Front & Centre: Premiership Tigers' to lose, Tony Jewell saysJonno Nash and Charlie Happell
ESPN
21 September 2017The most recent premiership coach at Richmond says if the Tigers continue with their hunters' instinct, the Grand Final is theirs to lose.
Tony Jewell, who led the Tigers to the 1980 triumph, believes the club could follow in the steps of last year's Cinderella team, the Western Bulldogs, by being this year's rags-to-riches story and breaking its 37-year flag drought.
"I can't see us getting beaten. If we play with the hunters' instinct we're playing at the moment, we're going to be a real force," Jewell told ESPN, acknowledging that the Tigers had to get over GWS first this weekend before thinking of the grand final.
Jewell said the club's dramatic rise from minnows to premiership contenders was a result of the board's decision to show patience with coach Damien Hardwick.
The Tigers have a tradition of axing coaches who fail to produce sustained success. But that trend was bucked last year when the under-siege Hardwick received a two-year extending in a widely criticised move.
Jewell, who was sacked as coach a year after premiership glory, then re-appointed five years later, says continuity is a common theme among most premiership outfits.
"From outside, we thought Dimma [Hardwick] was a dead man walking, but the club didn't," he told ESPN.
"If you look at all successful regimes in football, it coincides with longevity of committees, boards and coaching personal. Richmond tried to buck that system over the last 30 years and got nowhere with it.
"You look at when Leigh Matthews was at the helm of Collingwood. He didn't have a successful four, five, six years and then all of a sudden they had a premiership, largely down to the fact he was persisted with."
The Richmond Hall of Fame member applauded the work of chief executive Brendon Gale and Football Manager Neil Balme, who both have been instrumental in bolstering the support staff around Hardwick and refining its recruiting strategy.
"You've got to admire the club because last year I thought some of our games were disgraceful. In fact at a premiership dinner early in the year the universal belief was that it was the worst list Richmond had had in years, except one person - Neil Balme," Jewell told ESPN.
"Brendon's [Gale] always said Dimma can coach, but he just lacked the cattle. We've got a healthy list, the reserves are on top, there's a buzz around town which is incredible.
"There's people I didn't know who barrack for Richmond walking around with yellow and black scarves."
And Jewell expects those scarves to be in full swing when more than 80,000 members of the Tiger army cheer their side against GWS in Saturday's preliminary final.
"I just don't think we're going to be denied. 90,000 plus Richmond maniacs at the MCG," he said.
"Momentum is a huge thing. The planets have aligned. It will take a huge effort to beat us."
http://www.espn.com.au/afl/story/_/id/20771471/front-centre-premiership-tigers-lose-tony-jewell-says
