Author Topic: Alex Rance on SEN 20/10/17 --- Star Tiger reveals Grand Final emotions  (Read 596 times)

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The Run Home - Alex Rance in the studio:

AUDIO: https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode/?id=149101

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Star Tiger reveals Grand Final emotions

By Justin Talent
SEN
20 October 2017


Premiership-winning defender Alex Rance has shared the exact moment from this year’s Grand Final when he knew Richmond had won their first flag in 37 years.

The Tigers vice-captain and 2017 All-Australian skipper says he did not accept that he had become a premiership player until the final siren, despite teammate and fellow Grand Final star performer Bachar Houli attempting to celebrate with him in the final minutes of the game.

“With two minutes to go, we’re up by I think 46 and he (Houli) goes, we’ve got it here,” Rance told SEN’s The Run Home.

“I just said, mate we’ve got two minutes to go, dial in!

“I was just far too process driven and dialled in to just have a thought.

“It was almost a surprise. When the siren went, I was like oh that’s it, we’ve won it. That was the time when emotions really kicked in.”

Rance believes that heartbreaking narrow defeats earlier in the season to Fremantle, Sydney and Greater Western Sydney had instilled a sense in him that no game was ever over until the final siren had blown.

“I never allowed myself throughout the whole game to even have an inkling because we had the Freo game, the Sydney game, the GWS game… I didn’t want that to happen again,” he said.

Rance finished third place in the Norm Smith Medal voting in the Grand Final, recording an incredible 14 one percenters alongside 11 disposals at 90.9 per cent efficiency and three contested marks.

The star defender touched on just how the club managed to overturn a disappointing 2016 campaign into premiership glory 12 months later, citing a constantly positive mentality behind closed doors as the reason for their surprise success.

“Even to the back of last year, Dimma (Damien Hardwick) would always say nothing is ever as good as it seems and it is never as bad as it seems,” Rance said.

“Going through that back end of last year when things externally looked pretty bad, we got absolutely smoked by Sydney in the last round and everyone is thinking yep, rebuild, turn everything over. They wanted a new board, they wanted a new coach, they wanted a new skipper, but it was never as bad as it seemed.

“We always knew that internally. We know we have got very good people in very good positions, just wait it out, getting the most out of every individual.

“You don’t need to be a Dustin Martin or a Trent Cotchin to have an impact within this team. We saw Jason Castagna, Dan Butler, Dylan Grimes…all those guys who know who they and what they bring and it’s their own individual brilliance.

“Those close losses during the year could have been a time again where we were ‘Richmondy’ and it could have spiralled out, but we stuck to saying, this is who we are, let’s keep bringing this.”

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2017/10/20/it-was-almost-a-surprise-star-tiger-reveals-gf-emotions/