Tiges v Kangas - Another Bad Start

[one-eyed]

Wallace laments costly mistakes
13 June 2005   
Herald Sun
Bruce Matthews

MOMENTUM is everything in football, and it was as if a horror wind shift hit Richmond at Telstra Dome yesterday.

No one saw it coming after two goals early in the third quarter shot the Tigers to the lead for the first time.

What followed was 12 minutes of mayhem from the Kangaroos, six unanswered goals in an extraordinary turnaround that burst open the tight contest.

The start of the scoring spree was unusual in itself, the first goal of the season by full-back Leigh Brown after a mark inside the forward 50.

Hey, wasn't Brown supposed to be stopping Matthew Richardson kicking goals rather than slotting them himself?

And by the time third-gamer Brent LeCras's long shot on the run cleared a flurry of arms and bounced over the goal line, the revived Roos had transposed a seven point deficit into a match-clinching 31-point lead.

To attribute the comeback to the Roos simply seizing midfield control would be a half-truth. What won't go unnoticed on Richmond's match review tape were a couple of critical skill errors by willing ruck worker Trent Knobel and rebounding defender Greg Tivendale.

Knobel's sideways handpass flew over a teammate's head and Roo Shannon Grant pounced to chip a pass to Brown, who had left Richardson behind as he drifted downfield.

And the Tigers were still clinging to a slender lead three minutes later when Tivendale sprinted clear through the centresquare and inexplicably handballed to the stationary Knobel. Again the reprieved Roos made them pay for the crucial turnover as Daniel Wells found key forward Nathan Thompson with a perfectly weighted kick for the fourth of the spearhead's five goals. As Richmond coach Terry Wallace later said: "Skill errors eroded the confidence of the group."

Basic stats tell a tale of an absolute mismatch from 11 minutes after halftime until deep in time-on of that third term. The Roos had 23 kicks, 11 marks and six goals compared to the Tigers' paltry six kicks, six marks and just one inside-50.

The importance of that six-goal salvo in the third quarter was underlined by what generally was an even contest, in which Richmond eventually had 31 more possessions and six more scoring shots.

But, as Wallace lamented, his Tigers went back to a few old habits, too often straying from the discipline that had delivered seven wins. They simply left too much to too few with tireless skipper Kane Johnson finding only Mark Coughlan and Shane Tuck prepared to fall in behind his lead.

Fittingly, Johnson was laying a tackle to carry Roo counterpart Simpson over the boundary line on the final siren.

The Tiger leader dropped hands on knees in utter exasperation, a stark symbol of the team's lost opportunity.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,15593120%255E19771,00.html

[PuntRdRoar]

weve been a dumb side for a long time. anyway the pretenders are now being found out and for once theyve been found out at the start of a new coaches contract. a contract that runs for 5 years. Wallace can swing the axe, no one can touch him and he will do it.

[Tiger Spirit]

The Tigers, coming off two losses in a row, looked in control of the game in the third quarter when they booted the first two goals of the second half to lead by seven points at the ten-minute mark.

Maybe it was just me, but I never ever felt we were in control at any stage.  Apart from a handful of players, I just don’t think we came to play yesterday.

It’s hard to work out how the efforts can be so good one week and so ordinary the next.
 
Games like yesterday really sort out the good players from the not so good.  And, going on past performance, it always seems to be the same players who make the same poor decisions and drag the rest of the team with them.  Other players should be better than that, and while some are, in a team that mostly lacks players who are totally confident in their ability, it’s just a recipe for disaster.

The thing is, right now, TW’s between a rock and a hard place.  He’ll have to do the best he can with what’s available and sort them out, as much as possible, at the end of the season.

Apart from two or three really bad games though, most weeks have been either as expected or exceeded expectations.   From that point of view we couldn’t be too critical really.

The most disappointing thing to come out of yesterday’s game was the lack of spark and run from players, which makes me think this was just a bad day at the office.  Because most other weeks, regardless of whether we’ve won or lost, there has been a disciplined and committed team effort, but not yesterday.  It was so unlike just about every other game so far this season.  Some games we have been outclassed, fair and square, but yesterday was a real winnable game and we threw away a huge opportunity.  Maybe it’s as TW thought during the week that some players were getting ahead of themselves, after a ‘good’ effort against WC.  Who knows.

