RICHMOND AND A PREMIERSHIP HANGOVERLeigh Matthews,
Herald Sun
March 21, 2018Jonathan Brown often says I was at my most ferocious in the first pre-season session after we won the premiership.
I am not sure about that, but what was always an urgent priority for me was that we needed to change the language around a potential “premiership hangover”.
Rarely is the emotional baggage of a premiership win the reason why a team fails to win consecutive flags. Usually it is because of much more practical reasons.
Other teams can improve more quickly or you can fail to reach the level of the previous September.
As is often said, you can lose a premiership chance during the year, but you can only win one in the last match of the season.
To give yourself the best chance to win it again, the ‘‘starting from scratch again’’ attitude has to be the mindset.
The Tigers coaches and players cannot be thinking ‘‘back-to-back’’, or ‘‘defending a premiership’’.
Outsiders and fans certainly will, so when they want to discuss last year, be ready with a few prepared words, a polite acknowledgment and directing the conversation back to the here and now is a good policy.
There a many analogies that illustrate the task at hand. It can be compared to climbing Mount Everest, coming home and embarking again from the foot of the mountain.
Richmond players will keep getting taken back to the premiership, but the challenge emotionally is to start over.
Premiership teams have a reservoir of confidence they take into the next year that often helps them start the season in good form.
But the practical challenge for all premiership teams is that most of their players have had career-best years and backing up and improving further is a tough ask.
Richmond was dominant last September and can win it again. Its best players became outstanding.
Dustin Martin and Alex Rance were two of the most valuable players in the comp and Trent Cotchin found an aggressive level of attack at the contest late in the season which must have been inspiring to his teammates.
If these three stay fit, along with Jack Riewoldt and Nankervis, they will provide the core for the lesser lights to follow.
Half of their team were relatively unknown going into last season. Many I wouldn’t have known if I’d tripped over them in the street early in the year, but guys such as Jack Graham and Jacob Townsend just emerged from nowhere.
The form of Rance and Martin was as good as you can get. They hardly missed a game and Cotchin became a pretty good imitation of Michael Voss with his ferocious attack on the ball.
But where does their growth come from? Can all these players have career-best years again?
They have proved only they are good players for a short period of time, which includes a brilliant September.
It’s why winning successive premierships is no mean feat.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/expert-opinion/leigh-matthews-looks-at-the-talking-points-in-footy-this-year/news-story/b4a962821d6216d8e6bec10bd88a3ceb
