Tigers must fix their attitude, and rediscover a killer instinct Matthew Lloyd
The Age
June 2, 2013 Richmond got a reality check last weekend in front of 84,000 people in the ''Dreamtime at the G'' match against Essendon, and the last six weeks of football has left everyone, including me, none the wiser on whether the Tigers have made any improvement on 2012.
Richmond have lost four of their last six games after starting the season with a bang with three straight wins over Carlton, St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs. The age-old problems out of Punt Road have since reared their ugly heads again.
Let's start in defence. If the Tigers can't slingshot off half-back through Bachar Houli and their gun midfielders due to the opposition's pressure, they resort to slow ball movement and continually moving the ball sideways and not forwards. This leaves the Tigers faithful frustrated and with their hearts in their mouths by the comical turnovers delivered in the defensive 50 which zaps the confidence of the team - this was exactly what Essendon planned when it applied the blowtorch to the Tigers early in the match.
Last weekend's performance took me back to some of Richmond's efforts when Damien Hardwick first took over at Tigerland in 2010 when they won just six games. The Tigers are better than that, but it wouldn't be lost on Hardwick and the senior players that their five wins this season have come against Carlton, Port Adelaide, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs and Melbourne.
I listened to defender Troy Chaplin speak through the week about how they should have beaten Fremantle in round five, but just like North Melbourne at the moment and just like Richmond in Cairns last year against the Gold Coast, if you lack the composure and temperament to close out a game, it can become a cultural problem, which looks to be the case at Richmond.
The Tigers left the door open for Fremantle to win that game, as the senior Richmond players did not take control of the situation - as they should have - in the dying minutes.
Trent Cotchin looks from the outside to be a leader by actions and not words, which is the No.1 priority of a skipper, but he needs to become more ruthless with his teammates to help Richmond catch the top six sides. Cotchin is 23 and he will continue to grow into the role, but he already has the full respect of his teammates and needs to start directing and challenging them.
The Tigers look to be without leadership when they are challenged throughout a game and when a game is in the balance late in the last quarter, and I'm sure Cotchin would have learnt plenty from Essendon's Jobe Watson, having noted how vocal and demanding he was as captain.
Brett Deledio is the Tigers' best and most influential player. When Deledio plays well, the Tigers win. When he gets shut down by a tagger, the Tigers lose. Deledio has been shut down in their last three losses by Fremantle's Ryan Crowley, Geelong's Taylor Hunt and Essendon's Heath Hocking.
Deledio is yet to work out how to break the tag consistently but he desperately needs assistance from an underperforming midfield and it's an indictment on the rest of the Richmond playing group that if Deledio, Cotchin, Jack Riewoldt and to a lesser extent Dustin Martin do not play well, Richmond still do not have the middle to bottom-end talent to pick up the slack and win a game when the big guns are being held.
The Tigers decided to bolster their list with players of experience at the end of last season. I said at the time, and still believe, that they recruited far too many players from other clubs and that you can't afford to give up more than one or two spots on your list to speculative players. The Tigers obviously felt that their list was too inexperienced, but to recruit Aaron Edwards, Chris Knights, Chaplin, Orren Stephenson, Sam Lonergan and Ricky Petterd all in one off-season did not make a lot on sense. It is hard to see anyone other than Chaplin playing more than 50 games for the club, which suggests the Tigers felt really confident that they were finals bound this season.
Reece Conca, Brandon Ellis and Nick Vlastuin are young players at Richmond who give great hope for the future. They are all of the highest quality who, with time, will take the pressure off the big four on a more regular basis and become consistent game breakers in their own right. Ellis and Vlastuin were Richmond's best players in the win over Melbourne in round eight and look to be players who have the perfect mix of skill and aggression. Richmond's charge up the ladder will come off the backs of those three in particular, and as the club's other one- to three-year players gain as much experience and game time as they can over the next couple of years. That is why Richmond can't waste too many games on the recycled players who are only short-term propositions for the club.
Monday night's match against the Eagles will be a defining game for the Tigers. They must prove to themselves they can go on the road and take the scalps of a top-eight team. A softer run awaits them over the next five weeks, but psychologically winning this game is what they need to instil belief and confidence.
Richmond cannot remain flat-track bullies and now is the time to prove they will not just be making up the numbers come finals time.
Read more:
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/tigers-must-fix-their-attitude-and-rediscover-a-killer-instinct-20130601-2niil.html#ixzz2UzJyZkps
