Weird start to the footy season

[mightytiges]

Talk about an even competition  . Injuries and suspensions have exposed the depth of the Lions, Port and Saints so far. Only the Dees and Eagles look the superior sides at the moment.

As we have knocked over the hawks I can't wait for the % booster when we play the Lions  .

[Fishfinger]

Maybe once opposition sides realise Miller feeds off to a running midfielder every time he gets the ball at CHF that their scoring will be reined in a bit. WC and them look good though.

A lot of people have discounted our wins against the Hawks and Dogs. Maybe we're a bit better than even we think.

[Moi]

A lot of people have discounted our wins against the Hawks and Dogs. Maybe we're a bit better than even we think.

Yeah, i found it strange to see so much hype about Hawthorn this year so far and us being totally ignored, but that's Richmond.  Their drafts are playing well, and it does look promising for them.  But it does for us as well, and a bit of recognition for some of our kids would be good.

I don't think there's much difference between all the clubs lately, with the excpetion of probably Melbourne at the moment, and maybe Geelong, West Coast when they're on a roll.  But on any given day, most teams can be knocked off.  Good luck plays a big part with injuries, suspensions etc. and those who have that good luck, should make the most of it.  It's early days - how often do you see teams like the Kangas go well early, and then totally fade into obscurity? 

PS:  I reckon Richo might be worth a punt on the Brownlow - be interesting to see his odds at the moment.  Hopefully they're still long so i can jump on board when market opens again lol.

[mightytiges]

Next week will be an opportunity to see where we are at against the Saints who blew away the demons today. It will be match of the round at twilight on Sunday so there'll be a big build up and a full house (good luck to Tiger fans trying to get in the Dome after what happened a couple of years back ). This will be the first test for us under some pressure of expectation as the bandwagon kicks into gear after 3 wins on the trot.

With Bruce doing his shoulder today the brownlow is wide open again. What's the odds for a Brownlow - Coleman double for Richo  .

[DallasCrane]

PS:  I reckon Richo might be worth a punt on the Brownlow - be interesting to see his odds at the moment.  Hopefully they're still long so i can jump on board when market opens again lol.


I always have $5 on Richo to win the brownlow, wonder if this will be his year.
He was 80/1 before this round, he may have jagged two votes today, so maybe expect that to be around 50-60/1. Considering he is 4 goals clear on the goalkicking, my guess is he's paying about $3.50 for the Coleman.

So, MT, you should be able to get around 200/1 for Richo pulling off the big double!

Who was the last player to win the double?

[one-eyed]

True Tiger test in Saints showdown
18 April 2005   
Herald Sun
Grantley Bernard

 WHILE the Richmond faithful are roaring after three straight wins, Tigers coach Terry Wallace knows it's the next game that will show the truth about his team.

Despite a fourth-quarter lapse, the Tigers smashed Fremantle by 48 points at the MCG yesterday to continue their resurrection from the rabble that won just four games last season.

Yet having lost heavily to Geelong in the opening round, the Tigers face another 2004 preliminary finalist, St Kilda, on Sunday at Telstra Dome to get some measure of their real worth and improvement.

"I think our guys are really looking forward to that," Wallace said last night. "We were really hoping to get the results that we (have had) so that we have a finals-type atmosphere again to see how we go.

"Last time we built up a finals-type atmosphere, we fell flat on our face.

"This gives us another chance and another opportunity."

Given the results of the past three games, Richmond would be expected to make a better fist of the St Kilda game than it did when losing to Geelong by an embarrassing 62 points.

If the Tigers beat the Saints, there would be cause for great optimism at Punt Rd after years of disappointment.

Until then, Wallace, while pleased to be winning, is not getting carried away.

"Let's face it, we fell over the line in two games, we've had a win today against a team that had three pull out before the start of the game . . . I don't think by any stretch of the imagination we should be getting ahead of ourselves," Wallace said.

"We've got St Kilda and Port over the next couple of weeks and I think that will show us exactly where we are. We always said the first four weeks was opportunity. If we were to mess up the first four weeks, it might have been a long year.

"We've actually done the first four weeks OK and we can tick that off. Now we've got some new challenges."

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,15001447%255E19771,00.html

[letsgetiton!]

at this stage our season looks pretty much the same as melbourne last year. they got thumped rnd 1 then started putting wins together.
our problem will be our depth, if we lose more players esp big players we are in trouble as coburg are not performing well and our kids are not as developed body wise as much as the hawks draft pics, apart from deledio we havent seen anyone yet and tambling still has to get fit but will his body hold up? we hope so. our older picks have been a plus, knobel , simmons and graham are all doing their bit . its all good so far and i believe our height , if we play well can pressure the saints as they are lacking key figures

[mightytiges]

I'm surprised our midfield depth has held up so strongly without Johnson and then Hartigan. Not forgetting Rodan who was blitzing pre-season before doing his knee. Cogs, Hyde, Tuck and co are doing a amazing job so far. Whether they can keep it up for 22 rounds and recover each week from copping hit after hit for 120 minutes is yet to be answered. We know Cogs can do it but Hyde and Tuck are unknown quantities.

