Tiges vs Blues media articles

[one-eyed]

Tide turning for Tigers
10:19:43 PM Fri 28 April, 2006
Andrew Wu
Exclusive to afl.com.au

Richmond was winless and life did not look bright at Punt Road a week ago, but things turn quickly in football and the Tigers now have two wins on the board after accounting for Carlton by eight points in an error-riddled match at the MCG on Friday night.

The Blues started well in a free-flowing opening quarter for a 19-point advantage at the first change, however the Tigers controlled the game from thereon, finding the lead in the third quarter despite some inaccuracy in front of goal before holding off a late Carlton challenge for a 12.20 (92) to 11.18 (84) victory.

Too classy for Bret Thornton and too nimble for Lance Whitnall, Matthew Richardson, despite being guilty of poor kicking with 3.5, was outstanding for the Tigers, plucking 12 marks in a best-on-ground performance.

He complemented the work further up the field by Joel Bowden, who set up numerous attacks from defence with his 25 possessions, and Andrew Raines with 23, while Kane Johnson kept Carlton playmaker Nick Stevens to a relatively low 19 touches.

For the Blues, Ryan Houlihan and skipper Anthony Koutoufides worked tirelessly to find the ball 29 times each, while Heath Scotland and Andrew Walker were creative from defence with 27 and 25 possessions respectively.

The Blues started with Jarrad Waite, Brendan Fevola and Whitnall inside their forward 50 in a bid to stretch the Tigers' defence for height, the latter two both goaling inside the first six minutes, but so did Greg Tivendale and Richardson.

Number one draft pick Marc Murphy then produced a superb running goal from just inside 50 before Koutoufides crumbed and goaled, giving the Blues an 11-point advantage.

An errant disposal by Tivendale squandered a certain Tigers goal and the Blues made them pay deep in time on through Deluca for a 19-point break at quarter time.

Goals to Chris Hyde and Richardson narrowed the gap to three points in the second term, which the wasteful Tigers dominated, but a classy finish by Walker from just inside the boundary line steadied the Blues.

The standard of the match, which until then had belied both teams' modest standing on the ladder, then plummeted.

Normally reliable by foot, Matthew Lappin produced four shocking turnovers, Joel Bowden pinpointed Blue Jason Saddington, and Richardson, Greg Stafford and Patrick Bowden all missed set shots inside 30 metres for the Tigers.

Andrew Krakouer and Kayne Pettifer stopped the Richmond rot with clever snaps either side of a pair of Waite goals before Troy Simmonds ended the quarter appropriately by kicking his team's ninth behind of the term.

The errors continued in the third term as the Tigers finally got reward for their ascendancy, booting two of the opening three goals through Richardson and Hyde for a seven-point lead.

It was then Carlton's turn to be wasteful up forward, Fevola missing two set shots in three minutes and Fisher, needing only to spot Waite by foot for a likely Carlton goal, spraying his pass.

Goals to Andrew Krakouer and Tivendale doubled the heartbreak for the Blues and the Tigers were out to a 14-point advantage at the final change.

Under no pressure in the final term, Richard Tambling failed to find his target and from the resultant turnover Walker was able to carry the ball up the other end, where Waite snapped truly, but Pettifer replied two minutes later.

A late goal by Eddie Betts gave the Blues hope of stealing an unlikely win but the Tigers managed to hold on for their second victory of the year.

Terry Wallace admitted the match did not reach any great heights as a spectacle, but was pleased to come away with a win after such a difficult night at the office.

"It was extremely tough - I've got to say that … I can't recall (a game) that was much more difficult just from the fact that there were so many wasted opportunities, so much opportunity to ice a game and we just kept leaving the door open," he said after the match.

"You start getting horrible feelings when that happens that the result might all of a sudden twist and go in the other direction, but fortunately … they still give you four points for it."

Carlton coach Denis Pagan lamented his team's poor use of the ball and believed his players were worn down physically as the game went on.

"As it turned out a couple were short of a gallop and got really tired in the finish. It was a demanding game and it was last man standing at the finish," Pagan said.

"We just made so many errors and butchered the ball when we should have displayed some poise and composure. We played-on kamikaze style and mucked it up. When we could have gone forward quickly we hung on to the ball and messed up an opportunity."

