Tigers thump Dockers (media reports)

[one-eyed]

Three straight wins for Tigers
4:50:55 PM Sun 17 April, 2005
Paul Gough
Exclusive to afl.com.au

The sleeping giant of the AFL is beginning to awake.

Richmond, last year's wooden spooner which only recently ended a club record 15-match losing streak, has suddenly won three matches in a row after Sunday's 14.16 (100) to 7.10 (52) demolition of a disappointing Fremantle at a windswept MCG - the highlight of which was a six-goal-to-nil third term.

And the Tigers now find themselves in the lofty heights of fifth place on the AFL ladder with only one less win already than they managed for the whole of 2004.

The Tigers might have beaten Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs in the past fortnight but there were still plenty of skeptics about whether or not Richmond had actually improved ahead of Sunday's meeting with the Dockers.

After all the Tigers had only beaten the two teams that finished immediately above them on the ladder last season and had won both games in close finishes when the result could easily have gone the other way.

But against a Dockers' side that most people believe are genuine top eight contenders, surely the Tigers' brief taste of success would have come to an end on Sunday - even with the game being played at the MCG.

However the Tigers responded by producing their best performance probably since their preliminary final year of 2001 as they not only beat the Dockers but humiliated Chris Connolly's side, which produced the kind of performance on the road that everyone connected with Fremantle hoped was now a thing of the past.

The Dockers, for so long renowned as a touch soft on the road, had actually won three of their past four games at the MCG - including this corresponding clash last year - but save for a brief period in the second term were simply uncompetitive against the Tigers on Sunday.

While the Dockers continually overused the ball and wasted possession, the Tigers hunted in packs and continually won the all-important stoppages and loose ball gets.

And unlike the Dockers, the Tigers had plenty of options in attack with Matthew Richardson continuing his magnificent start to the season with another dominant display.

Richardson was simply too big and too strong for Shane Parker and put the game beyond doubt with four goals in the third quarter alone to finish with six.

And this on a day when the Dockers did not have a single multiple goalkicker as Matthew Pavlich was well beaten by Ray Hall, the revival of Darren Gaspar's career continued as he produced another assured performance.

Richardson was brilliantly supported by Nathan Brown, who produced a best-on-ground performance with 34 touches, 12 marks and two goals with his superb use of the ball really standing out on a day when a gusty northerly wind made even committing the most basic of kicks a difficult task.

But despite the extreme conditions there was still no excuse for the Dockers' dreadful performance - which was best summed up when Scott Thornton tripped over his own feet and lost possession of the ball while running on his own on the outer wing.

The Dockers have now lost their past three games since a surprise first-up win over reigning premiers Port Adelaide and on this performance look anything but top eight material.

And while long-suffering Richmond fans, who have seen their team make the finals just twice in the past 23 years, will be just happy to see their side back on the winning track - there are growing signs that Terry Wallace's Tigers might just be a handy side.

Not only are Richardson and Brown looking more menacing by the week in attack and Gaspar is getting better and better each week in defence but the Tigers' midfield - so long their Achilles heel - is clearly improving.

This is not only due to the huge improvement of Chris Hyde, who dominated against the Dockers, but the return of 2003 best and fairest winner Mark Coughlan - who played his best game of the season on Sunday - from a serious groin injury which ruined his 2004 season while the addition of Shane Tuck and youngster Andrew Raines has also added more pace and grunt to the Tigers' midfield.

RICHMOND: 5.5, 7.7, 13.9, 14.16 (100)
FREMANTLE: 1.4, 4.5, 4.6, 7.10 (52)
GOALS – Richmond: Richardson 6, Brown 2, Stafford 2, Knobel, Deledio, Simmonds, Pettifer Fremantle: Farmer, Hasleby, Murphy, Johnson, Pavlich, Medhurst, Schammer
BEST – Richmond: Brown, Richardson, Hyde, Coughlan, Kellaway, Gaspar, Hall, Knobel Fremantle: Black, McPharlin, Cook, McManus
INJURIES – Richmond: - Fremantle: Dodd (knee)
CHANGES – Ricmond: - Fremantle: Matthew Carr, Graham Polak and Des Headland replaced in the selected side by Michael Johnson, Luke Webster and Dion Woods
REPORTS - -
UMPIRES - James, Grun, Jeffery
CROWD - 24,242 at the MCG

http://afl.com.au/default.asp?pg=matchresults&spg=display&articleid=196733

[one-eyed]

Tigers' losing run distant memory
18 April 2005   
Herald Sun
Michael Horan

WHILE Freo fiddled, Richmond burned. That was the simple truth about the Tigers trampling the Dockers by eight goals at the MCG yesterday to register their third straight win of the season and climb to fifth on the ladder.

