Tigers basically right
By Rohan Connolly
The Age
May 24, 2005
For all the increasing sophistication surrounding the game in areas such as fitness, recruiting, preparation and on-field tactics, AFL football still essentially rests upon two fundamentals - you have to be able to get the ball, then use it well.
Richmond hadn't been able to do enough of either for years until Terry Wallace's arrival at Punt Road last summer. Now there are several Tigers in danger of contracting leather poisoning, so often are they getting their hands on the football, while a team often pilloried for its poor disposal looks as slick as any of its rivals.
Those two essential football truths are at the heart of Richmond's stunning rise from a wooden spooner to a team sitting third on the ladder with a 7-2 win-loss record. And despite Wallace's reputation for tactical wizardry, the Tigers' rise is more the stuff of meat and potatoes than smoke and mirrors.
Prowess statistics indicate just how dramatically Richmond has improved in the football fundamentals. A side that ranked only 11th in the competition last year for disposals is now third. The Tigers ranked 13th and eighth respectively for kicks and handballs in 2004. In 2005, it's fifth and second.
The common denominators aren't hard to find - their names, Mark Coughlan and Shane Tuck. Both midfielders, along with teammate Joel Bowden, are in the league's top 20 ball-winners, all three averaging 23 disposals a game. The pair played 10 games between them last season. That's a good 50 possessions a week Richmond wasn't winning then.
But Coughlan and Tuck also have added important steel to a midfield group that not only lacked depth previously, but to be frank, was a little soft as well.
Both genuine "insiders", they have been central to Richmond's rise from a 2004 ranking of only 11th for all-important clearances to third. The Tigers were also just seventh for contested ball gets last season. Now, they are up to second, behind only Geelong.
That must be music to the ears of Matthew Richardson and Nathan Brown, who have 59 goals between them, Richmond currently the fifth-highest scoring team in the AFL as opposed to 15th in 2004. They're simply getting far more opportunities to score. Richmond ranks third for inside-50s, an average of 54 a game, a whopping nine more than last season. But it's also the way the Tigers have used those extra touches this season that has made a crucial difference.
Richmond is going a lot longer with its kicks in 2005 and, significantly, isn't turning the ball over nearly as much. And the improved disposal has been most noticeable out of an often-criticised defence, where Darren Gaspar's return to top form has helped stem the flow of opposition goals, but where Bowden has been a key.
Though nominally a wingman, the long-kicking runner, and another good kick in Greg Tivendale, have been spending much time dropping back into defence to launch the Tigers' attack. Bowden is sixth in the AFL for rebounds from the defensive 50.
The greater speed with which Richmond now moves the ball forward has its obvious rewards in the extra space in which Richardson and fellow talls Troy Simmonds and Greg Stafford now have to work and to lead, a much greater proportion of shots now being taken in front of goal rather than from virtually the second row of Great Southern Stand seating.
That greater efficiency into the forward line shows up in marking statistics, which have the Tigers second for contested marks when they were only 14th last year. And the bottom line of the scoreboard shows just effectively Richmond is finishing it off once it gets there, the Tigers' conversion rate of 64 per cent the best in the AFL.
The idea that Richmond could lead the league at anything except administrative in-fighting seemed amusing a few months ago. But so big a difference has its improvement in a just couple of football basics been, that it could end up having the last laugh.
IMPROVED TIGERS
How Richmond ranks in AFL
Category 2004 2005
Disposals 11; 3
Kicks 13; 5
Handballs 8; 2
Cont. marks 14; 2
Uncont. marks 9; 4
Cont. ball gets 7; 2
Scoring 15; 5
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