RICHMOND: 2.3, 7.12, 11.15, 12.20 (92)
CARLTON: 5.4, 8.7, 9.13, 11.18 (84)

GOALS – Richmond: Richardson 3, Pettifer 2, Tivendale 2, Krakouer 2, Hyde 2, Foley
Carlton: Waite 3, Fevola 2, Whitnall, Koutoufides, Murphy, Walker, Deluca, Betts

BEST – Richmond: Richardson, Pettifer, Hyde, Raines, Tuck, Coughlan, J Bowden
Carlton: Walker, Scotland, Koutoufides, Simpson, Whitnall, Murphy, Houlihan

INJURIES – Richmond: Nil
Carlton: Scotland (hip)
REPORTS - Nil
UMPIRES - McBurney, Ellis, Jeffery
CROWD - 54,815 at the MCG

http://richmondfc.com.au/default.asp?pg=news&spg=display&articleid=261607

[one-eyed]

We'll take the win: Wallace
11:04:39 PM Fri 28 April, 2006
Jason Phelan
Exclusive to richmondfc.com.au

Terry Wallace admits the Tigers' error-ridden eight-point win over Carlton was one of his toughest days at the office as a coach, but he was happy to walk away from the MCG with the premiership points nonetheless.

"It was extremely tough - I've got to say that … I can't recall (a game) that was much more difficult just from the fact that there were so many wasted opportunities, so much opportunity to ice a game and we just kept leaving the door open," Wallace said after the match.

"You start getting horrible feelings when that happens that the result might all of a sudden twist and go in the other direction, but fortunately … they still give you four points for it."

Despite struggling to recall a match that had a higher turnover count, Wallace was still able to find areas to praise his troops.

"I can't remember (one), I mean someone's going to pull out one that was worse than that, but they're going to have to go back a fair way I reckon," he said.

"I can't remember one that was worse than that from that aspect of the game, but it was only one aspect of the game. The work ethic was fantastic, but the skill acumen wasn't.

"There's two sides of the game. I would give our guys an 'A' for effort, an 'A' for our ability to overlap, run and carry, to run the lines … that aspect of our game I thought was very, very good.

"You don't get the ball inside your forward end 67 times unless you're doing something right, (but) we could not hit the side of a barn - that's the other side of the game. I don't know if you can go past 'F' (grades), but it was a 'Z' for disposal and precision and decision-making, so there were just two completely different sides to the game."

The Tigers coach felt the win was worthy of commendation considering a grueling schedule that had seen his side travel to Perth and Brisbane in the past fortnight.

"I'll give our blokes a pat on the back, we've had a couple of hard road trips, we gave our opposition two days extra (preparation) last week, this time around we've given them one day extra coming off two interstate trips - I thought we were pretty mentally frazzled by the end of it, so I'll cut them a bit of slack," he said.

"We'll spend a fair bit of time on skills in the next seven or eight days, I mean that was horrific, that wasn't the norm … I haven't seen (us) that bad ever. If we can keep one aspect of the play and we can tidy up the other aspects then I'll walk away fairly satisfied, but certainly I'll walk away fairly frustrated this evening.

"If you give the ball up that often against sides that are up near the top of the ladder at this point in time, they're going to chop you to pieces, so we've got to keep one aspect and tidy up the other."

http://richmondfc.com.au/default.asp?pg=news&spg=display&articleid=261609

[one-eyed]

Tigers grind out win
By Chloe Saltau
The Age
April 29, 2006

RICHMOND and Carlton put on an infuriating display of football at the MCG last night; it was only that the Tigers, in the end, were slightly less so. On a night when the two prominent forwards on the ground, Matthew Richardson and Brendan Fevola, missed nine shots between them, kicks slewed far from targets and turnovers abounded, it was Richmond that staggered over the line.

Richardson's 3.5 performance helped the Tigers build on last week's win on the road against the Brisbane Lions by grinding from behind to beat the Blues, who did not benefit as much as they would have liked from the return of Fevola and Jarrad Waite, by eight points.

Fevola, after a week-long suspension, kicked 2.4 and was held by Ray Hall for most of the night. In Denis Pagan's words, the Blues played "kamikaze-style" football, the coach at a loss to explain the errors that saw his team surrender a five-goal-to-three lead at quarter-time.

The Tigers were wasteful, too, missing considerably more goals than they kicked but, this time, they got away with it. The game began as a free-flowing spectacle in which Lance Whitnall, Fevola, Richardson and Greg Tivendale all found space and booted long goals and the kicking was precise.

By the end the skills had deteriorated and the match descended into a far less aesthetically pleasing spectacle, to the frustration of the 54,815 at the remodelled MCG.

