Tigers step forward to stifle Tredrea
By Mark Fuller
The Age
July 23, 2005
Finding a man to stop Port Adelaide spearhead Warren Tredrea has been tricky terrain for Richmond coach Terry Wallace this week, but he has been encouraged, at least, to have had requests for the job from within his undermanned defence.
The task of containing Tredrea tonight at his venue of choice, AAMI Stadium, was made doubly problematic for the Tigers when Darren Gaspar's hamstring injury forced him to join fellow key defender Andrew Kellaway, who is training with his broken jaw wired, on the casualty list this week.
The loss of his two best backmen has left Wallace with the unenviable task of deciding who among likely candidates Ray Hall, Mark Graham, Jay Schulz and Troy Simmons might best cope with the powerful Power forward on his home turf.
All four may be required, given that Tredrea has kicked 37 of his 47 goals in 2005 at AAMI Stadium.
Wallace was keeping his Tredrea options open early in the week, and after training at Punt Road yesterday he was no more forthcoming about who would get the job.
The Richmond coach, though, was happy to report that the assignment appealed to at least "a couple" of his men. When asked to name names, Wallace smiled coyly and said he was "not going there". And so the mystery deepens.
"I mean, obviously we've been speaking with guys all week. And we've had a couple of blokes who've wanted to have the opportunity of taking them on. As you should," Wallace said. "You're playing on one of the better players in the competition, I think every player likes to challenge himself in that way.
"It's a bit of a challenge for our back-line group in general, with a couple of all-Australian back-line players out. We just need a couple to step up."
If injury has created opportunity among the ranks of Richmond's backmen, it is through a more deliberate process that opportunity has been created for the relatively untried pair of Kelvin Moore and Nathan Foley.
Wallace said that in dispensing the richly talented Richard Tambling to the VFL this week and elevating budding key defender Moore and onballer Foley, he was casting an eye beyond 2005.
Tambling, he said, simply needed more game time than he was being afford in the senior team, and his long-term future was not an issue.
But Wallace suggested that for the rangy Moore, who has completed a long recovery from a broken jaw, and the nuggety Foley, who made his debut against Melbourne this season before injuring his hamstring, much more was at stake.
"We've got to make decisions on (Foley's) career. I mean, he's a rookie that's on the list at the moment with the long-term injuries," he said. "Kelvin Moore, he's in exactly the same sort of position: where's he heading?
"The game (against Port Adelaide) is important in itself but our future's important as well.
"There's no worries about where Richard's going. Richard's going where we're going."
Maybe so, but Tambling is not going to AAMI Stadium, a venue at which Richmond has experienced seven defeats from seven encounters with the Power.
Wallace consigned these numbers to history yesterday and spoke instead of the strength the eighth-placed Tigers might extract from winning in Adelaide tonight.
"I think it would do an enormous amount for our confidence," he said.
"I saw people saying how we've only won two out of our last seven, but we've actually won two out of our last three as well.
"So, it just depends on which way you want to look at the numbers.
"You would think our interstate games are going to be really critical to setting up our run home. If we happen to pinch either this one or the Fremantle game, that puts us in really good stead."
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