Judgment day looming for AFL Tigers
The Age
March 3, 2008 - 10:17AM
Richmond last played an AFL final in 2001.
Their next one comes in round one this year against Carlton, and for coach Terry Wallace, director of football Greg Miller and several players with the jury out on their ability, it looms as a grand final.
In 2007, the club finished rock bottom with just three wins and a draw from 22 matches.
It was Richmond's worst season since 1960, the lowlight a record 157-point thumping by eventual premiers Geelong.
Wallace enters year four of his five-year contract at the Tigers with his and Miller's fingerprints all over the playing list.
Thirty-one of the 40 players have arrived at Tigerland on their watch.
Wallace is on public record saying the time to judge his reign will be during his fourth year.
It's here, and make no mistake, how the Tigers perform against Carlton in their season opener on March 20 will be both club and career-shaping.
The unbridled optimism which greeted the start of Wallace's previous three years in charge has been replaced by an eerie public quiet from Punt Road going into 2008.
So many seasons at Richmond start with expectations that far outweigh reality. This is not one of them.
"It's probably not the right approach to go out and make grand statements when you've finished as we did last year," experienced defender Joel Bowden said.
"Come round one, we want to show we're ready to play, show we've matured a bit over the pre-season and that we're going to be more competitive."
Bowden is cautious yet positive about what the Tigers can do in 2008.
Exactly half Richmond's 18 defeats last season were by four goals or less. Reverse those results, and the Tigers would have made the top eight.
If that sounds like statistical fantasy gone mad, remember that just four wins separated the fifth and 13th-placed sides last year.
It is, as Bowden points out, a competition of fine margins.
"It's a low percentage in difference. Two, three, four, five per cent difference makes the game turn," he said.
"Hopefully we can tip it just a little bit our way and get a couple of those wins.
"It's such a fine line between winning and losing. With the salary cap and draft teams can have meteoric rises - and a little bit of confidence helps."
But questions persist about the players' skill level, and whether the high draft picks of recent years like Richard Tambling, Jay Schulz, Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls and Danny Meyer will ever provide a decent return on investment.
Bowden - a stellar contributor in defence in recent seasons - is not the problem.
Nor is the gallant Matthew Richardson, who enters his 16th AFL season as the club's reigning best and fairest.
Just as onballer Nathan Foley and key position player Graham Polak emerged from last year's wreckage as stars, more of the Tigers' younger brigade need to do the same for the club to climb off the bottom.
"We know what we'll get from Matthew Richardson and the senior guys. But we do need that core group underneath to take over, to become seven or eight at the top of our best and fairest," Bowden said.
"The improvement will come from within. Last year we got close a lot of times, but not close enough.
"If they see themselves as good AFL players, capable and competent and able to get out and match it with any side, then they'll perform at a consistent level."
Added plusses for Richmond are the return of No.1 ruckman Troy Simmonds after an injury-wrecked 2007 and onballer Mark Coughlan from two knee reconstructions.
Mature-age recruits Jordan McMahon (Western Bulldogs) and Mitch Morton (West Coast) top up the Tigers' list.
The bookmakers aren't buying it though. They have Richmond as wooden spoon favourites and some are offering as much as $101 about the Tigers to win the flag.
But as Collingwood (15th in 2005, seventh in 2006) and North Melbourne (14th in 2006, third last year) have shown, bouncing from the bottom three to the finals can be done.
"If a horse has not finished in the top three for its past five races, the bookmakers aren't going to make it favourite," Bowden said.
"To a certain degree it's (the outsider status) warranted.
"But hopefully we've developed in some areas, we've matured in body and mind and we can show some of the form we finished the year off in.
"Hopefully we can make the bookmakers change the odds."
http://news.realfooty.com.au/judgment-day-looming-for-afl-tigers/20080303-1wfk.html