"There was a lot of turnovers but to get the job done is very satisfying and 2-3 is a good effort for the boys to come back from a really tough first three weeks," said Joel Bowden. "I think it was pretty even. We missed a few chances which could have made it a little bit easier for us."

Richmond promised to score 14 times in a messy second quarter, but delivered only five times. Richardson created lead after lead, was ignored on one occasion, but steamed in to mark plenty of others and, when he didn't, grappled around on his knees until he worked the ball to a nearby teammate. The Blues, by contrast, entered their forward-50 five times and kicked three goals.

Though Richardson didn't hurt Carlton as much as he might have, he was too much for Bret Thornton, who was whisked to the bench. He forced Pagan to switch Whitnall, who had just turned an opponent inside out on the wing and created a goal for Waite, to defence.

Maddeningly, the Tigers would squeak through the most difficult shots and screw up easy ones. Chris Hyde, one of the Tigers' most polished players last night, beat two opponents to bend through the Tigers' third goal from a tight angle but a minute later, missed a set shot under no pressure whatsoever.

The Tigers were so wasteful in attack that despite dominating possession in the second quarter, they were a point down at half-time.

The second half started with a free kick against Whitnall to Richardson, who kicked his third.

Carlton needed two of Whitnall, for he was in formidable form in attack and without him the Blues struggled to find scoring options.

This was despite the best efforts of Waite, who kicked three goals, and missed a couple of marks. Fevola got a free kick when he was pushed in the face by Hall, but missed, then missed another when he worked his way free to mark.

The last term resembled an error-ridden comedy, and had one goal for Carlton. The Tigers, meantime, lifted themselves off the bottom of the ladder.

http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/04/28/1146198353011.html

[one-eyed]

Friday night comedy capers
29 April 2006   
Herald Sun
Mark Robinson

FRIDAY night farce. That's what it was.

In the end, a game was played and won – by Richmond by eight points – but along the way we saw 44 players bluff and bumble through a football match that barely deserved that title.

It began as a super contest, fast, clean and long goals, but ended in what can could be described as football's version of Abbott and Costello.

Channel 9 boss Eddie McGuire is in the business of finding comedy.

He has a winner. Play these two teams every Friday night. We are flippant, but this game was laughable.

Missed handballs, missed marks, dropped balls and mis-kicks, you name it, this game had it. Would love to know how many times a kicked ball was marked by the opposition.

Thank God for stats. Last night the Blues had 28 kicking clangers and Richmond 22. The season average is 14. So think of the worst game this year and almost double it.

In 1999, in a final between the Western Bulldogs and West Coast, the Bulldogs racked up a record 29 kicking clangers in a near-cyclone at the MCG. In still conditions last night, the Blues failed by two Ryan Houlihan kicks to better it.

To use Houlihan is only slightly unfair. He had plenty of mates: Kouta, Scotland, Lappin, Stevens, Walker, Fevola . . . the list is endless.

The Tigers can't snigger, either. It takes two to make great comedy.

We can try to make excuses. Maybe we are used to the warm comforts of Telstra Dome, the lack of dew, the confined space of the oval, the roof closed. Who knows?

But a suggestion here for the AFL: When you next put your argument to the players' association about its proposed 15 per cent pay rise, simply give them a DVD copy of this game. Even Benny Gale might concede to a drop of a percentage point or five.

Football and everything it means is still about value for money. Matthew Richardson is certainly that.

Richo last night was the game's best player and perhaps its worst. He had no contender for the former, and about 20 for the latter.

He booted 3.5 and should've kicked maybe 10. He took 12 marks and had 24 touches. He was the difference and, really – for us Richo lovers – when is it any different?

When he plays well, the Tigers are in it. When he doesn't, they haven't a hope.

It was the strangest of games.

The Blues ripped them apart in the first quarter. They booted five goals to two and should've led by more.

Kayne Pettifer left the track late in the first term with a slight injury. He was hurt twice; one an injury, the other by his immediate opponent Heath Scotland who ran amok from the back half.

Scotland, like Collingwood's Dane Swan and Heath Shaw, Kangaroos' Jess Sinclair, Bulldogs pair Lindsay Gilbee and Jordan McMahon and, of course, Houlihan, run and collect and deliver.

His importance to Carlton – under coach Denis Pagan's twigged game plan – cannot be underestimated.

