IN THE third instalment of our four-part interview with Terry Wallace, the Richmond coach tells Luke Holmesby about his strained relations with the Western Bulldogs and how coaching has changed since he started 12 years ago.

One of the new players to the club is Jordan McMahon. I’m assuming he was a player that you personally really wanted to get to Richmond.
Most of the time recruiting at under-18 level is your recruiting department and trades are your football department. I’ve seen Jordy since he was 17 years of age [at the Bulldogs]. He’s another first-round draft pick [in 2000] and I keep going back to their under-18 level and say if they are one of the best going around at 18, there’s no reason why that can’t be the case at 24.

Does having Jordy on board add a little more to the growing rivalry Richmond have with the Bulldogs?
I’m a life member there, so what’s the rivalry? There’s a couple of people who left there and came here and vice-versa. I don’t see there’s a rivalry at all, just another game in the fixture.

Would you feel welcome back at the Bulldogs at a club function?
I haven’t been invited to a club function [since I left], so that’s not a question I’ll need to answer until it happens.

Does it hurt that you don’t get invited?
Not really, I [also] don’t go to many Hawthorn functions. I’ve been to a few but I suppose it is water under the bridge. It was strained relations at the end, sometimes it’s better to deal with those sorts of things when history writes itself. I’m a life member there and I don’t bear any grudges and you’d have to ask the other party if they do.

How would you say you’ve changed as a coach since you started in 1996?
You’ve always got to adjust to changes in the game. I would have thought going back 10 years ago there was far more impact on game day by coaches than there is now. That’s because you didn’t have the players in such a developed state of training. Nowadays everything they do in the game is analysed and scrutinised during the week, so the game plays itself out.

10 years ago the clubs were huge local football clubs, where now they are organisations and don’t look anything like your local footy club. As a senior coach you are a senior manager of the football division. It’s changed so much and you’ve got to keep abreast and ahead of the changes.

You’re probably one of the more media-friendly coaches. Do you feel that in such a cut-throat job you have to sell yourself?
No. I’ve always thought that what you do is you ask your board and management what they’re looking for in a coach and that’s how you conduct yourself. I started at the Whitten Oval where clearly we had a game plan where the club was not seen in a great light. We had to build the brand and that was the task I was given.

When I got to Richmond it was down on its knees a bit and they determined that they needed what the Bulldogs had – that type of person to rejuvenate the rank and file. Over the last six months we’ve decided to be more football-oriented and go down a different pathway. I’m employed to do what the club wants me to do.