Richmond high on confidence: Brown

[one-eyed]

Richmond high on confidence: Brown
By Stathi Paxinos
The Age
May 9, 2005

Richmond was regaining a commodity that had been lost at Tigerland for many years, forward Nathan Brown said yesterday.

After promising performances during the past two weeks with a comprehensive victory over premier Port Adelaide and a thumping of Carlton, Brown, who kicked four goals against the Blues, said the players' confidence in their game plan and each other was building.

However, with Collingwood ready for the taking this weekend, Brown said there would not be any problem with keeping a lid on the excitement generated by the Tigers' fourth placing and 5-2 record.

"All our young blokes have got pretty good heads on them; I don't see any problem with being over-confident," Brown said.

"If you start lairising, then there's a problem, but confidence is a thing we've lacked at Richmond over the last couple of years, so a little bit of overconfidence would be a good thing."

Brown, who made his debut in the 1997 Bulldogs unit that his current coach Terry Wallace guided from 15th to third, said he could see similarities in the seasons of the two teams so far.

"We lost our first game that year and then got on a bit of a roll and the supporters came with us," Brown said.

"I think confidence is a huge thing in football. When you get the confidence in your own ability and the belief in your teammates, things start snowballing from there.

"We didn't have the confidence in the pre-season and we didn't have the confidence in round one but slowly but surely we're getting that."

Brown said Wallace has implemented a similar game plan to that he used at the Bulldogs, and the form reversal since "disgraceful" performances against St Kilda and Geelong had been based on correcting a high turnover rate and working harder to get the ball inside 50.

"He knows his individual players, he knows what they can and can't do and plays them accordingly to a game style he thinks they can handle," Brown said.

"Our game plan hasn't worked a couple of times but slowly but surely we're hitting more targets and our running game's going well. Earlier in the year, we were missing targets and missing goals but now it seems that everything's paying off.

"(Wallace has) still pretty much got the same attacking game plan. I think he's just watched a hell of a lot of footy over the last two years and he's become a fair bit more knowledgeable about the game.

"He's watched a lot of oppositions, too, so he knows how players play and how teams like to play and set up their structures."

http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2005/05/08/1115491044771.html

[mightytiges]

After finishing the last 2 1/2 quarters in a blaze of glory against Port we just kept on rolling along in the same awesome fashion in the first half the Carlton game. The third quarter we won comfortably just by doing enough. However the last qurter was disappointing IMO not because we didn't win it on the scoreboard but because we lowered our standard from earlier in the game. We just became very casual and sloppy. As much as the Pies are a total rabble and we should win comfortably they will still come out firing initially to prove a point after the touch up they copped in the west. We are not in a position to flirt with form so hopefully Terry will point out the last quarter was poor and settle us down so we don't get ahead of ourselves.

[bg25]

Note Browny didn't say we were high on caffeine

Confidence...wish you could bottle it!