Rugby League: 'Restless soul' of league

Shane Richardson is widely regarded as the best administrator in rugby league, having taken on a succession of troubled clubs and turning them around.

But why, everyone wondered, would he leave reigning premiers Penrith for battle-ravaged Souths?

Richardson denies any drive to save foundation or marquee clubs. But it's the job he did for Brisbane Easts when they finished last in all grades, then the Cronulla Sharks when nearly bankrupt, Hull in England when it was in danger of folding, Penrith when they were wooden-spooners.

In between, he was chief executive of the Super League club Gateshead. The foothold in Wales never took off and Richardson was paid out by News Ltd when the club folded. He went straight to Hull, founded in 1865 but within hours of being shut down, and put his money and energies into a resurrection.

Hull are now second on the Super League table and have just proved their financial viability by out-bidding others for Kiwi Stephen Kearney.

Penrith went from last in 2001 to winners by 2003.

He has been at Souths for just over four weeks, long enough to get the views of all the stakeholders in the club - the sponsors, the board members, the coaching staff, players and others who at times have been at each others' throats.

"What I found was that they're all just footy people who want the game to go ahead. They all basically want the same thing - the team to be doing well," said Richardson.

He agreed the team had not been helped by the off-field dramas, boardroom battles and personnel changes.

"Not only the team, but the impact was also on the corporates, the sponsors, all the stakeholders in the club.

"What they want to see is that the club has a sound plan for the future. I've put a business plan together and I hope they will buy into it. Hopefully it will be a plan everyone will get behind."

The club is on a sound financial footing, Richardson said, and did not rely on the huge poker machine grants from associated leagues clubs that other teams do.

Already he has bought a new coach, Shaun "Bomber" McRae with whom he was partnered at Hull, and two new players in Roosters centre Shannon Hegarty and prop Peter Cusack. Another addition is David Boyle, who for 10 years has been strength and conditioning coach for the Dragons.

But turning Souths around is not about buying in heaps of players or name coaches. Winning a premiership never is, said Richardson.

"You might be able to buy one but it would be short-lived, it wouldn't do much for you longer-term. We're building from our junior base."

New centre David Sutton epitomised that. "You have to get the best from what you have, the young players coming through, because they will always be the most loyal to the club. Rather than buying our way back in, we're looking to optimise what we have.

"The players we have now have 20 per cent improvement in them."

He is still looking to buy, but largely to redress some imbalances in the team. Local juniors will be its base in future but with only 2000 registered juniors - about the same as there are in the Cronulla district - he will continue to look around and rates the Queensland Cup and Bartercard Cup as good talent grounds.

"I'll be looking for another Joe Galuvao rather than a Steve Price," he said of the former Warriors backrower turned good at Penrith as opposed to the Warriors' big-money buy.

He envied the Warriors' management their flexibility, the ability to act quickly and decisively as they did in changing coach and buying players, as opposed to the Penrith/Souths set-up that required more debate with members and boards.

Richardson also believed that Souths' tradition had held it back to some extent.

"People keep talking about 20 premierships, more than any club, but that's all history [the last ones 1970/71]. This team has to create its own war stories and if we don't, then we won't have a club. More premierships than anyone else is irrelevant - what's relevant is Auckland on Sunday."

Because of the private ownership of the Warriors as opposed to the club members' shares in Souths, the vast amount of talent the Warriors can choose from New Zealand-wide as opposed to those 2000 juniors, Richardson sees little comparison between the two in terms of business plans to turn around flagging teams. But he reckons all rugby league clubs are much the same to run.

Formerly the Queensland state manager for AGC Finance, Richardson, 47, started in club administration at Brisbane Easts in 1988, later forming his working partnership with John Lang who was coach from 1990-93. They were winners on and off the field, and the pair were enticed to the NRL by financially-troubled Cronulla in 1994. Richardson stayed until the end of 1998 then went to Gateshead, Lang had three more seasons at the Sharks before shifting to Penrith.


It was essential that the chief executive and coach had a close working relationship and got on well, Richardson said, and that was no small part of the reason McRae came in to replace Paul Langmack, with stand-in Arthur Kitinas to be assistant coach. Beyond that, it was about being innovative and smart.

"At Easts the club had no money and was last in all grades. We rolled our sleeves up, sold a lot of chook raffles and eventually got our best team on the field.

"It's no different at Penrith or Souths - you have more money involved, more publicity and more pressure but basically it would be no different to running Mt Albert. It's simple things that make the difference [between winning and losing teams]."

Little steps counted now for a team low on morale and confidence, he said, as they would for the Warriors.

Warriors coach Tony Kemp called Sunday's game at Ericsson Stadium "our grand final", a reference to the likelihood of the loser taking the wooden spoon. Richardson responded that the game offered a new dawn for both clubs, but Souths were not looking at the playoffs or the wooden spoon.

He had a passion for rugby league, Richardson said, and that's what drove him at every club. When he announced he was leaving Penrith, Lang's comment was, "he's a restless soul, the big fella".

Richardson said he had been lucky enough to carve out a career doing what he loved - "I don't know about any talent".

Wife Kim, marketing manager at Penrith "and the best damn one in the game" according to her husband, said Shane "always puts his mouth where our money is".

They've been together 23 years and have three children. Penrith was the first job he'd had in the game where financial problems were not top of the list. So why move?

He didn't apply for the job - Souths rang him up out of the blue.

"I wasn't contracted at Penrith, for a start. We'd already won the premiership [Panthers 2003] and this was another opportunity. Whether or not it's the right decision for me personally in the long term I don't care. It's a challenge - I don't know that I'm a restless soul."

'Restless soul' of league