Tigers surging but Damien Hardwick says bye comes at the right time Brad Elborough
The Age
June 6, 2015 - 4:17PM Richmond will hit their round 11 bye with a full head of steam, but Tigers coach Damien Hardwick says the break comes at a good time.
Even though they are enjoying a four-game winning streak, capped with an upset 27-point victory over the previously unbeaten Fremantle at Domain Stadium on Friday night, he says some of his players will enjoy the chance to rest.
"I think from our point of view I think we've got 12 guys on the injury list, so it probably comes at a good time," he said, although Chris Newman is probably the one player ready to return in the next round. "We've got some sore boys as well and Alex Rance was incredibly brave tonight (against the Dockers). He had a massive corkie before half-time and for him to battle though, and play even though, he was obviously hindered at various stages.
"It probably comes at a good time."
Rance was among Richmond's best, keeping Dockers skipper Matthew Pavlich goalless.
After the bye, the Tigers play West Coast at the MCG then travel to the SCG to play the Swans. Being away from Melbourne shouldn't bother them.
They have enjoyed wins in Adelaide, Brisbane and now Perth this season. While they had recorded away wins to Brisbane and Port Adelaide in recent seasons, they had not tasted victory over Fremantle in WA since 2009 when they held off a fast-finishing Dockers to win by three points.
Richmond beat the Swans in Sydney last season, in round 23, but it was at ANZ Stadium, not the SCG. It's been more than a decade – round 7, 2004 – since the Tigers won at the SCG.
But their away record this season and in '14 (winning twice in Sydney and once each in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth) will have them confident of victory.
"We are just selling games interstate," Hardwick joked on Friday night. "We do travel well; we enjoy getting away together. We've got a really strong committed side who enjoy each other's company.
"We enjoy playing away and beating sides away, and there's no harder ground than here as we've seen. We are the first side to win here this year, I think from memory, so it's a really big tick for our boys."
If the Tigers can continue to produce scoreboard pressure like they did against the Dockers on Friday night, there is no reason they can't win a fifth consecutive game.
Richmond had 8.0 on the board after just 20 minutes to Fremantle's 1.0. If they had not been as accurate, the result could have been much different.
In round 5, for example, the Tigers kicked 0.5 in the first term and lost the game to Geelong by nine points.
The following week they booted 3.7 in the second quarter against North Melbourne to trail at half-time by six points.
They haven't lost since – beating Collingwood, Port Adelaide, Essendon and now Fremantle in consecutive weeks.
"It's not often we kick eight goals and it's not often you kick eight goals against Fremantle, so we were pleasantly surprised from that one," he said.
"We probably controlled the ball really well at those early stages and credit to our forwards for kicking the goals. I think we kicked 8.1 and we probably haven't been the most efficient accuracy side going inside-50, so for us to kick 8.1 was a good reward for effort.
"We've been playing some OK footy, but we've had some horrible lapses where we get scored heavily against. The North Melbourne game was probably a case in point, but tonight Freo dominated us for probably a 10 or 15-minute period in the third (quarter), but there was no scoreboard pressure from our point of view.
"I think it was two goals to one in that quarter, whereas previously our offence probably hurt our defence a little bit in games that we did lose."
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