Hungry for an answer from Richmond over leaving Trent Cotchin on bench (H-Sun)

[one-eyed]

Hungry for an answer from Richmond over leaving Trent Cotchin on bench

    Mark Stevens
    From: Herald Sun
    July 19, 2012

RICHMOND legend Kevin Bartlett has turned up the heat on the club as questions about the amazing disappearance of Trent Cotchin continue.

Cotchin spent the final two minutes of Saturday night's heartbreaking loss to Gold Coast on the bench as the Suns kicked two match-winning goals.

Bartlett yesterday said he was stunned the Tigers could not get Cotchin back into action for the final centre bounce, with less than 30 seconds on the clock.

"Cotchin is the best player at the club. He's a star. You've got to have the players on the ground when you get to the pointy end," Bartlett said.

"It is very hard for Richmond players to accept that when a goal is kicked you can't get your best player back out on the ground."

Cotchin headed for the bench with Richmond leading by 10 points, but Bartlett questioned why the Tigers did not use the 30-40 second break before the final centre bounce to get the star clearance player back into action.

Tigers coach Damien Hardwick this week said the club had suffered a communication breakdown.

"That is a major communication breakdown," Bartlett said.

"It could cost the Tigers a place in the finals."

With Cotchin off and Shane Tuck out of the centre square, the Tigers went into the last bounce without their best two clearance players.

Angus Graham rucked to Brett Deledio, Shaun Grigg and Reece Conca.

Tuck has won 41 centre clearances this season, Cotchin 32, Dustin Martin 19, Deledio 18, Grigg 16 and Conca nine.

Cotchin took himself off, and was desperate to get back on, but he was the only player on the interchange.

Tigers players wanting to come off in threes had been turned back so they stopped going towards the bench.

Hardwick, who was on the boundary, tried to get Cotchin back on, but the Tigers could not make it happen in time.

"Obviously there was a goal scored, we expect two or three players (to) come to the bench at any time. But probably what happened is because we only had the one player on the bench, most guys were getting turned back," Hardwick said.

"We'd expect - I think he came off with two minutes to go - that another player would come to the bench at some stage, which normally happens, and it just didn't."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/afl/more-news/hungry-for-an-answer-from-richmond-over-leaving-trent-cotchin-on-bench/story-e6frf9jf-1226429408801

[Francois Jackson]

Amateur hour down at Punt Rd
At the end of the day did it lose us the match? Yes

Did the 6 goal head start lose us the match? Yes

Beat Nought and Blues and all will be forgotten

[Ruanaidh]

Hardwick still not taking responsibility. This is not a good sign for the future.

[eliminator]

Daniel in my view is correctly correct in saying "Did the 6 goal head start lose us the match? Yes" Another poor second quarter. Not having Cotchin on the ground in the last minutes of the game was madness but having said that we should not have an over reliance on Cotchin. He is a brilliant player and a real leader but other players should have stood up. It is not good for the club for Trent to always be expected to do everything.

[Tigeritis™©®]

What a joke! 

Everyone is laughing at us.
We are now known as the team that's played the worst 45 second of football ever.
Also known as the team that lost the unloseable game.

KB is absolutely right to ask this question.
I also heard him ask (on his radio program) why we were 6 goals behind at one stage of the game? You'd think a team with finals on the line wouldn't get themselves into a position where they were 6 goals down to a team that hasn't even won a game this year!

And that's the thing. When you except mediocrity within an organisation at any level in any player in any department, then you can't be shocked when things go horribly wrong.
Lift the standard Tigers. Demand excellence from everyone that represents the club and don't except anything less than the standard that demands excellence.

