The AFL world is celebrating the wonderful career of Richmond great Damien Hardwick after the three-time premiership coach announced his resignation at Punt Road on Tuesday.
Hardwick will go down as one of the greatest coaches the game has ever seen, having changed the way football was played and changed the way premierships were won.
He’s the type of bloke you’d want in your corner.
As the wider community reflects on the news, Hawthorn great Luke Hodge wonders whether Hardwick looked at the way Alastair Clarkson finished up at the Hawks.
Hodge believes the list comparisons, the injuries to certain players and all they’ve achieved as coaches, comparing Hardwick now to Clarkson back in 2016, was a factor in the Tiger pulling the pin before the club enters an inevitable rebuild.
“The first thing that comes to my mind, has he learnt a little bit from Alastair Clarkson and what Clarkson went through at Hawthorn?” Hodge told SEN’s Sportsday.
“The success that Hawthorn had and the correlation between Richmond, what they’ve been through and the success that they had compared to Hawthorn.
“Alastair Clarkson in 2016 had brought in players for sustained success to continue with what they had done in Tom Mitchell and Jaegar O’Meara and Damien Hardwick and Richmond did the same with Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper this year and then the first year in there are injuries and things don’t go to plan.
“Hawthorn missed the finals in 2017, they had injuries to Grant Birchall, Ben Stratton and James Frawley and then you look at Richmond and they’ve had Tom Lynch and Toby Nankervis missing as well as a lot of injuries.
“It’s the same point where Clarkson and Hawthorn in 2017 said, ‘Do you rebuild?’, and Alastair Clarkson, who had given his word to these players, and ‘Dimma’ is the same with what he’s said to Taranto and Hopper.
“It’s very hard to go back as a coach when you bring players into your club and go back on what you promised them. They both promised their players that they were going to strive again for more success and for them to be a part of a premiership side.
“I reckon he might’ve looked, and we’ve heard that Clarkson has said that he probably stayed a year or two too long and Dimma is probably looking at this going, ‘Am I up for the next five years and trying to rebuild or do I hand it over and say, ‘it’s a very fatiguing job, being in charge of the Richmond Football Club, it’s a big club with high expectations’, and he’s had so much success there so I think he’s made the call.”
Hardwick is Richmond’s longest-serving coach, having coached 307 games for the Yellow and Black since taking over the role from Terry Wallace ahead of the 2010 season.