Belief Conca's allBy Jason Phelan
11:53 AM Sun 22 May, 2011BELIEF is one of the most important yet elusive keys to success in the AFL.
It's been in scarce supply at Punt Road in recent years, but Damien Hardwick has managed to instill a bit of faith in his players in a remarkably short time.
The second-year coach is just 31 games into his tenure at Richmond, a proud club fallen on hard times. The Tigers haven't tasted finals success for 10 years, but you wouldn't know it on the evidence of Saturday night's win against Essendon.
Hardwick's charges are still young, but they held their nerve against the Bombers to record a 16-point win in front of 83,563 fans where other yellow-and-black teams may have faltered.
"Belief is one of our trademarks at the club - we really thrive on it," young gun Reece Conca says.
"Once we got the first couple of wins this year we've really grown from there. We're definitely going in the right direction.
"That was probably the most pressured game that we've played this year. Their front-on pressure, and around stoppages as well, was just phenomenal. They've got a lot of big bodies and they challenged us from the start right til the end.
"It was really good to get over the line and we can build from here."
Saturday night's win was Richmond's fourth in five weeks, a run that started with a come-from-behind win against North Melbourne, with each win contributing to a snowball effect according to Conca.
"We've reached the point that we wanted to get to and we've just got to keep building on that," he says.
"We've established a good side, we've got a bit more depth and we're a lot more structured. Dimma's a great coach and he's put in a great plan."
But while the players look to Hardwick for their cues, the coach is keen to give credit back to them.
"[Belief is] a big factor, it's one of the principles that we go by, and Chris Newman has been really hard on his leadership group in driving that," Hardwick says.
"The belief in what we're doing, the belief in the game plan and the belief in each other - Chris is an outstanding leader in that regard and he drives a lot of that stuff.
"As a coaching staff we really hand it over to the players on a game day and they deliver the results, which has been fantastic."
Belief as a team requires belief from individuals. The Tigers' game against Essendon was just Conca's ninth since being taken sixth overall at the 2010 NAB AFL Draft and he admits he's had his struggles building that faith along the way.
"Obviously getting a bag kicked on me by Milney was devastating," he says of the tough assignment that resulted in St Kilda goal-sneak Stephen Milne booting 4.7 in the drawn round-two match.
"But Dimma was great; he's really good one-on-one, it's one of his real strengths as a coach.
"They've put me into the midfield a bit more since then, I'm a bit more comfortable there, and I'm starting to find a bit more of the ball and have more of an impact on games.
"I'm building on every game. Hopefully I can kick a goal soon."
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