Inside Football article on Reece Conca from last week.
Tigers loom large with Conca a real standout
By Russell Holmesby
INSIDE FOOTBALL
Wednesday April 10, 2013
With two wins out of two, the Tigers are walking tall.
And in Reece Conca's case that is literally true as the 20-year-old has physically grown since last season.
When it was suggested to him after last Friday night's Richmond victory that he is looking fitter and leaner than in the past, he said: "I've actually put on a couple of kilos. 1 think I've actually grown a centimeter or two. I've also got stronger, too"
Coach Damien Hardwick described Conca's game on Friday as the best he has played for the club and a couple of special efforts in the last quarter were crucial to the team's eventual success.
His precision pass set up the goal that sealed the win and a few minutes earlier he had put his body on the line in a key contest that thwarted an attacking thrust by St Kilda.
The expectations of a club trying desperately to rise up the ladder are always magnified, and as selection No. 6 in the 2010 draft, Conca has been in that spotlight.
His first year ticked all the boxes with 17 games and a Rising Star nomination.
And there was nothing wrong .with his output last year for the Tigers, but the club's high hopes — born out of years of disappointment — led some fans to wonder whether he was advancing quickly enough.
There is always more of a story below the surface and his 2012 campaign ended him spending the last three weeks on the sidelines with a toe injury.
Earlier, he had lost his senior place for two weeks in mid-season.
The subsequent off-season wasn't without its hiccups, but in the end it provided a good launching pad.
"I had a few complications with a stress fracture of my foot with through the off-season," Conca said:
"I missed the first part of the pre-season, but came back strong and trained really hard to get my fitness up.
"My fitness is better than ever and I am able to run out games a lot better and I think that's helped with my footy'
A lot of his early football at AFL level was played at half back, but in the two games this year there has been a distinctly attacking bent to his football.
"I've been pushing forward a bit more and playing a bit more half forward and in the mid-field and opened up my game a bit more," Conca said.
"The offensive side of my game is something I wanted to work on, trying to bob up and kick a few more goals, which I've done in the past two weeks"
Two victories in the opening two weeks has eluded Richmond since 1997.
"It builds our confidence off the back of those wins. This time last year we lost a couple of close ones and it sort of hits you pretty hard early in the year," Conca said,
"But it's only Round 2. We can work on a few things that let us down and ride that confidence through to the end of the year"
In a many respects Conca's growth and progress as a footballer mirrors that of the club,
"I've spoken to Damien and the coaches and this is a big year for me and the team to build on the past couple of years," he said.
"We've worked really hard on the things we have to work on."
Away from the football field, Conca is studying psychology at university.
A cynic would suggest that Richmond would have provided fertile ground for research in recent years.
"It's one unit per semester," he said, "I enjoy doing some study and I've done about six or seven units so far!'
For now it's all about focusing on the match against the Western Bulldogs this weekend.
"It's good for our recovery that we've got an eight or nine-day recovery now" Conca said.
"We've got to be really wary of them (the Bulldogs) because they are a strong contested footy side and we'll build towards Sunday!'
The Tigers go into the game walking taller than they have for a long time.
