Richmond coach Damien Hardwick calls on his players to be bold against West Coast Bruce Matthews
From: Herald Sun
May 31, 2013 2:34PMRichmond coach Damien Hardwick has urged his players to take on West Coast with a bolder approach in Perth next Monday.
Hardwick said he noted a tentative approach from the start in the loss to Essendon last Saturday night.
"We just had no run. We were sitting there watching the first phase of play and we went across the defensive 50 about three times. We just wouldn't go forward,'' Hardwick said before training at Punt Road Oval today.
"And that's something when our game is up and going, we play well. We spoke about it this week, you've got to dare to win and that's what we'll be doing.
"It's a ground we play relatively well at and we're certainly looking forward to a huge challenge.
"Their (Eagles) ability to get marks inside the forward 50, 60 per cent of their scores are from set shots, so that's something we've got to get our head around. Their ability to transition the ball is very good. It's an enormous challenge, there's probably no greater challenge in footy.''
Hardwick admitted to being a Nic Naitanui disciple. And that admiration was enhanced when he watched the springheel Eagles' matchwinning mark after one of his son's basketball matches two weeks ago.
"We watched the last two minutes (of the game against North Melbourne) and there was a crowd of about 15 or 20 people around the TV and I was one of them and the crowd went up as one when he took that mark,'' he said.
"Look, he's an exciting player and a great ambassador for our game. I've got no doubt our boys will have something in store for him, but how we stop him remains to be seen.''
Hardwick doesn't subscribe to the theory his Tigers are a poor tackling team, but admitted that aspect can always be improved.
"Tackle numbers are easy to look at. But you've also got to look at the stoppage numbers. The easiest place to get tackles is around stoppages. You look at Sydney, they have 100 odd stoppages a game and they're a high tackle team. It depends on your style of play. We play more a possession-based game,'' he said.
"Do we want to tackle better, do we want appear tougher? Of course, we do. It's an area of our game we want to improve, but you can't just look at one stat and get the answer.''
He retains the faith that Richmond is not inferior to the top four teams and can still push for a high top eight finish.
"We've been winning ugly, which is what sides that are improving do. The thing we've probably lacked at various stages is consistency with our playing group. Losing (Reece) Conca for a period of time, (Brandon) Ellis, (Shane) Tuck, (Chris) Knights, these type of players,'' he said.
"We've just got to get our players up and going and get the consistency in our back six and midfield. That will happen after the break (bye) with Conca and Ellis definitely back.
"We probably haven't performed to level we would like. No doubt the Essendon game was an example where we didn't play anywhere near our potential and was probably our worst game for the year.
"We we like to perform better against sides in the top four, no doubt. The sides we've lost against, Fremantle, Geelong, Essendon are all top four sides. Fremantle we went within a kick, Geelong we were probably beaten in the last quarter and Essendon, to be perfectly honest, I thought we were never in the game. So, we've got some work to do.
"There are sides in the upper echelon, Hawthorn, Geelong, these types of teams, that we're trying to catch. We've got areas of our game we do very well and there are areas that we need to improve. But by no means do we think we're out of reach of those sides, we're certainly capable when we play our best of beating those sides. We've just got to do it more consistently over the course of four quarters.''
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