‘Stop being a smart arse team’: Robbo lays into Tigers as Hardwick ragesMatt Balmer
Foxsports
September 2, 2020 9:59pmAFL 360 co-host and Herald Sun chief football reporter Mark Robinson has laid into the Tigers after their lacklustre victory over Fremantle.
Richmond kept their top four chances alive with a 27-point win over Fremantle, lifting late in the contest after a third quarter lull.
But Robinson believed the Tigers were mentally lazy after needing a major bake from coach Damien Hardwick.
“Lazy Tigers. Lazy mentally,” Robinson said on Fox Footy.
“They go and face a lower ranked Dockers in between playing Geelong next outing. Their intensity and outing, they were lazy mentally. Hardwick gets them at three quarter time.
“Win the ball, fight. Don’t sit back and wait. Talent wins out at the end in these tough games.
“What’s Longmuir saying? He’s angry because it was there for the taking. Richmond presented they were there for the taking and they weren’t (good enough).”
Hardwick’s three quarter spray was the loudest Adelaide great Mark Ricciuto had heard all year, with the boundary rider telling Fox Footy just what the two-time premiership coach was saying.
“He’s got every right to (lay into them),” Robinson said.
“Just play hard. Don’t sit back and wait, play hard. These younger Dockers have got a bit of scrap about them.”
“They’re a good team when they go jimmied up by Damien Hardwick. Stop being a smart arse team, play the consistent football you know you can play.
“It is all mental. In a lot of games it is mental, in Richmond tonight will get this done on the least amount of effort we can do. Hardwick said ‘no, no, no’.”
Speaking to Fox Footy after the match, Jack Riewoldt didn’t agree with Robinson’s choice of words, but agreed the Tigers dropped the ball at a crucial point during the game.
“I wouldn’t call it mentally lazy. I just think you’ve got to be switched on for every game,” he said.
“We played pretty good footy in the first half and then we started folding back. If you switch off five per cent structurally, you get burnt the other way.
“Good sides can reset and use opportunities like the three quarter time break to get back to the fundamentals.”
As for the spray from Hardwick, Riewoldt said “I can’t believe you didn’t hear him.”
“I don’t reckon I could say any the words live on air. He was urging us to get back to our brand of football,” he revealed.
“They beat us inside and all around, if you lose on the inside you’ve got to be winning on the outside.
“He urged us to get back to the way we played.
“I reckon some sides can be stunned by it. But we are a seasoned side and we know when something like that comes that it means business.
“The messaging can go out the window, but sometimes like that a rev-up is what you need.”
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/stop-being-a-smart-arse-team-robbo-lays-into-tigers-as-hardwick-rages/news-story/e563cd0f52604192063d4f04fc135594
