Clarkson wary of Tiger upset
West Australian
26th April 2008, 10:45 WST
Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson’s belief that AFL ladder positions are irrelevant was reinforced by last night’s Geelong-Fremantle clash.
And when the Hawks tackle the Richmond at the MCG tomorrow he will be highly conscious of the fact that the Tigers pulled off something that unbeaten reigning premiers Geelong couldn’t.
They demolished Fremantle at their Subiaco home base.
The ladder-leading Cats escaped with a one-point win over the Dockers last night while in round four Richmond, who were recently elevated to the top eight, romped to victory.
“Richmond have been in really good form, they actually beat Fremantle by 10 goals over in the West and the reigning premier could only just sneak over the line,” Clarkson said today.
“Everyone looks at ladder positions but we know every game’s extremely tough and we’ve got a fair amount of regard for the way Richmond are going about it at the present time.”
But he is at least confident that Hawthorn’s busy midfield should be able to dominate, the key to any game, he said.
“It’s always the same with every game that you play, it’s midfield supply and Richmond have got a very dangerous forward line, if the ball gets in their quickly.
“Similarly our forward line’s damaging too if we can get the ball in there frequently.
“The midfield battle’s going to be crucial and we like to think we stack up pretty well in there with (Luke) Hodge, (Sam) Mitchell, (Brad) Sewell, (Chance) Bateman and (Jordan) Lewis through the middle of the ground."
"But we also recognise Richmond is quite strong in that area of the ground - (Nathan) Foley is a tremendous young player and Kane Johnson's been in terrific form for them. So it'll be a real tough contest for us tomorrow."
The forecast is for rain, a rarity in matches these days, but Clarkson said slow conditions would not hamper the side’s star big men, including the athletic goalkicker Lance Franklin.
“We don’t play in wet conditions that much over the whole AFL competition so apart from actually changing your mindset in terms of the way you approach the ball we won’t change the structure of our side or the way that we play too much,” Clarkson said.
“All sides like to be hard at the footy and whether it’s wet or dry conditions the same principles apply.”
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