Crikey

The Richmond Football Club, and its coach Terry Wallace, have so far had a season to forget. But they didn’t deserve the botched misreporting of Wallace’s (non) sacking that played out over the Melbourne media this morning.

At approximately 9.30am, Mark Robinson reported on the Herald Sun website that Wallace had been sacked. The Herald Sun website displayed Robinson’s story like this:

Earlier, Melbourne radio station SEN 1116 had reported rumblings of something big going down at Punt Road Oval, and when Robinson “broke” the story they relayed this sensational news to their listeners.

There was just one problem —  Wallace hadn’t been sacked. Somehow, somewhere the Herald Sun had caught wind that something was not quite right, so the paper changed its website banner to:

Is Wallace sacked? Is he staying? Which is it?

Whether Robinson or SEN actually rang the club, or checked their sources, Crikey is not sure, but it soon became apparent that Wallace was not leaving Richmond.

The Herald Sun then changed the original story — which Crikey understands to have originally reported that Wallace had been sacked, had not arrived to a meeting at Punt Road, that assistant coach Brian Royal was also going and that Jade Rawlings would be taking over — to a completely new story titled, “Crisis at Punt Rd”:

Terry Wallace will remain as coach of Richmond following a crisis meeting at the club this morning.

The Herald Sun believed the club had decided to sack Wallace until the senior players had a robust discussion with president Gary March this morning, confiming that Wallace has their full support.

Wallace was not at training this morning, nor were senior players including captain Chris Newman, Matthew Richardson and Troy Simmonds.

Tigers captain Chris Newman and football manager Craig Cameron will have a press conference at midday today.

Newman told the assembled media it wasn’t true that Wallace was sacked.

So Wallace was sacked, then he was going and then finally it’s Richmond who are in crisis? The Herald Sun should look in their backyard.

The Tigers held a press conference at noon today denying Wallace had ever been sacked.

You can listen to the early SEN reports here.

An interesting day in Tigerland.