For now, I’m prepared to put yesterday’s game down to an ‘off’ day, otherwise we’ll have to concede we’re a one man team.  I don’t think we’re world beaters, but we’re better than yesterday’s effort.  Maybe the mid season ‘bye’ was two weeks too late for some.  Even so, nothing can excuse some of the decision making that went on.  Against any level of opposition, that will hurt any team.

Look at it this way; we’re only playing Adelaide this week.  The same team that used us as witches hats last year.  If they treat us with the contempt they have in the past, and play like we’re not even on the ground, I may have to change my mind about this week being an aberration.

[WilliamPowell]

As Max Merritt sang in the 70's....

"And it's breaking me in two,
Watching you
Slipping away"

That's how I feel about our season after watching what was without doubt our worse effort of the season.
============

Talk about dumb footy............

COACH Terry Wallace says a lack of discipline and accountability turned a hard-earned Richmond lead into a heavy defeat in the space of 10 minutes.

Gotta say Tezza you're being generous - it started in the first quarter and went on all day

I made a point last week about the often spoken difference between footballers and athletes. Yesterday again highlighted to me at least that with some of our blokes you put them on a good footballer and they really really struggle, put them on an athlete they are a lot better. A perfect example of this was Jones in the third for the Roos against Hall on the 50 metre arc. Jones is a footballer and his deft touch to push the ball back towards the Roos goal was a brilliant bit of play that resulted in a goal. Jones was quick, agile and smart enough to be able to quickly turn recover the ball and score while Hall was still turning.

There were a couple of other instances that cost us dearly. 

In the second when we had momentum Coughlan had a shot on the run from about 45 metres out again because he didn't kick through the ball it didn't make the distance and was touched on the line. This isn't the first time it's happened go back to the Port game and you'll see exactly the same thing - costly and dumb.

Wayne Campbell has the ball outside 50 in the second and he waits and waits. Richo leads not once, not twice but three times and is ignored on each occassion depsite having a 5 metre start on his opponent. Campbell then decides to play on, baulks and kicks it on his left foot no less to no one- costly and dumb.

Greg Tivendale is running through the centre Richo leads and is ignored again (I'm sure at this point Patrick Smith is dancing around saying I told ya I told ya"). Tivendale then handballs to a bloke standing still in Knobel. Even Gary Lyon says Tivendale should hang his head in shame - costly and dumb.

Then there's the turnovers especially the handballing straight the opposition - pick a player, Newman, Gaspar, Knobel - costly and dumb

Kane Johnson has the ball in the first quarter about 20 metres out from goal with a North player 7 metres in front of him - he trys to kick a flat punt kick through for a certain goal instead he kicks it low enough for the Kanga bloke to touch it - costly and dumb

Then to rub absolute salt into the my weeping wounds 

The ball gets kicked long into the forward 50 in the third Stafford has 2 agaisnt him all he does is punches it to the ground and Meyer swoopps and scores a goal - smart footy

Jackson runs the wing and kicks the ball 45+ metres to Richo who is one on one with Brown - in the end it was a no contest because one on one Richo had Brown's measure everytime. Goal - smart footy.

But the smart stuff was few and far between yesterday the dumb stuff was there for everyone to see and it was bad 

I've tried all year to stay positive when we've lost because of our losses have been against better teams. But when you lose rather than get beaten because of terrible skill errors and dumb footy the pill is bloody hard to swallow

And don't get me started on our conversion 30 shots at goal for 80 points -

There's always next week I suppose

[Ox]

Knobel has never been a star lol. You get what you pay for in this world...thats about it really! We went to the PSD with peanuts instead of paying money and getting a star...it was a wasted opportunity!

All we had was peanuts.

[Mopsy]

Wallace laments costly mistakes
13 June 2005   
Herald Sun
Bruce Matthews

MOMENTUM is everything in football, and it was as if a horror wind shift hit Richmond at Telstra Dome yesterday.

No one saw it coming after two goals early in the third quarter shot the Tigers to the lead for the first time.

What followed was 12 minutes of mayhem from the Kangaroos, six unanswered goals in an extraordinary turnaround that burst open the tight contest.