Last night Scotland, Kade Simpson and Andrew Walker, all playing in defence, had 10, nine and eight touches in the first quarter and Houlihan nine on a wing. They towelled the Tigers because they ran to space.

In the second quarter, the game did a flip. The Tigers ran, the Blues didn't and it was a point the difference in Carlton's favour at the long break.

It was sometime during the second quarter when both teams decided to make this game a mockery.

Only the brilliance of Richo, the steadiness of Joel Bowden and Andrew Raines, and cameo goals from Chris Hyde, Greg Tivendale and livewire Pettifer separated the teams at the end.

The Blues were good, then bad and then anywhere in between.

Lance Whitnall looked dangerous up forward but had to go to Richo in the second quarter, leaving Jarrad Waite and Brendan Fevola to kick goals. Waite could've been the star. He probably dropped more marks than he took (seven) but as we say about good horses, he will be better for the run.

More concerning for Pagan is his team's skill level. Last night there were 28 kicking clangers for the game. Last week it was 22.

A lot may have changed at the Blues in recent times, but it would seem not what matters most.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,18965767%255E19742,00.html

[one-eyed]

We had to stop Richo
29 April 2006   
Herald Sun
Bruce Matthews

CARLTON coach Denis Pagan last night defended his use of versatile Lance Whitnall in the narrow loss to Richmond.

Pagan said he couldn't have waited any longer to order Whitnall to abandon his forward role to go back on rampaging Tiger Matthew Richardson.

"If we had've waited any longer, he may have kicked six or seven," Pagan said of the mercurial, if erratic, forward.

"If you looked closely at every contest he was involved in, he was just too powerful and strong."

Critics will argue that to win the game rather than save it, Pagan needed to hold his nerve and leave Whitnall in attack.

It seemed a masterstroke by Pagan when he added Whitnall to the other tall targets – Brendan Fevola, Jarrad Waite and Adrian Deluca – inside Carlton's forward 50.

Whitnall booted one goal and his attack on the ball set up a couple more as the Blues slipped to a 19-point lead at quarter-time.

But Richardson began to look threatening on Blues defender Bret Thornton and Pagan replaced him with Whitnall 20 minutes into the second term.

"We went in knowing we loaded up forward. We needed all our forwards to catch it," Pagan said.

"It started perfectly, we kicked five goals in the first quarter and speaking to our players, I think a few of the young guys thought `we've got this' and took their foot off the pedal and Richmond got into it.

"By the same token, the Tigers had an enormous amount of inside 50 entries, but just couldn't nail us.

"It was really a game of errors, poor decision-making and missed opportunities. Turnovers, we made a lot and I'm sure the opposition did."

Pagan said he couldn't find any excuses for the errors from both teams. But he credited the Tigers ability to move the ball the length of the ground from the kick-in as a telling factor in the result.

"Probably the difference was how slick they were with their kick-ins," Pagan said.

"We couldn't defend them. I think we won one and they won 13 and kicked three goals from them. And that was the difference in the finish.

"It was just a real slog in the second half. We won two quarters, the first and the last, and the Tigers were comprehensibly better in the second and probably the third.

"It's frustrating. We've been like this (winning chance) every game we've played in. We thought we had a good structure up forward. As it turned out, a couple were short of a gallop, really got tired in the finish.

"We just made so many errors and butchered the ball when we should have showed a bit of poise and composure."

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,18966127%255E19742,00.html

[one-eyed]

Richardson swings game
29 April 2006   Herald Sun
Michael Stevens

ONLY one team has been beaten by more than 100 points in an opening round of a league season and recovered to make the finals, so Richmond fans don't get your hopes up.
 
Although the Tigers accounted for Carlton by eight points at the MCG last night to register their second win in five rounds, this was hardly a heavyweight stoush – the Blues finished with the wooden spoon last season and Richmond occupied last spot on the ladder before last night's game.

And their lowly rankings were testament to how last night's encounter was played out.

It's rare that ineffective kicks and handballs can reduce a match to farce, but it's not too far-fetched to suggest that's what 54,815 fans witnessed last night.

So many kicks and handballs missed their target that by the last quarter it was an accepted fact, let alone the set shots at goal that were sprayed everywhere.

The scoreline of 12.20 (92) to 11.18 (84) reflected the shocking inaccuracy, and there hardly appears to be a credible reason for the inept goalkicking.

But for all that, Richmond dominated the game from quarter-time and should have won by much more than eight points.

