TIGER TROUBLESMark Robinson
Herald-Sun
April 27, 2015Of all the questions in footy, and there’s a squillion, how do you answer the question that is the Richmond Football Club.
Why are they so soft on any given weekend?
It is five years and four matches into Damien Hardwick’s tenure and he’s still pulling faces in the post-match, born of immense frustration and let down.
He says his team can beat anyone on their day, but that comment is wearing thin.
Forget last year because coaches live in the present and hope for the future and the present is pretty ordinary and the future is not promising.
Melbourne outmuscled Richmond on Friday night and a comment like that hasn’t been said for a decade.
The focus is on Hardwick, but it should also be on the players.
The coach is under pressure. He’s had five years to mould and educate and recruit, but somewhere in all that is a soft underbelly which rears its head too often.
Talk of replacing Hardwick is not on the agenda.
He is contracted until the end of the 2016 season but if the same insipid performances are still being put out by the Tigers this time next year, then the focus on the coach and what he has been able to achieve will be intense.
Maybe the Tigers have got the best out of themselves. Maybe it’s seventh to 11th with this group. Maybe the talent isn’t good enough for top four.
Next Saturday’s contest against Geelong at the MCG is now pivotal - for both teams.
The Tigers are a strange bunch.
One week they rip the G apart, the next week it swallows them whole.
Clearly, Hardwick is in an interesting spot. He’s playing kids with established players and veterans and somewhere in all that is a leadership group.
Shane Edwards is proving to be one of the most consistent performers at Punt Rd and Jack Riewoldt doesn’t stop presenting and running, and others lift for various occasions.
But here we are again wondering if Dustin Martin is an elite player.
He’s not. He’s a good player not having the impact he’s expected to.’
The kids at Melbourne - Jesse Hogan, Aaron vandenBerg, Christian Salem, Angus Brayshaw - are ahead of their counterparts at Richmond and they aren’t all early Round 1 draft picks.
The Tigers have Geelong, North Melbourne, Collingwood and Port Adelaide over the next month.
It is a defining month.
They will likely start underdogs in every match, which mightn’t be a bad thing.
Because they surely don’t thrive under any expectations.
http://www.news.com.au/national/the-tackle-alastair-clarksons-angry-response-warrants-examination-but-not-hefty-penalty/story-e6frfkp9-1227322085491