All of a sudden these are heady days at Tigerland. After a 62-point thumping by Geelong in Round 1 took the club's woeful losing streak to 16 consecutive games, Richmond now boasts a 3-1 record and a repaired percentage that has climbed over the 100 mark.

The Tigers took time to warm to their task, but when they did after halftime, they ran so hot the game was all over by the final change.

Fremantle was appalling under pressure. Under the slightest sign of pressure, the Dockers fiddled, fumbled, stumbled and then inevitably were swept aside with black and yellow contempt.

So poor was Freo's field kicking – short and long – that finding a Richmond jumper or missing altogether became par for the course.

Collectively, the Dockers wouldn't have hit water if they had fallen out of a boat.

The ugly, sideways chipping possession game made for a struggle up to halftime before Matthew Richardson led a 6.2 to 0.1 third term that killed the Dockers' challenge off by the final change.

The modest crowd of 24,242 – almost exclusively Tiger fans – made the noise of double that number as Terry Wallace's new-look outfit grew in confidence and stature as the third term progressed.

Richardson, who leads the race for the Coleman Medal with 16 majors, booted four goals for the term and might have had five had he not played on after marking inside the forward 50 and subsequently kicked the ball out on the full when tackled.

Such is the new discipline at Richmond that Wallace instantly sent the message to his mercurial star that if it happened again he would be dragged, no matter how many goals he had kicked.

Richo's hard and fast rule: no playing on after a mark inside 50, no matter what.

The star forward finished with six goals for the match and his third term allowed the Tigers to turn a 20-point buffer at the long interval into a match-winning 57-point advantage in one blistering quarter.

It put the Tigers' first home win in nine games beyond doubt, but the margin could have been so much bigger had they not turned in a wasteful 1.7 to 3.4 final term.

Richmond's running brigade hammered the dithering Dockers.

Nathan Brown had 34 touches to be clearly best afield, and with busy support from Chris Hyde, Greg Tivendale, Joel Bowden, Mark Coughlan, Andrew Kellaway and Wayne Campbell, the Tigers ran amok through the midfield.

Conversely, too many of Fremantle's bigger names were missing in action.

Matthew Pavlich, used up forward nearly all day, had just three kicks and Paul Hasleby six, while Jeff Farmer managed just one goal and only 11 possessions for the game.

Freo's ineptitude under pressure bordered on embarrassing and coach Chris Connolly confessed afterwards it was one of the worst performances he had been associated with.

In Round 2, the Tigers squeaked by a lowly rated Hawthorn by 14 points and last week they had a slice of luck to pinch the prize from the Bulldogs by four points.

But this time the Tigers flogged their opponent to record their biggest win since Round 17, 2003.

"Every week so far we've got a bit better. The ability to get the ball inside 50 and put pressure on the other side has risen every time we've played," Wallace said.

"We thought we were in reasonable shape going into Round 1 and it was a disaster, (but) we've just gradually improved since."

But with success comes higher expectations and so, to Wallace, after watching his team more than 10 goals up early in the final term, a victory by eight goals was suddenly less palatable.

"The last quarter was really disappointing for us. We had an opportunity to really put the icing on the cake but weren't able to do so," Wallace said.

"But it was a pretty important game for us. We hadn't won a home game for eight or nine outings. We were coming off two wins in a row and to be able to back that up, to get a home ground game against an interstate side, we just saw it as vital to win this week.

"Our concentration from the second the game finished against the Western Bulldogs – we weren't in celebration mode at all. This game today needed to be ticked off and from that aspect the guys did a great job."

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,15000396%255E19771,00.html

[mightytiges]

"Every week so far we've got a bit better. The ability to get the ball inside 50 and put pressure on the other side has risen every time we've played," Wallace said.

One of the most pleasing aspects of the current side is what looks from afar their ability to go away during the week and work on team mistakes they made in their previous match.

In round one we got smashed at stoppages and in clearances by Geelong. The past 3 weeks we have won in this area and in fact according to Richo lol we are number at clearing from stoppages in the comp.

Against the dogs we allowed the ball to fly out of our forward line and down the other end without hardly any pressure. Yesterday we went the zone instead of man-on-man and pressured and harrassed the Dockers into little short passes and handballs until they coughed up the footy.

Not sure if it was a plan or just in the run of play but what I thought we did very well a number of times was if a Freo player was running out of defence, the nearest Richmond player would just keep in front of his direct opponent so the Freo player couldn't get the handball over. We then had someone sprint from our forward line behind or just to the blind side of the Freo player with the footy which either resulted in a tackle or a rushed disposal. We got a few turnovers that way.