Tuck was off the ground and we lost the midfield advantage 

[2JD]

Started this post four times now, just dont know what to say( Half a bottle of muscat  will do that to ya!)
Can the media now get off our backs and stop building us up beyond normal expectations and just let us rebuild and go about our business.
Last year we were a bottom team, THE bottom team, this year we were happy to see an improvement. Leap frogging to the toppish of the ladder has a lot of us thinking we are better than we are. We had a five year plan remember, we still have a lot of weeding and pruning and replanting to do before we are a top team...........can you tell I'm talking to myself???lol

[WilliamPowell]

Tuck was off the ground and we lost the midfield advantage 

Aint that the truth Mopsy. 

The other thing is when we move him forward he gives us a viable option up there as well.

[mjs]

"MOMENTUM is everything in football.."

I'm not convinced of that. We had the momentum near the end last week and the Eagles took it away. We had the momentum yesterday when we led by seven points and it was taken away again in an instant.

So...... momentum schmentum .

[one-eyed]

Tigers seek answers
14 June 2005   
Herald Sun
Bruce Matthews

A FRANK meeting of Richmond players and coaching staff yesterday morning dissected reasons for Sunday's loss to the Kangaroos.

"It's important the players understand why we didn't win the game and certainly from a coaching staff, we'll tell them. But we want input from them on the reasons why," assistant coach Brian Royal said.

"Once they see the review of the game in video format, it's pretty obvious as to why we lost the game. And they totally understood that."

Coach Terry Wallace and assistants Royal, David Wheadon and David King arrived shortly after dawn.

The club's video expert had already assembled the relevant highlights and lowlights to be screened to the players.

The coaching staff wanted to know why the team could manage only 10 goals from 62 forays inside the forward 50.

And while Royal admitted the negatives outweighed the positives on the highlights reel against the Roos, he said the Tigers were now ready to move on to plan for their game against Adelaide at Telstra Dome on Saturday night.

"We've had a meeting with our guys this morning and we've explained to them that you can't give the ball back like we did at the weekend, and then our conversion rate being the way it was, and expect to win a game," Royal said.

"It's something we've put a lot of work in over thepre-season months and, yeah, there's no excuses. There were certain passages throughout the course of the game where our guys neglected to pick up their opponents and it really hurt us.

"And when we turned the football over the way we did, it certainly allows the opposition to get off the hook as well.

Royal said it was important that Richmond rebounded this week.

"Again, if we can get our structure right and continue to get the footy inside 50, we've just got to convert and finish off. We've now finished the review process and we'll get on to previewing Adelaide now and work out how we're going to win that game.

"We're still not in a bad position. Certainly we've got to be more competitive against the top-eight sides and if we want to make the finals this year, we've got to do that. We've got to come up with reasons how we can do that.

"We felt yesterday that obviously the Kangaroos played pretty hard football against us, but we certainly lost the game," Royal said.

"We can't expect to take the ball inside 50 62 times and not convert and win games.

"It's pretty simple from our point of view. If we convert the opportunities we had, we win the game."

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,15604799%255E19742,00.html

[Tiger Spirit]

All indications are that a lot of players just weren’t disciplined and ‘switched on’ for long enough of the game.  For that many errors to occur and for our players to let the opposition capitalise on those mistakes could just say they had a bad day.  Against better opposition you would probably just say we weren’t good enough.  But against a team we could expect to beat it was close to our worst performance of the season, where anything that could go wrong did.

It’s easy to be critical of players when we lose, but the cold hard facts are that we don’t have the overall class and ability of other teams.  And that’s hardly likely to change for now.  When we have a day like Sunday, where we aren’t playing to our strengths and sticking to the game plan then players will get found out.  TW’s designed the game style to suit our strengths and minimise the weaknesses.  It’s all going to come unstuck when players don’t do what they’re asked to do.

Our season can go one of two ways from here.  Put this game down to a learning curve and hopefully we can get things back on track from here.

[WilliamPowell]

As Max Merritt sang in the 70's....

"And it's breaking me in two,
Watching you
Slipping away"

That's how I feel about our season after watching what was without doubt our worse effort of the season.

Well I am feeling better now and I am optimistic once more 

But against a team we could expect to beat it was close to our worst performance of the season, where anything that could go wrong did.

I suppose that's the thing that angered me the most we were playing a team that I honestly believe we are better than.

