Tigers of old facing Dee-Day
Mark Robinson | June 12, 2008 12:00am
THESE kinds of weeks have been spat at Richmond, Terry Wallace and his players too many times.
Crunch games, line-in-the-sand games, win-or-face-the-savagery-of-the-media-and-the-fans games.
It seems to have been Richmond’s lot since, well, whenever you care to offer. The question is: Why does it happen to Richmond?
Why, after 3½ years under Wallace, are the Tigers entering a game against bottom-of-the-table Melbourne with pall-bearers holding up the banner? Why, in Round 12, after 3½ years of rebuilding, does Wallace sit down with his assistants for perhaps the most significant selection meeting of his tenure?
Why has it come to this?
The Tigers have three wins and a draw from 11 games and are in 12th spot, two matches a nd about 7 per cent from eighth-placed North Melbourne.
They have played North, the Pies, Bulldogs, Hawks, Cats, Swans and Crows, all top-end-of-Collins St contenders. They have beaten Essendon, Fremantle and Carlton.
Their season is not over because their draw softens from here. Lose to Melbourne, however, and it virtually is.
The selection spotlight surrounds three names: Greg Tivendale, Kayne Pettifer and Joel Bowden.
Wallace said on Tuesday: ‘‘After the last couple of performances, the dynamics of the side needs to change.’’
Dynamics, chemistry and being in sync. With those three, things happen. Without them, teams capitulate, as the Tigers did against Sydney (82 points) and in the second half against Adelaide (15 goals to five).
Opinions vary, but, at a guess, ‘‘dynamics’’ lends itself to total togetherness in committing to the contest, knowing and being confident the player next to you will ‘‘go’’ when it’s his turn, make the right team decisions and not the selfish mistakes that have plagued this club for so long.
Implemented without hesitation, it creates expectation, and when that expectation is met, players are confident, sacrificial and team oriented. It’s amazing what those three attitudes do to football clubs.
It’s why Wallace will almost certainly axe Pettifer and Tivendale this week, and to-and-fro on Bowden.
Wallace made the bold statement before Fremantle in Round 4 to axe Pettifer and Bowden, a signal this club was changing direction and personnel. Without those two, the Tigers were competitive, hungry and young.
He brought them back, as he did with Tivendale, for reward more than anything else, but reward is over.
Wallace has to, as a matter of urgency, farewell Pettifer and Tivendale. He knows they are no longer capable of senior football at the standard required and, in another weird nuance of football, probably has convinced himself that if those two play, the dynamics of the team change.
He more than likely will keep Bowden, a dual best-and-fairest winner, but for how long remains a question.
It’s about dynamics, he says. If they lose on Sunday, it might be about dynamite.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,23851410-19742,00.html
