Richmond CEO Brendon Gale has praised the Club’s leaders for showing such strong resolve in the face of a poor start to the 2014 season.

The Tigers’ off-field leaders were questioned, when the team slumped to a record of three wins and 10 losses midway through the year.

However, under the coaching guidance of Damien Hardwick, Richmond recovered to win nine straight games and secure a finals berth for the second year in-a-row.

Gale told Tiger great Matthew Richardson, in an interview for Roar Vision, that the rollercoaster season was a crucial learning tool for the Club.

“It’s an important internal and external lesson that, when you’re being challenged or under pressure, we don’t just pull the roof down on our heads,” he said.

“We confront the issues, we reflect, review, make changes, we have difficult conversations when they need to take place, and we continue to search for improvement and, ultimately, excellence.

“I thought in her first year as president, Peggy O’Neal showed some great leadership, great stability and support.

“Damien was under great pressure.  No-one is under more pressure than the senior coach.  He was very purposeful, very confident and very positive in what he was trying to do.

“It was terrible to be three and 10, but to subject ourselves to that, to find a way to get out of it and salvage the season, I think is a really powerful lesson.”

Richmond’s early-season form slump, predictably, had a profound impact on the Club’s finances.

“It affects the business.  It’s fair to say our performances earlier in the year were very poor, and were well short of expectations,” Gale said.

“Like anything in life, when you don’t meet expectations, people are disappointed.

“Our gate was down about 20 percent, our membership was tracking well, but then sort of stopped, and you probably expect that.

“For the first time, people started to question our direction, and the negative sentiment was pretty powerful as well.

“We believe internally in the people we’ve got at the Club, and we believe in the direction we are going.  We just had to turn it around.”