It’s easy to be critical of players when we lose, but the cold hard facts are that we don’t have the overall class and ability of other teams. And that’s hardly likely to change for now. When we have a day like Sunday, where we aren’t playing to our strengths and sticking to the game plan then players will get found out. TW’s designed the game style to suit our strengths and minimise the weaknesses. It’s all going to come unstuck when players don’t do what they’re asked to do.

Our season can go one of two ways from here. Put this game down to a learning curve and hopefully we can get things back on track from here.

I hope so. The other thing from my point of view was that we had made some great inroads in our performances but Sunday (as Tezza said) we went back to bad habits and some of those habits we had not seen since 2004. But in reality that comes back to what you are saying TS about players getting found out.

I understand where we are coming from (wooden spoon) but to see basic skills get butchered especially when a bloke is under no pressure I found myself questioning how much we improved. 

[mightytiges]

"MOMENTUM is everything in football.."

I'm not convinced of that. We had the momentum near the end last week and the Eagles took it away. We had the momentum yesterday when we led by seven points and it was taken away again in an instant.

So...... momentum schmentum .

The Eagles got the momentum going their way through winning the ball. Fair enough as they just had that extra bit of class. On Sunday we had all the momentum then gave it to an average Roos side on a platter. We had kicked the first 2 goals of the third quarter and were running forward again for what should have been our third but instead we  gifted them 2 quick goals to put them back in front through stupid turnovers when they never looked like scoring.  Ok one mistake can happen but two, three, ... in a row  . Just soul destroying for the rest of the side.

[Tiger Spirit]

I hope so. The other thing from my point of view was that we had made some great inroads in our performances but Sunday (as Tezza said) we went back to bad habits and some of those habits we had not seen since 2004. But in reality that comes back to what you are saying TS about players getting found out.

I understand where we are coming from (wooden spoon) but to see basic skills get butchered especially when a bloke is under no pressure I found myself questioning how much we improved.

I think that’s why I haven’t been getting carried away with our wins WP.  Lots of things have changed and improved, otherwise we wouldn’t be 5th on the ladder.  At the same though, and without wanting to sound like a grim reaper, how much improvement can you get out of a team such as ours?

Especially when you consider that, of the team that played last weekend, 13 of those players are aged 25 or over.

5 are aged between 22 and 24.

4 are 18 to 19 years of age.

How much improvement can be expected of players once they get to around 26/27?  At that stage of their career you could expect that most players would either be at their best or have leveled out.

Given our list, I think the best we can hope for is that players stick to the game plan as much as possible, play as a team and make the most of the opportunity they have.  If they can develop some confidence, and make better decisions because of that then all the better for them and we can hope to be competitive.

The key factor in all of this seems to be that we don’t have enough players aged between 21 and 24, because the biggest scope for improvement, of any team, generally comes from those players.  We only had 5 in the team on the weekend and, apart from Chris Hyde, don’t have many others on our list that I can think of right now. 

Nothing's impossible, but I think it’s a big ask to expect a team that is top heavy, in terms of players at the latter stages of their career, and which consists of almost as many 18/19 year olds as players aged between 21 and 24, to significantly improve.

No doubt, that’s partly why TW was given a five year contract, because it’s going to take that long to develop a balanced team/list.

[mightytiges]

The key factor in all of this seems to be that we don’t have enough players aged between 21 and 24, because the biggest scope for improvement, of any team, generally comes from those players.  We only had 5 in the team on the weekend and, apart from Chris Hyde, don’t have many others on our list that I can think of right now. 

Nothing's impossible, but I think it’s a big ask to expect a team that is top heavy, in terms of players at the latter stages of their career, and which consists of almost as many 18/19 year olds as players aged between 21 and 24, to significantly improve.

We are now paying for the disasterous recruiting practices between the years 1997-2002 (excluding 2000) under Geischen and Frawley. Our list as you say TS has a big hole in the early-mid 20's range. I think I mentioned once before that from something like 35 draft selections and 7 rookie promotions from the 97, 98, 99, 01 and 02 drafts we only have 6 players still at Tigerland today. That's a disgrace. However incompetent these two were at coaching pales into insignificance compared to their recruiting records. At least when they got the flick their poor coaching methods went with them. However we are still left with the mess they made out of our playing list .

It's going to take Terry's 5 years just to get our list back into balance. [that last bit sounds like star wars lol]