14 June 2004
Herald Sun
Mark Stevens
RICHMOND's season from hell hit a new low yesterday, leaving shattered coach Danny Frawley and besieged president Clinton Casey searching for answers.
The Tigers led by 39 points 24 minutes into the second quarter, but capitulated in front of their faithful against a Fremantle team renowned for its travel sickness.
After being outscored nine goals to three after halftime to lose by 10 points, Casey said he thought the players would have dug deeper considering the high stakes.
"It does hurt. I thought they would've found a bit more in the second half – that's three weeks in a row now," Casey said.
"When the game was there to be won, not enough blokes stood up. It's hard to understand."
Frawley stopped short of lashing out at his players, who are heading for another wasted year with four wins from 12 games, and took the blame himself.
"I still believe our group's good enough to win games of football and the buck stops with me – we've just got to pull them through and get them playing with a lot of confidence," Frawley said.
"As a coach, you know what to expect when you get into this caper and it's disappointing. I'll look at the tape tonight and focus and trying to get the boys up for Saturday night against Carlton."
Frawley said the move by disgruntled member Michael Pahoff to oust the club's board was not a distraction.
"Look, there's been 1000 distractions. It's out of our control, out of my control and out of the players' control."
Frawley, coaching for his career 10 games out from the end of his contract at Punt Rd, discounted a lack of fitness for another second-half fadeout.
The Tigers have now been outscored 35 goals to 12 in second halves in the past three weeks against the Dockers, Kangaroos and Eagles.
He put the sins of the later stages of the contest down to a lack of belief that flared when Fremantle kicked the final two goals before the long break.
"Those two goals Freo kicked just before halftime may've given them a smidgeon of belief. It probably just sowed a couple of seeds of doubt for our boys," Frawley said.
"The first half was probably the best footy we've played for a number of weeks so we've got to look at that and use that as a positive, but we've also got to look at the reasons for some crucial mistakes.
"When you turn the ball over in crucial areas and make a couple of decision-making errors, all of a sudden you're chasing backsides.
"Our decision-making at times really hurts. Their runners ran harder than us. To Fremantle's credit, they got a sniff."
Asked if the team had bottomed out, Casey replied: "You'd like to think so."
"They (the players) will be hurting in there," he said. "Everyone's pretty flat. We had a good lead and we got beat. It's just very disappointing.
"Off-field we're now regrouping for next year. If we can't turn it around, the footy department will be looking to next year too. Another loss or two and we'll be out of the race of the finals this year. It will be another year over."
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,9835734%255E19742,00.html
