt said.
“I’d fire up the forwards because I wanted to win, even at training.’’
It was ridiculous. Riewoldt kept his forward craft secret and never gave Rance feedback.
If the forwards were working together, separate to the defensive group, and Rance drifted forward to offer advice, Riewoldt would bristle.
‘What are you doing here?’
Rance was the same with the defenders.
“It was you look after your backyard and I’ll look after mine,’’ Jack said.
Rance added: “We’d say that a bit.’’
Riewoldt: “I’m embarrassed about it because it’s our backyard.’’
Rance: “It was a different culture then. It was survival. We wanted football careers, we didn’t want to just play games. So, for us to survive that’s what we thought we needed to do, show we were leaders in our own right and good players in our own right to survive.
"But then once we got together, we realised we’d been holding ourselves back for so long to a certain extent. I’m not the player I am without playing all those pre-seasons on Jack. That what our culture was. It was survival and I have to be a dog, and scrap, and be a bit of a prick, then that’s what I have to do.’’
Rance now coaches the forward group.
‘He sees it better than me,’’ Riewoldt said.
“He plays against the best players in the competition.’’
Another flashpoint, which not only involved Rance, was Riewoldt’s much-publicised omission from the leadership group.
The player vote dissed Riewoldt and it was about this time that Riewoldt was jumping fences and hiding behind cars to avoid the media and making unfortunate comments about Richmond copying Hawthorn’s game style and failing, much to coach Damien Hardwick’s exasperation.
“I’d probably do the same thing (hiding behind cars), but that didn’t rub me up the wrong way,’’ Rance said.
“There was other times where I said I don’t think Jack should be in the leadership group. I thought he was about him and not us.’’
He kicks himself now. “That was one my biggest misreads with Jack.’’
It was touchy subject then and is a minor hangover now.
It came to a head with Riewoldt and Rance one day in the coaches’ room.
Hardwick was there, captain Trent Cotchin, Ivan Maric, Brett Deledio and other coaching staff, when it blew up.
“He was honest with me and said why I shouldn’t be in there and that upset me a little bit,’’ Riewoldt said: “And maybe six months after that, he came and up apologised to me and gave me a big hug.’’
It was a defining moment between the two.
“Now, we’re hugging after JLT games,’’ Riewoldt laughed.
Rance: “In that room it was, like, this is what I’m feeling, this is what it is, and then after that, the proof which showed itself to the contrary was overwhelming. I thought I’ve misread this. It was probably a big maturing step for me to be more open-minded about what leadership looks like and what care looks like. He wanted us to win so bad, that he would think I can do it, I can make us win. And I was “that’s not about us, that’s about you’’.
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Riewoldt: “You can be scarred by prior engagements. At the time, I was pretty filthy. But I have also changed a lot in the past four or five years, and big things have happened to make me change. I was in the leadership group for the first time because I was a good player, that’s purely and solely why I was in there. And I had the knack of being able to talk up at meetings. And I had a distorted view of what I thought leadership was. I had that three to four years away from the leadership group. At first, I was filthy not being in there, wondering why they wouldn’t vote me in. But what I learnt from of Alex is relationships with other players and young players. I got caught up in a bubble of being a good player and spending time with players above my age bracket and not enjoying time with guys around my age bracket.’’
It offers a perception Riewoldt was ahead of himself. He’d hang with Deledio and Chris Newman, acting cool with the cool kids.
“There were things I missed out on,’’ he says.
“What leadership is about is having a connection with everyone.’’
The Riewoldt package — the confidence, noise and attitude — irked Rance, although Rance says he was partly at fault.
“I knew it pissed him off he wasn’t in the leadership group, but I never said, and I would do this now, but I never asked how could I help, what could I do to make this better. I was like, out of sight, out of mind, how much more damage can there be done, let’s leave it. Looking back, everyone was jumping at shadows a bit. Because our culture was already poor, Jack became a bit of scapegoat for our troubles. I feel really bad about it now. I wasn’t open-minded enough to see this wasn’t the answer, this won’t fix our issue, we’re shifting chairs, we’re not changing.
“I find it a bit embarrassing. I regret the emotions I had initially. I feel like we’re such great mates now, we wasted so much time, that we could’ve made each other better, the team better, if I had been a bit more understanding, if I hadn’t been stonewall.
Riewoldt: “I’m embarrassed about it.’’
Exactly when the relationship changed is not known. About five season ago they began to understand each other. Three seasons ago, they became besties.
A moment in time for both of them came on the night of the first Maddie Vision game in 2015, which was in honour of Maddie Riewoldt, who died of bone marrow failure.
A “connection’’ exercise at the Tigers asked the players to talk about the three photographs which mean most to them.
One of Riewoldt’s was an image of himself, Rance and Cotchin walking from the field after the siren.
A separate photo, which Riewoldt still keeps in his mobile, captured himself and Rance gazing towards the heavens.
“It’s probably the most pivotal moment in my life because of where we’d come from as mates, being combative, to where we came to as a brotherhood, and I look back at that photo and think that’s a real connection moment for me and Rancey,’’ Riewoldt said.
Rance also has the photo.
“I was looking up because I was trying not to cry. It was an emotional day.’’
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Riewoldt: “He’s a brother and to be honest he was like a brother when we first butted heads because we were so similar. He’s been there for me when I’ve needed mates most in my lowest of lows and I’ve celebrated on a different level with him in the highest of highs.’’
Riewoldt, 30, and Rance, 29, now live about a kilometre from each other in Brighton. Their wives are also close.
Rance has also written a book about Riewoldt, due in June, which is the follow-up to Tigers Roar, a kids’ book with players and people portrayed as animals and written after the 2017 premiership triumph.
The new book is called Rabbit’s Hop and is singularly based around Jack Rabbit, which is Jack and his journey from the island of Tasmania to the mainland and to stardom.
Why Jack? “It’s a great story and I wanted to tell it,’’ Rance said.
The one-time combatants are now literary juggernauts.
“It’s up there with one the nicest things anyone has done for me,’’ Jack said.
“And by the way, we don’t have Mad Mondays at the Cricketer’s any more.’’