Tiger forward plan to ease burden on big guns
By Lyall Johnson
The Age
March 9, 2006
Despite the imposing presence of two of the game's best forwards in Matthew Richardson and Nathan Brown, Richmond's forward strategy this year is to have as many goalkickers as possible, according to assistant coach Brian Royal.
The Tigers last year had only four goalkickers reach 20-plus goals - one of them Brown, who played only nine games - and were often thwarted by opponents who could nullify Richardson.
Royal said that the side's success could not rest with the two main forwards, but that the other forwards must kick goals themselves while working to make space for Brown and Richardson.
"I think days are gone where you are relying on one player to kick all your goals, teams certainly work out if you have got one dominant forward, they're working out where the ball's going and stopping that player," Royal said yesterday.
Last week against an undermanned Western Bulldogs, the Tigers managed 15 goalkickers. Having been under the Terry Wallace regime for about 16 months, Royal felt the Richmond forward line was finally starting to fully grasp the game plan.
"Obviously with the way opposition teams these days are getting numbers behind the footy, you don't want to slow the game down much, so our philosophy is we want to get the ball into our forward line as quickly as possible," he said.
Richmond will take an almost full line-up to Carrara on Saturday to play Sydney, with only Mark Chaffey and Kayne Pettifer the usual senior starters to miss out.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/03/08/1141701572930.html
