Richmond is struggling on the field and hiding behind cliches off itMark Robinson
Herald-Sun
May 14, 2015CLICHES kill football, but sometimes it’s all you’ve got.
The Tigers are in a hellish spot. They have two wins and four losses and face the unpredictable Magpies on Sunday.
After that, it’s Port Adelaide away, Essendon in the Dreamtime match and Fremantle away.
If they can get to the bye break with four wins and six losses, their season is workable. It’s a massive If.
Right now they are irrelevant.
Which is horrible for Tiger fans. They jumped on board after a rollicking finish to the 2014 season. As of Wednesday night, the Tigers had 68,347 members. That is extraordinary faith from a fan base. And the AFL got excited. It scheduled Richmond to the season kick-off on the Thursday night and another seven Friday night games.
The Tigers season has gone haywire and the team has been whipped to near death.
They have been accused of kicking sideways too much, of lacking heart, lacking forwards, lacking talent, lacking A Graders, lacking leaders, lacking a Plan B, struggling with Plan A and coughing up turnovers.
And sadly most of it is on the money.
Week after week coach Damien Hardwick talks about the inconsistencies. Week after week the players, talk about the same old problems.
On Monday, defender Troy Chaplin joined the media circuit.
What could he say after that performance against North Melbourne, which preceded the performance against Geelong, which preceded the performance against Melbourne?
He spoke at Punt Rd. At Carlton, Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs spoke about their wretched season.
It was the same day, same speech, different club, different people.
This was Chaplin: “Our skill errors are killing us. Our mental errors are letting us down.
“We’ve got to get better with the ball. We’re not hitting the scoreboard.
“It’s easy to run around on the track, to kick around without any pressure. We’ve got to train under pressure.
“It’s easy to say it starts on the track, but the reality is that where it starts.
“We make errors which are un-defendable at times.”
He was right about everything. And then he was asked about the fans.
“It’s been a common theme and to their credit they jump on board. We need to repay them.”
And then back to the challenge.
“The competition is so even.
“Our younger guys are coming through.
“As a group you are going to go through your lulls, but it’s how you come out of it.
“The journey is never going to be easy.
“We need to stay tight, because if we start to fracture as group, that when the club can unfold and go back to the dark days.”
He was right again. Everything he said fitted Richmond’s position.
Then he was asked about the coach.
“Dimma can’t kick the footy for us.
“There’s a lot of pressure on him.
“The playing group is letting him down.
“The media should come after the players.
“We need to continue to drive the standards.
“On the weekend that was unacceptable.
“We need to hold one another accountable.
“We’re men, we need to grow up and act like men.”
Chaplin was spot on again. And he was angry.
Everything he said is a footy cliche, well almost everything.
“We’re men,” he said, “we need to act like men.”
In 2007, after North Melbourne beat Geelong at whatever it was called at Geelong then, Paul Chapman made a series of comments in the rooms and front of the media.
“I did speak in the rooms after we lost to North in Round 5 and asked could we just give ourselves to the team for the next three weeks and not focus on ourselves.”
We know what happened from there.
You know, Chaplin’s Monday Q&A might just be a launching pad.
As they say, something’s got to give.
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