New Richmond CEO comments on Yze’s apparent lack of aura

Richmond’s Adem Yze has been criticised for lacking the aura required to be a successful AFL coach.

There has also been critique directed his way for being a “cheerleader” rather than a coach who has the presence to guide his players with assuredness and certainty.

Yze has already been defended by captain Toby Nankervis, who said the criticism was “unfair”, and now the club’s CEO Shane Dunne has also denied the insinuations.

Ahead of the Tigers’ Thursday night Round 1 clash with Carlton, Dunne firmly believes that Yze is confident in his own ability and comfortable in his role as the face of a rebuilding club.

“I haven’t read or heard it but I’ve certainly had plenty of people talk to me about aura,” Dunne said on SEN’s The Run Home.

“I was at a lunch today (Wednesday) and everyone was asking me about aura, so I better get my head around what aura is.

“From my perspective - and I sat in the team meeting (on Wednesday morning) - Adem has got a great presence in the room.

“The most important thing is he’s really articulate in the game plan and the players understand exactly what their roles are and what they need to do. He’s really confident in that.

“I’ve seen no issues with that at all. I think he’s in a really good position, he seems really comfortable having now had one season under his belt, he’s controlled the off-season.

“We couldn’t be more prepared for Round 1.”

The Tigers have entered a full rebuild in the wake of their successful three-premiership era.

Well before that back in 2010, Dunne’s predecessor Brendon Gale famously made a bold prediction by stating that the Tigers would win three flags and erase their debt by 2020. It remarkably came true.

But the fledgling chief says he is not in a position to make a similarly daring projection.

“I haven’t been as bold to put a number on that yet,” Dunne said when asked for a Gale-style prediction.

“It’s probably the most common question I get. Someone says to me, ‘Can’t you just go and say we’ll win five in seven or something ridiculous like that and aim for it’.

“But you think back to that time and the club was on its knees when Brendon came in. Not only on the field but off the field. That’s not where we’re at right now.

“Clearly we’re going to have visions and strategic plans that we’re working on and we’re well underway on that now. We know exactly where we’re headed with the list strategy in place, off-field we’ve got our major redevelopment, and there’s a whole range of things we’ve got to tick off in our strategic plan.

“We’ll build that next vision in the coming weeks and months.”

Dunne also touched on the impending redevelopment of Punt Road Oval and the club’s desire to stay put in the heart of Richmond.

“Our ultimate goal is to keep Richmond in Richmond,” he said of the club’s iconic home base.

“We want us to remain at Punt Road for generations to come. To do that, with having only one oval, we’ve got to redo the oval, so there’ll be a period of our team where our team does need to train off site.

“We’ll minimise disruption to the team as much as possible over the next couple of years, but it will mean we have to train somewhere else for a period of time.”

The Tigers kick off their 2025 campaign against the Blues at the MCG on Thursday night.

Listen below to Dunne on Yze, Richmond’s rebuild, the club’s membership target, the AFL’s illicit drugs policy and much more: