Gaspar smoking on eve of milestone
Malcolm Conn
The Australian
April 20, 2005
IT is the opponent, not the occasion, that has Darren Gaspar nervous going into his 200th game on Sunday when Richmond meets heavyweight St Kilda.
The veteran Tigers defender will line up on the Saints' incredible hulk Fraser Gehrig just as the man-mountain is running into form.
"It's just another game (but) I'm a bit nervous because it's going to be a big game this week," Gaspar said of his milestone.
"Fraser kicked six goals on the weekend. I'm probably more focused about that."
The contest between Gaspar and Gehrig is likely to be a barometer of whether the Tigers have improved enough to be taken seriously after three successive win against bottom eight sides.
Should St Kilda's midfield be given the opportunity to continually bomb the ball forward, Gehrig almost certainly will end up with another healthy return.
St Kilda was a preliminary finalist last season and the Tigers were dreadful in the opening round against 2004's other preliminary finalists Geelong.
Coach Terry Wallace hopes for something significantly better.
"We'll have a bit more of a line through it after next Sunday but we thought we were pretty well prepared in round one and it didn't work out that way," Wallace said.
"This is another big challenge."
Even though Gehrig and the Saints had a slow start to the season through injury, both exploded against a previously unbeaten Melbourne last weekend.
St Kilda in a dangerous mood under the roof in the controlled atmosphere of Telstra Dome can be virtually unstoppable.
"They're terrific around the stoppages," Wallace said. "They're one of the best sides at getting first use of the ball.
"We've been pretty good in those areas ourselves, and to me that's where the game's going to be won.
"Telstra Dome notoriously brings pretty high scores.
"St Kilda have been a high-scoring side, with a big score on the weekend.
"We've been a bit inclined to be that way ourselves, we've been kicking reasonable scores."
The Tigers have been aiming for 16 goals a game under Wallace. They would have got there last Sunday had they not kicked 1.7 in the last quarter as they overran Fremantle.
Richmond and St Kilda have kicked almost 400 points for the season in the first four games, but it was the ominous way the Saints ran over the usually free-flowing Demons to boot 23 goals that set alarm bells ringing.
"The nature of Telstra Dome is the ball gets from A to B pretty quickly," Wallace said. He said St Kilda had the ability to break sides in 15 minutes, given its record at Docklands.
"Over the past 18 months, they have been a really powerful starting side, really wanting to impose themselves," he said.
"All great footy sides do that and they kick big scores early. That's the challenge for our guys: to withstand that.
"It's the start of the game where both sides come in, wanting to prove a point, butting heads at the start and if one can get a strong statement over the other one it sometimes can be lasting.
"Quite regularly the side that gets that strong willpower over the other side wins games of footy."
Wallace said a winning start to the season had raised spirits but not clouded expectations.
"I've seen a group of guys who were low in self-esteem when I arrived, get some of that back," he said.
"But not too many of them are getting ahead of themselves and I don't think we've achieved that much yet."
Coming off such a bad year, when Richmond won the wooden spoon, Gaspar appreciates the changes at Punt Road as much as a full pre-season to fully get over a knee reconstruction. "Obviously if you win four games for the year it's a pretty bleak year," he said.
"It's probably the most difficult year I've ever had in any grade of football.
"It is exciting (this year) because we're playing a lot better footy, and a lot better brand of footy.
"You can take the wins, but the way we're going about it is pretty exciting stuff."
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