Agree X about our depth in regards to talls. Apart from Schulz and Staff early on no one else has missed a game (touchwood). If we were to lose a key defender or two we would then be in strife but I guess that goes for the other 15 sides as well. Anyway so far so good. 

[cub]

PS:  I reckon Richo might be worth a punt on the Brownlow - be interesting to see his odds at the moment.  Hopefully they're still long so i can jump on board when market opens again lol.

Had my 10 each way at 81/1 at start of season - Richo allways polls well. If we can win a few more games than last year who knows - RICHOOOO

[mightytiges]

Coleman odds at centrebet:

Richo $7 (4th favourite)
Browny $61

Lloyd's still favourite at $3.50

Brownlow odds:

Browny  $23  (5th favourite)
Richo  $41
Cogs  $101
Johnson $201
Bowden $251             

Judd favourite at $5

Reckon you're pretty spot on Dallas with the Richo double odds. He's 6/1 and 40/1 in each which would make it about 280/1 for Richo to score the double.

Who was the last player to win the double?

Lockett in 1987 is the only player who has done the Brownlow-Coleman double.

[Tiger Spirit]

Given the results of the past three games, Richmond would be expected to make a better fist of the St Kilda game than it did when losing to Geelong by an embarrassing 62 points.

If the Tigers beat the Saints, there would be cause for great optimism at Punt Rd after years of disappointment.

Until then, Wallace, while pleased to be winning, is not getting carried away.

"Let's face it, we fell over the line in two games, we've had a win today against a team that had three pull out before the start of the game . . . I don't think by any stretch of the imagination we should be getting ahead of ourselves," Wallace said.

"We've got St Kilda and Port over the next couple of weeks and I think that will show us exactly where we are.

The difference in the teams we’re going to be up against over the next few weeks is in the pressure they apply on their opposition.

As far as I’m concerned, we still have to prove our ability to maintain movement of the ball under pressure from more even, cohesive and better drilled teams.  And we're still a long way from moving the ball the way the better teams do.

We’ll no doubt win games we’re not expected to win this year, but maintaining both the game plan under pressure and intensity levels throughout a match, week after week, are perhaps the biggest indicators of whether we’re improving or not.

There were some really good signs on the weekend and it’s good to see players’ confidence improve, but the fact we weren’t able to really thump Freo, who offered about as much resistance as a wet tissue, for most of the game, suggests we’re still in the early stages of becoming a good team.

[bg25]

I think you hit the nail on the head TS. Geelong is the only team we have played this year which has put sustained  pressure on us and (shudder) look at the result.

The tackling and pressure applied by the Saints against Melbourne was first class and, given their recent history against us, I can't see them easing up this week. We still have too many players who make extremely bad decisions under pressure...hello Tiv and Chaff among others.

I think we'll be better prepared (read more cautious) than we were coming up against Geelong.....where the thinking was that we were more advanced than we actually were. Cogs and some of the others are getting better with each outing as well, which should help.

Need to ensure that we don't allow them to get a run on, which means the midfield are going to have to work extremely hard.

[mightytiges]

As far as I’m concerned, we still have to prove our ability to maintain movement of the ball under pressure from more even, cohesive and better drilled teams.  And we're still a long way from moving the ball the way the better teams do.

We’ll no doubt win games we’re not expected to win this year, but maintaining both the game plan under pressure and intensity levels throughout a match, week after week, are perhaps the biggest indicators of whether we’re improving or not.

That's an excellent point TS. There won't be any easy kicks on Sunday against the Saints so any skill deficiencies will be magnified 10-fold. Against the Cats our turnover rate was disgraceful. Still to give our guys some credit our own ability to apply pressure to the opposition was good on the weekend apart from a couple of spells where it looked like we had gone to sleep. We had numbers to the fall of the ball and hunted in packs. We need the same intensity this week but for the whole game.

We still have too many players who make extremely bad decisions under pressure...hello Tiv and Chaff among others.

If Tivs could hit a target he would've been second best on ground. Got heaps of footy but would always first run sideways so he had time to get on his left boot.

[Tiger Spirit]

Still to give our guys some credit our own ability to apply pressure to the opposition was good on the weekend apart from a couple of spells where it looked like we had gone to sleep. We had numbers to the fall of the ball and hunted in packs. We need the same intensity this week but for the whole game.

It’s one thing to show signs of improvement against the teams we’ve played the last three weeks, another to show it against the teams we’ll be up against in the next few weeks.  And the reality is that we have so many areas that need work that can only be fixed over time and not just in a few games.

As bg25 pointed out, we still have too many players who don’t make good decisions under pressure and sometimes even under no pressure.  As we all know, a passage of play can quickly be turned around because of a single turnover.  That’s not the only concern though, because turnovers can also highlight other areas that need attention, such as teamwork, knowing your own teammates, being prepared to work hard and even confidence.

Even at their best, Brisbane made mistakes, but they rarely hurt them, because they always had players in support and worked for their team and teammates and so often they were able to quickly win back a turnover.  Whereas, in the past, too many times, our turnovers have resulted in goals being kicked against us.  The ease with which that so often happened against good opposition reflected the reality of our situation.  So playing against the better teams is really the only way to know if and how much we have improved.

[mightytiges]

Freo the rabble we gave a hiding have just knocked off Melbourne at the 'G. Go figure!