Newman denies sack plea

Richmond captain Chris Newman has denied the Tigers' senior players asked for coach Terry Wallace to be dumped at Tuesday's emergency meeting to clarify Wallace's future.

The meeting - held at exactly the same time as the rest of the players were training ahead of Saturday night's clash against Essendon at the MCG - was between the Tigers' leadership group, Wallace, club president Gary March and football operations manager Craig Cameron.

It was widely reported on Tuesday morning that Wallace had been sacked by the Tigers - following the club's dismal start to the season with just one win in the first eight games - with player power believed to have been behind the decision after the leadership group reportedly expressed concerns about Wallace to March.

Yet Wallace remains as Richmond coach - at least until the club completes its mid-season review in a month's time.

So either the board - represented by March - decided it would not be dictated to by the players or March did not share their concerns about Wallace.

Or rather the board decided it would not make a decision on Wallace's future, before the time it said it would during mid-season, or could not come up with a suitable interim replacement for Wallace out of the club's five assistant coaches.

The other alternative to Tuesday's strange sequence of events is that the players truly did not express any concerns about Wallace but if that was the case then why was it necessary to stage an emergency meeting at exactly the same time the players and Wallace should have been at training.

Newman was reluctant to go into details about what went on in the meeting on Tuesday but insisted the players were still behind Wallace.

This was despite rumours of a heated exchange between Wallace and the players after Sunday's heartbreaking loss to Port Adelaide when forward Mitch Morton in particular came in for some heavy criticism from Wallace, in front of the other players, following his turnover with less than two minutes remaining which ultimately led to Port's winning goal.

"I thought it was the right time, there were some things that had to come up and some things we had to raise," Newman said of Tuesday's meeting.

"We sit at 1-7 so we needed to sit down as a group and make sure everyone was on the same page and bring up where we are going wrong and what we need to do in the future."

Newman denied the players had been upset by Wallace's reaction to the Port loss, which all but ended Richmond's slim finals chances in a year in which Wallace had to get the club into the finals for the first time to win a new contract.

"I have heard a bit about that speculation but he was sensational after the game," Newman said of Wallace.

"His post match speech was really good and obviously he was pretty upset with the loss as we all were."

"But the meeting (on Tuesday) was about putting some specifics in place to help turn the season around."

Newman denied the constant focus surrounding Wallace's position had affected the players this season - a claim that seems fanciful given the club's 1-7 record - and said he expected Wallace to see out his contract and remain in charge for the rest of the season.

"The players can't think about Terry's future, the players have got a job to do and it's my role as captain of the club to make sure the players don't get affected by these sorts of things."