AFL Report Card: Round 16David Zita, Ben Cotton, Max Laughton and Ben Waterworth
Foxsports
5 July 2021RICHMONDThursday night’s loss to the Suns was plain ugly for the yellow and black and puts their flag defence in tatters. Coming off last week’s horror 40-point loss to St Kilda, Tigers coach Damien Hardwick even declared that the they’d prepared for the Suns clash as their most important of the season. It’s fair to say he didn’t get the response he wanted. If the Tigers don’t look out they might even slide out of eighth place, currently sitting on equal points as the ninth-placed Dockers. Adding to their woes is more injury setbacks to Bachar Houli, Callum Coleman-Jones, Nick Vlasutin and Shane Edwards.
In the votesIt’s hard to find too many good performances from the Tigers other than Tom Lynch – who booted a game-high five goals and didn’t give up all night. His partner in crime up forward Jack Riewoldt battled hard but only converted one goal and three behinds. The syndesmosis injury blow to Houli really hurts given he was their leading disposal getter with 24.
Room for improvementThe loss of key defensive pair Nathan Broad and Noah Balta to syndesmosis injuries last week was always going to hurt Richmond’s back six and it showed here. If not for the Suns’ inaccuracies in front of goal, the Tigers could’ve and probably should’ve been blown out. The Tigers’ defence looked out of sorts and uncharacteristically disorganised – an area they have built their brand and recent success on.
GradeF
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