The Tigers' new stripesJake Niall
March 18, 2012RICHMOND fans are entitled to ask why 2012 will be better than 2011, 2010, 2009 and about 25 other years since 1982. The Tigers didn't get the No. 1 pick in the draft, didn't lure the next Chris Judd to Punt Road last October and don't have a champion full-back returning from a shoulder injury.
Brett Deledio is moving from half-back to the midfield, but that change is like a cabinet reshuffle - the gains in the Ministry of Stoppages will be offset somewhat by a loss in the Department of Defence. Deledio can play in only one place at a time.
While young teams budget for ''natural'' improvement, it's new personnel, or those returning from the infirmary, that make the greatest difference from one season to another.
In 2012, the Richmond Football Club has acquired two recruits who've been brought in to redress specific weaknesses, where remedial attention was required. They aren't huge names that will cause a rush on memberships. Only committed Richmond fans would even be aware that one of them has joined the club. Yet the combination of Ivan Maric and Ross Smith might push the Tigers closer to the eight.
Maric is a ruckman. Smith, formerly a flint-hard North defender, is an assistant coach, who has been given a gridiron-style role that represents a change in football thinking. At Hawthorn, he coached the back line. At Richmond, he's responsible for teaching the Tigers to defend all over the field. In American football, he'd be called ''defensive co-ordinator''.
The late Allan Jeans, a coach with a genius for distillation, divided football into three spheres: ''They've got the ball, we've got the ball, or the ball's in neutral.'' Smith is the coach for ''they've got the ball'' - a frequent occurrence for the Tigers last year. If he makes a fist of improving Richmond's defensive actions - which haven't been flash - it will do more than help the Tigers; it could encourage clubs to consider the American football model, where the ''line'' coaches are divided into defensive and offensive states, rather than sections of the field.
If team defence has been a problem, the ruck was an emergency for the Tigers, who clearly felt they couldn't wait for a young tall to mature or for a passive Angus Graham to find the killer inside.
Early in Richmond's first NAB Cup game against North, Maric lifted his knee into Todd Goldstein, displaying the kind of aggression that Richmond folk expect from their big men. Damien Hardwick, who wasn't averse to displays of brutality as a player, doubtless would have liked Maric's opening statement.
Maric isn't Polly Farmer or Simon Madden. He didn't get a regular game in Adelaide, where the Crows preferred taller rucks. The Tigers recruited him to be a durable Holden Ute, not a Rolls Royce: He has to get the ball from point A to the place where Trent Cotchin, Dustin Martin and Nathan Foley might be standing, or provide an honest contest that prevents the opposition from dominating clearances.
Richmond has been poor in the game's most important facet - winning the contested ball. Despite the remarkable talents of Cotchin and Martin the Tigers were often belted around the clearances last year.
In the opening half of the season, they were 16th for contested ball. This improved to 12th in the second half of 2011. The Tigers, contrary to their image as a team lacking in skill, won games, such as the Dreamtime victory over Essendon, by efficient use of the ball. It was their inability to win contests, especially in stoppages, that put massive pressure on an inexperienced and undersized defence.
Maric played only six games for the Crows, yet he shapes as the most critical addition to the Tigers, who opted to pursue a seasoned ruckman, rather than plugging their other horrible hole, the lack of a strong-bodied tall defender. The ruck was a quicker and easier fix.
The logic was compelling. Due to the substitute rule, the market is flooded with dispensable one-position rucks.
In Tyrone Vickery, the Tigers have a deluxe forward/ruck; it is harder to find a talented forward, such as Vickery, who can relieve in the ruck, than a specialist ruckman.
Maric was available at Dimmeys rates. It made no sense to spend heavily on a ruck when free agency was 12 months away. The Tigers were buoyed by Maric's performance in their NAB Cup game against Geelong, when he smashed Trent West and helped Martin, Cotchin and company to an 11-1 advantage in first quarter stoppages. Granted, this was a dress rehearsal for the season and the Cats were without their cream midfielders, but we know now that, at the least, Ivan won't be terrible and, indeed, he might be quite effective. Certainly, he will be better than what they've had.
Smith was hired at Hardwick's behest, the pair having worked together at Hawthorn, which has been brilliant in team defence, bearing in mind that, unlike Geelong and Collingwood, it doesn't have the same quality of back-line personnel. Richmond, like the Hawks, are small in the key defensive posts.
A team that can be exposed in one-on-one contests has to find another way to defend.
Maric and Smith are small, but significant steps in the Richmond renaissance.
While they aren't high profile, they fit the profile of Richmond's most desperate needs.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/the-tigers-new-stripes-20120317-1vcbc.html#ixzz1pOj4iqhX
