Wallace says Richmond “went hard” for Judd when he said he was going to return to Melbourne. “Clearly he didn’t want to come here, but we still went to his management and to West Coast and put a bid in for him regardless,” he said.
“We thought we put in a very strong bid and we were dealing well with their football division but things got taken out of their hands and for whatever reason, the board and management thought it was best for them to deal with Carlton. You can ask them why that was the case, we have our own suspicions that there were some interesting dealings – that’s fine, all’s good in love and war and they got the job done.”
Wallace says last season was “the first time ever that the bottom side didn’t get the no.1 pick. It just happened to be our lot but I’m comfortable with where we’re at. We played the last month [of last season] on our merits and that month was our best for the year.”
And he says his much criticised comment about Richmond peaking in 2011 was widely misunderstood. “I never said anything about success or a flag. All I said was that our list would be in its best shape in regards to ages,” Wallace says.
“It’s where you haven’t got a whole heap of guys at one age and no one at the other age and it is a perfect cycle. Our perfect cycle won’t come until 2011 and it will be cyclical from that point onwards. That had nothing to do with success.”
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