Tigers playing down talk of a repeatAllan Murphy
Sunraysia Daily
14 Oct 2017SUNRAYSIA’S army of Richmond supporters have been warned not to expect a repeat of the Tigers’ “perfect” 2017 season next year.
But the Tigers’ general manager of football Neil Balme says the club will be up for the challenge in 2018.
Balme, a two-time premiership player with Richmond in the 1970s who visited Mildura this week to endorse the Mildura South Regional Sporting Precinct and the associated Mildura Future Ready strategy, also revealed Richmond’s simple strategy that resulted in the club’s drought-breaking 2017 premiership.
“Everyone is bored hearing it, but it was genuinely week by week,” Balme said.
“It was almost a slow burn ... it was just bit, by bit, by bit over the season,” he said.
“We had a couple of bad weeks against Adelaide and one against St Kilda towards the end of the season which disappointed us, but they were really the only bad ones.
“Apart from that we played pretty reasonable footy ... by Thursday each week you commit yourself that you’re going to win regardless of who you’re playing, and that’s kind of the way it was.
“We’d say ‘we’ll be competitive’ and we were, and we were, and we were.
“Even three or four weeks before the finals there was no guarantee what was going to happen and it really was week by week.
“We played pretty well and we just got better and our footy over that last finals month was just quite extraordinary – it was our best footy for the year by far which is the way you’d plan the year if you could.”
But Balme urged Tiger fans not to expect the same fairytale year next season.
“A lot of things went right this year and we had virtually a full list at the end of the year with only a couple of players missing,” he said.
“Even when we got to the grand final we thought we’d be competitive ... well, we were outstanding in the end.
“You dream that will happen again, but it’s pretty unlikely.”
Balme, who played 159 games at Richmond and has had previous administrative roles at Geelong and Collingwood, said the club’s ability to harness the excitement around them also held the team in good stead come September 30.
“One of the things we did really well is we didn’t allow anything external to impact the players … it was all going on and you had to deal with it because you couldn’t ignore it,” he said.
“The coaches/players relationship was very much about who have we got this week, how are we going to play, what does that mean to me as a player?
“The coach and player get together and have their plan, we get together as a team with the coaches and come up with a plan and away you went.
“It was almost as simple as that, so we didn’t take any notice of anything else.
“The fact that Richmond hadn’t won a flag for a long time or done much in the finals for a while was out there, but it was kind of not impacting because we were just worried about playing the game, having a crack and seeing how we went.”
Balme, who was in his first year at Richmond this season when the club broke a 37-year premiership drought, said he was unsure what to expect after moving across from Collingwood.
“I didn’t quite know how good they were and it wasn’t evident that we had easily the best list of players ... so the effort was quite amazing,” he said.
“There was a fantastic connection between the players and the coaches and they just got the most out of themselves and believed in themselves and the opportunity arose.
“We got on the right side of the finals, in a sense, and all of a sudden we’re in a grand final. “But even when you get there you think ‘oh, we’re playing the best performed side throughout the year, what do we expect?’.
“It was a matter of how the players responded to what the coaches did and the players responded really well.
“They were very matter of fact about having a go, really looking forward to the opportunity and not worrying about winning or losing.
“It’s easy to say now because we won, but there was no added pressure.
“We were excited in a good way because we were in the finals, but no-one was getting too excited … and that’s essentially what we were thinking.”
However, Balme admitted that getting the job done on grand final day against Adelaide came as a huge relief.
“It was a marvellous feeling,” he said. “You don’t try to think about it at the time, but when you do it was marvellous and the boys should be so proud of themselves and the club should be so proud of itself.”
Balme also credited 2017 Brownlow medallist Dustin Martin’s effort throughout the season and remaining loyal to the club as inspiration.
“He was pretty bloody good,” he said. “There wasn’t a game that he didn’t have a pretty significant influence and most of them he was very, very good.
“He just got better as the year went on – he was an unstoppable force.
“We obviously would have been very disappointed if he didn’t stay, but the reality was it was his decision rather than ours – we could only do as much as we could.
“But that was a marvellous year and he’ll have another good one next year too, he’s just a lovely player.”
But Balme said the post-season celebrations would soon turn to preparations for the 2018 season.
“It’s not easy to do it all again,” he said. “But I think our blokes will still be pretty hungry and certainly the coaches are ready for the next challenge.”
http://www.sunraysiadaily.com.au/story/4986809/tigers-playing-down-talk-of-a-repeat/
