Pre-season snapshot: Richmond (RFC)

[one-eyed]

Pre-season snapshot: Richmond
5:03 PM Tue 30 October, 2007
By Jason Phelan
richmondfc.com.au

Arrivals
Jordan McMahon (Western Bulldogs), Mitch Morton (West Coast), Jake King (rookie elevation), Angus Graham (rookie elevation).

Departures
Darren Gaspar (retired), Ray Hall (retired), Trent Knobel (retired), Kent Kingsley (retired), Brent Hartigan (delisted), Andrew Krakouer (delisted), Patrick Bowden (delisted).

What I did on my holiday
Several players formed a group that took in US hotspots such as Las Vegas and New York, while another group of Tigers sunned themselves in Port Douglas.

Pre-season training starts
Thursday, November 1, for first through third-year players, then staggered.

Pre-season training camps
A two-night development camp for first through third-year players is scheduled for the first week of training. Players will be notified of certain items they will need to take with them, but will not be told their destination.

Another camp for the whole group may occur before Christmas.

What the fitness guy says
"The main thing with us at the moment is to continually develop the younger players on our list," elite performance manager Matthew Hornsby said.

"Guys like Richo [Matthew Richardson], Kane Johnson and Greg Tivendale – those older players – it’s about maintaining their levels and working on specific areas, but for the majority of our list it’s about development.

"The key with that is not just focusing on one pre-season being the turning point; it’s actually successive pre-seasons for these young guys. They need at least three at this level before they can start to get some consistency in their performance week to week and within games; that’s the big focus for us.

“Each pre-season you like to change things to an extent, I think ultimately your goals are focused on successive years, not just saying ‘let’s totally ignore last pre-season and do things totally different’.

"You’re essentially working towards the same goals; you’re looking for continual improvement from players individually.

"So for us, it’s to continue building strength and size into our young guys. Also the nature of the game is it’s a high-intensity running game, so it’s all about getting good volumes of running into them that’s specific to the nature of the game; repeated high-intensity efforts.”

What the coaching staff says
"We’ve got choice one in the pre-season draft and obviously now we’ll be on the lookout for the best uncontracted player around," director of football Greg Miller said.

"The indignity of being on the bottom of the ladder and what you suffer from that through the year, the one … payback is that you get first choice in the pre-season draft.”

Draft picks: 2, 18, 51, 67, 83, 99 and 115.

http://richmondfc.com.au/Season2007/News/NewsArticle/tabid/6301/Default.aspx?newsId=52875