ROUND 4 - RICHMOND vs FREMANTLE - M.C.G. (HOME) 15.04.05 SUMMARY: After 2 straight wins albeit narrowly, the Tigers are back home at the M.C.G. to face Fremantle on Sunday in a battle between sixth and seventh. Richmond will be looking to achieve some revenge after the Dockers first win over the Tigers at the 'G last year. Man mountain Troy Simmonds who has had a quietish start to his career at Tigerland will be playing against his old side for the first time. In fact the two leading goalscorers from the last meeting are now both in yellow and black with Simmonds joining Richo up forward. Fremantle's start of the season began brightly with a good win over the reigning premiers in Perth. However that has been followed by two losses where they have given up leads. The most demoralising last week to cross-town rivals West Coast after being comfortably 21 points up at half time. The Dockers copped a spray midweek from ex-Demon David Schwarz for being soft. Likewise Freo's coach Chris Connolley has spoken about Tiger coach Terry Wallace's similar opinions of them during his time in the media. What that has now got to do with Richmond is anyone's guess. As it's again a Sunday game the teams haven't been finalised. Richmond will be forced to make one change with Hartigan gone for 2-3 weeks with a hamstring. Into the squad come Hall, Roach and potential debutants Meyer and Pattison. PAST ENCOUNTERS: Overall: 9-6 In the 00's: 4-4 At the M.C.G.: 4-1 Last Time: Round 12, 13.06.04. Home at the M.C.G. Richmond 3.3 7.6 9.9 10.11-71 Fremantle 0.0 3.4 7.5 12.9-81 Multiple Goalkickers: Richmond - Richardson 5; Fremantle - Simmonds 4, J.Longmuir 2, Schammer 2. Attendance: 18,666 KEY STATS AND MATCH-UPS: DEFENCE: After conceding a whopping 160 points in the first round, the Tiges have been able to keep both Hawthorn and the Bulldogs down below the 90 point mark in increasingly improved performances from our backline (albeit with the help of poor conversion from both those sides). Gas looked more like his pre-knee self last week and our rebounds out of defence were much cleaner even from the much maligned Kellaway, Chaffey and Tivs. Given that we still are allowing the opposition around 30 shots at goal per match which IMO is far too many. Most of those last Sunday were a result of allowing the Dogs to run easily out of our forward line and going coast to coast as mentioned on the OER forum. This week our 15th ranked defence meets the 14th rank offense of Freo. Although they are equal with us in conversion rate (that didn't mean much for us last weekend) they go into their inside 50 the least number of times in the comp showing they have fallen down at HF despite their strong on paper midfield. Freo are ranked number one in terms of contested marks suggesting other teams have restricted their space to operate in. So far this year they are averaging a mere 75 points a game. Pavich at CHF and Medhurst have been the Dockers main avenues to goal yet are only averaging 2 goals per game, Farmer hasn't been sighted while Longmuir who has done well against us in the past and was good against the Saints has had to fill in as second ruck. You can see they are missing Simmonds now he's one of us. As for the match-ups: Gas - Longmuir, Bowden - Pavlich, Newman - Medhurst and most likely Chaffey on Farmer given Hartigan is out. MIDFIELD: The Tigers midfield has again been weakened with the loss of Hartigan to a hammy on top of Johnson's injured heel at the time we'll be facing some strong midfields in the next few weeks. On paper Freo's midfield contains more depth and "name" players than that of the Tiges this week. The Carr brothers, Bell and Heath Black have been in good form. Haselby's been solid but not as dominant as in previous seasons and Headland's been handy forward of centre. However stats-wise they have been less than impressive although in fairness they have faced strong competition in their matches so far against Port, Saints and the Eagles. Freo are ranked last in the comp. in total clearances won (avg 24 for / 33 agst) as well last in clearances won from ball-ups ad throw-ins. On the other hand, the Tiges are 3rd in total clearances won and lead the AFL in clearances from ball-ups and throw-ins. As Richo repeatedly ;D mentioned tonight on The Footy Show, the Tiges are number one is clearing and scoring from stoppages. At the all important centre bounces both sides stats are fairly even. The hitouts mirror the clearance stats with us being allowed to rotate Knobel, Stafford and Simmonds through the ruck while Freo need Longmuir to fill-in when giant Sandilands is rested. Still we haven't taken full use of this type of advantage in our last two matches when we should have. Last Sunday Cogs and Tuck were able to win more ball and nullify respectively Cooney and West while the Dogs other "inside" ballwinner Hahn had sporadic influence. This allowed Hyde, Bowden, Brown, Cambo, Krakouer and Jackson to clear the footy from contests. To win this week we virtually need a repeat performance in terms of shutting down Freo's ballwinners in Josh and Matthew Carr, Haselby and Bell. After 29 possessions I would expect Connolley to get Josh Carr to tag Hyde. Likewise I'd reckon Tuck will be used again as an offensive tagger on Haselby while Cogs goes 1-on-1 with Bell. We interestingly are 4th in the comp at winning the contested footy compared to the Dockers who are 11th. Whether we can repeat and maintain our efforts for four quarters on Sunday is the big question. FORWARDS: It is at this end of the ground that both sides have been performing strongly. The Tiges are ranked 4th in attack averaging 96 points per game with Richo and Brown our main avenues to goal with cameos from Pettifer and Krakouer, while the Dockers have only conceded 67 points per round. The two areas we still need to improve on are: (i) Opening at least another marking option up forward so we're not so reliant on Richo and Brown. This is where Simmonds needs to step up. I would also personally still like to see more run inside 50 goals from midfielders but that's hard to do when there's a massive flood on. And (ii) make more of an effort to stop easy rebounds out of our forward line and try to keep it in there especially from opposition kick-ins. The expected match-ups IMO: Richo - Polak, Simmonds - McPharlin, Krakouer - Walker and Brown - Parker. Overall: It's in the midfield that will decide this game. Freo aren't great travellers and are fragile but if their midfielders are allowed to cut loose into space we'll be in big trouble as they in the norm are quite skillful. However, if we continue to be hard at the contests and can win our fair share of footy in the middle, play through the corridor and get the ball inside 50 quickly as we've been mostly trying to do then we've got a good chance. THIS WEEK'S TEAMS: RICHMOND B: Jackson, Gaspar, Chaffey HB: Kellaway, Bowden, Newman C: Tivendale, Coughlan, Hyde HF: Brown, Simmonds, Krakouer F: Deledio, Richardson, Stafford R: Knobel, Tuck, Campbell Int (from): Pattison, Graham, Pettifer, Hall, Raines, Roach, Meyer IN: Meyer, Pattison, Hall, Roach OUT: Hartigan (inj) FREMANTLE B: Parker, Polak, Thorton HB: Walker, McPharlin, Dodd C: Bell, Cook, Black HF: Headland, Pavlich, Haselby F: Farmer, J.Longmuir, Medhurst R: Sandilands, M.Carr, J.Carr Int (from): Webster, Schammer, Woods, McManus, Grover, M.Johnson, Murphy < BACK >