I for one have been waiting to see this since Walls (who I hated with passion) walked into the club but he was a mistake.
Then there was "unleash the Giesch" which at the time was glad to see the back of Walls but knew was a dumb idea. Campbell tried to tell the club how stupid they were at the time.
Then there was Frawley who I met and liked alot. An impressive man but he failed to raise the standard. Although he did make finals. But if you don't kill the disease it will eventually kill you.
Then there was Wallett and Miller with their promises. I really thought they would do it. Lift the bar, raise the standard, demand excellence. But again the biggest failure of all.
Then it made me laugh out loud when they chose Rawlings as interim coach and some people wanted him to stay. 

Now the club has improved off field with their fighting tiger fund and their new facilities and more money. No excuses really. Gale is giving the football department everthing they need. More staff better equipement etc etc.
We better make finals next year. No excuses! 

[yellowandback]

I don't blame people for teeing off at the mistakes which resulted in us losing the game. It didn't look good. I can't help that think we tend to attract a fraction more attention when things go wrong due to our "bumbling tigers" reputation.
To Mr Tigras point, next year will be a big build up to expectations if finals which is totally fair.
It is already starting to feel a but like our lead into 2009 and the Demons into 2011.
Hope the club (and the prez) can handle it.

[Mr Magic]

Hardwick still not taking responsibility.

This is clearly wrong. Watch the press conference from a couple of days ago.
Clearly said the team is ultimately his responsibility and didn't dodge anything.

[Coach]

Hardwick has two more years to go on his contract. Bloke can say anything he wants because he's safe.

Agree with dan, beat N0rt and the Blues and all is forgiven.

[MintOnLamb]

What I find amazing is that the club demands excellence, will NOT TOLERATE 2 blokes sleeping in, stuffing around with club culture, the leadership group was so disappointed they wanted to give Dusty more than 2 weeks
We are setting the bar high, our club will not accept this sort of behaviour.
Where was the team excellence in the first 1/4 against the Suns?
Yet where is the accountability from the rest of the club in the last minute of the game against the Suns?
Where was the "Team Leadership Group" then?
Obviously that performance was acceptable as they haven't given themselves a 2 week suspension.
When you make a stand, get out of the mud before doing so.
We will get flogged by North this week, put the house on it.
I hate to be negative and cynical but I am a realist.
Anything under 30 points will be a victory for Richmond.

[Francois Jackson]

Hardwick still not taking responsibility.

This is clearly wrong. Watch the press conference from a couple of days ago.
Clearly said the team is ultimately his responsibility and didn't dodge anything.

correct

[rfctigers05]

Damien Halfwit

[Ruanaidh]

Hardwick still not taking responsibility.

This is clearly wrong. Watch the press conference from a couple of days ago.
Clearly said the team is ultimately his responsibility and didn't dodge anything.

correct

Did you blokes even listen to it? He used the plural 'we' when describing situations that he has complete control over such as rotations and setups. He was standing there FFS. He equivocated until asked directly about his responsibility. Mentioned 'my responsibilty' flippantly once and in the same sentence went on to mention the players responsibility. You can have your both opinions, that's ok....but as someone who has studied leadership characteristics for some time I see worrying signs.

[Dice]

We will get flogged by North this week, put the house on it.
I hate to be negative and cynical but I am a realist.
Anything under 30 points will be a victory for Richmond.

No not a realist , you're a depressing pessimist. WE WILL WIN THIS WEEK. PUT THE HOUSE ON IT TIGER

[Mr Magic]

Hardwick still not taking responsibility.

This is clearly wrong. Watch the press conference from a couple of days ago.
Clearly said the team is ultimately his responsibility and didn't dodge anything.

correct

Did you blokes even listen to it?

I did but you obviously didn't. Clearly stated it was his team and he took responsibility for it. Also said there were areas he needed to fix when talking about himself.
Anything beyond that is imaginary.

[Loui Tufga]

Cotch himself has said 100 times that he brought himself off. All players are given the responsibility of rotations, blaming Hardwick for rotations is a cop out. The more you look at it the more you see the players have no one to blame but themselves for the loss, it was a comedy of playing errors that lost the game not coaching errors!