The Tigers' main culprit in front of goals was forward Matthew Richardson, who finished with 3.5, with several other shots falling short.

But Richardson was also the pre-eminent player on the ground with a display that would have netted him three Brownlow votes.

Although maligned for his lack of effort once the ball hits the ground, his second and third efforts last night were first rate, and his marking impeccable.

Richardson had the better of his first opponent Bret Thornton which forced Carlton to switch Lance Whitnall out of attack in an effort to curb him, and this immediately swung the match in the Tigers' favour.

With Whitnall, Brendan Fevola and Jarrad Waite as the Blues' main marking targets in the first term, Carlton kicked 4.4 to 0.3 to race to a 19-point lead at quarter-time.

But then the Tigers took over, with their running and overlap style of game almost reducing the Blues to spectator status.

Their midfielders Mark Coughlan, Chris Hyde, Shane Tuck and Brett Deledio were able to pick up possessions at will and generated countless scoring chances.

Captain Kane Johnson sacrificed his own game to shut down Blues danger man Nick Stevens, restricting him to just five kicks in the first three quarters.

In defence, the Tigers were also well on top with Joel Bowden solid against four opponents, and half-back Andrew Raines continuing his outstanding early-season form.

In the second quarter the Tigers went inside their forward 50m 21 times to six and, but for shocking conversion that netted 5.9, would have had the match in their keeping at halftime.

Richmond continued to dictate terms after the break when any chance the Blues had of getting back into the match evaporated as Fevola experienced the goalkicking yips that afflicted Richardson. Fevola kicked their solitary goal for the term at the five-minute mark after a clever pass from No. 1 draft pick Marc Murphy, who was one player able to hit targets all night.

When Eddie Betts kicked the side's 11th goal in the goalsquare there was only 1min 40sec left on the clock.

Yet the Blues kept coming and when captain Anthony Koutoufides found Jason Saddington for another shot with 19sec left, it seemed the match could still have a fairytale ending. But you guessed it, Saddington's shot was astray.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,18965767%255E19742,00.html

[one-eyed]

Tigers' epic of errors
30 April 2006   Sunday Herald Sun
Jon Ralph

BIG Richo encapsulated Richmond's plight on Friday night – committed, desperate, lion-hearted and utterly inept by foot.

Yet for the 110 clangers that eventually marred what had been an entertaining contest, there can be no doubting the Tigers are slowly getting back in the game.

They still have serious deficiencies at both ends, but, regardless, a win over Essendon on Saturday night will put them back on level pegging with two Telstra Dome games to follow.

How to sum up a game that had short-kick hater Sam Newman in ecstasy early on yet by the final siren had fans shaking their heads with the sheer incompetence of the players when they had ball in hand?

The first quarter was full of purposeful, long kicking to contests, with Carlton for once neglecting to drop a player back before the first bounce.

Carlton's power-packed forward line – with Brendan Fevola, Lance Whitnall, Jarrad Waite, Adrian Deluca and crumber Eddie Betts – had Richmond struggling for options.

At one stage, small defender Chris Newman had to go to Fevola, and Richmond's recent injuries in the back half were savagely laid bare.

It was brilliant, first-option football, with players looking up and kicking low and long, and Brett Deledio shovelling the ball down Matthew Richardson's throat repeatedly.

Of course, with two teams that finished 12th and 16th last year, it could not last. The surprise was it went from sublime to ridiculous so rapidly.

First, the Tigers caught the yips in front of goal – in the second quarter they had 21 inside-50s for 5.9 and would eventually finish with 5.14 from set shots.

It seemed that, like so often before, they would leave the door open for some Fevola magnificence and lose in agonising circumstances. But then the Blues joined the party, with Fevola the chief culprit in front of goal.

Eventually, Greg Tivendale and Chris Hyde made the most of Richmond's dominance to stretch the three-quarter time margin to 14 points, and in an error-ridden game that was more like eight goals.

The final quarter was absurd – two teams out on their feet and determined to butcher every chance of returning the game to some level of respectability.

Richmond may be 2-3, but the defence is seriously undermanned without Darren Gaspar, Jay Schulz and the plucky Will Thursfield.

The forward line still depends on 10-plus marks from Richardson, with Greg Stafford quiet last night and Cleve Hughes encouraging, but a baby in football terms.

But the midfield smashed Carlton comprehensively, and with an eight days to work on set-shot practice, Richmond must be every chance against Essendon.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,18971272%255E19742,00.html