ROUND 13 - RICHMOND vs ADELAIDE at Telstra Dome. ("Home")
SUMMARY:
The Tigers come into this crucial almost season defining match at Telstra Dome tonight after 3 straight losses (the last riddled by atrocious skills) and with a number of our talls under injury clouds facing another hoodoo side the Adelaide Crows whom they haven't defeated since that famous rain-soaked match at Football Park back in 1999. The Crows themselves despite a narrow defeat last week to Geelong have like the Tigers surprised all pundits this year and stand one spot above Richmond in fourth spot with only percentage (albeit 20%) separating both teams. For the winner a top 4 spot beckons; for the loser the risk of slipping out of the top 8 all together in the coming months.
PAST ENCOUNTERS:
Overall: 7-13 (lost last 7)
In the 00's: 0-7
At Docklands: 0-3
Last Time:
Round 20, 15.08.04. Away at AMII Stadium (Football Park).
Richmond 5.1 7.5 13.6 13.8-86
Adelaide 3.2 8.5 14.8 21.12-138
Multiple Goalkickers: Richmond - Fleming 2, Richardson 2, Schulz 2, Weller 2; Adelaide - Perrie 4, Welsh 4, Ricciuto 2, Jericho 2.
Attendance: 35,896
KEY STATS AND MATCH-UPS:
DEFENCE: Richmond's backline had one of their poorer performances for the year last Sunday whereby a number of Tigers had a touch of the fumbles while Gas lowered his colours to Nathan Thomson. Tonight we come up against the Crows' inconsistent forward line ranked tenth in the AFL averaging 88 points per game. With midfielder/small forward Graham Johncock out injured Adelaide's goals have come through directing many rebounds forward through revitalised CHF McGregor pushing up into space. He or the receiving midfielders then in turn look for tall marking targets Welsh (21 goals) and Perrie (16) who last time both kicked 4 goals each against us. Last week against Geelong this fell down as the Crows overused the handball and gave Matthew Scarlett marking practice. Adelaide have also brought in Hentschel to add extra height to stretch us. In terms of match-ups Gas usually takes Perrie although I think he struggles sometimes on the bigger body types. I would expect Kellaway to be on Welsh leaving Razor to take Hentschel.
MIDFIELD: The battle of the midfield will as in most games be particularly crucial as the Crows rely on getting the ball into space and linking up running forward via handball (number 1 handballing side). As mentioned they went overboard with the handball against the Cats. Goodwin (avg 23 possessions), Ricciuto (23), Edwards (21), Burton (19), ex-Demon Thomson (19), tagger Skipworth (18), Macleod (17) and another in-form youngster in Mattner (17) provide Adelaide with a strong midfield that gets their hands on the footy and despite being only ranked 11th in winning contested ball the Crows are 6th in the AFL in clearances. This is helped by their ruck division of Hudson and Biglands both averaging 16 hitouts per match.
Richmond on the other hand while averaging the same number of disposals as the Crows is ranked 2nd in clearances and winning contested footy through the hard bodied work of Tuck, Cogs and Johnson all averaging 23 possessions. I think Neil Craig will use Skipworth to tag Tucky as the Roos six goal in 12 minutes burst in the third quarter occurred when Tuck was out of the centre although it was our pitiful disposal and turnovers that changed the momentum last week. Bowden (22), Tivs (18) and Cambo (18) are also getting their hands on the footy but they need to be more influential or in Tivs case less influential with the turnovers and more influential finding teammates. I'm still surprised Hyde at least isn't back in. We're 14th in winning the uncontested ball and as I've said in another thread we looked slow against Roos. How our ruckmen go will be interesting. Knobel and Simmonds suffered slight groin strains due to the slippery centre at the Dome. How these strains will affect them is unknown if they play. If they miss and with Stafford still struggling with his ankle that would mean Razor will have to ruck with Morrison taking over at CHB. We'd be at a major disadavantage if that happens after seeing Hall ruck last year. He's more a follower around the ground when he played that role under Spud. Losing our ruckmen would also take away from our ability to score from centre bounces at which we are ranked 4th. The Crows are ranked last in that area.
FORWARDS: The Crows have always had a strong midfield but it was their weak bookends that exposed them. While the forward line is still "iffy" their defence has improved out of sight this year and has been a major factor in their rise up the ladder. Recent in-form additions in full-back Rutten and CHB Bock have strengthened their key backline posts while veteran Ben Hart has overcome injury interruptions that have plagued him over recent years. Ex-Tiger Jason Torney (avg 16 possessions) is also in good form running off half-back. Adelaide's defence is now ranked the best in the competition conceding on average only 72 points per game.
The Tigers go into this match with major queries over the fitness of a number of their talls. Richo, Stafford and Simmonds all of whom form "Terry's triangle" in our forward line are struggling to come up due to injury. Richo (35 goals) looks the most unlikely as he hasn't trained all week in an effort to rest his troublesome knee. Losing him on top of Browny's (34 goals) absence will mean a major restructuring of our forward with Schulz coming in at FF surrounded by smalls in Pettifer (18) and Krakouer (16) with Hilton, Campbell and Deledio rotating through there. In any case we must find our goalkicking boots again after kicking 10.20 from 62 inside 50s last week against the Roos.
OVERALL: With a number of our talls under an injury cloud and Adelaide having that extra bit of class in the midfield they rightly go in as favourites. It's going to take a committed effort from all 22 Tigers who take the field tonight to score a win for us. After last week's effort there'll be no excuses for anyone being not switched on mentally. With handball being a major part of the Crows' gameplan we need to up the ante with our pressure and intensity at the footy and the opponent with the footy to force turnovers ourselves and win the ball. Last week the Roos wiped us off the park in that area which was why we were the ones forced into turnovers. We only had something like 18 tackles for the whole game! The other question is where our goals will come from? Given Terry's emphasis on the gameplan not being reliant on any one player I'm hoping that like last week we still generate plenty of shots on goal but this week hit our targets so we don't give so many easy goals to the opposition and we ourselves kick the ball between the two big sticks.
THIS WEEK'S TEAMS:
RICHMOND
B: Chaffey, Gaspar, Kellaway
HB: Newman, Hall, Bowden
C: Campbell, Coughlan, Tivendale
HF: Pettifer, Simmonds, Krakouer
F: Hilton, Richardson, Stafford
R: Tuck, Knobel, Johnson
Int: Deledio, Graham, Jackson, Raines
In: Hilton
Out: Meyer
ADELAIDE
B: Bassett, Rutten, Hart
HB: Doughty, Bock, McLeod
C: Burton, Ricciuto, Reilly
HF: Welsh, McGregor, Goodwin
F: Skipworth, Hentschel, Perrie
R: Hudson, Edwards, Thompson
Int: Mattner, Biglands, Torney, Shirley
