With the 2019 season opener against Carlton now just seven weeks away, Richmond’s General Manager of Football, Neil Balme, has provided an explanation of how the Tigers have moved on from their 2018 preliminary final failure.
“You need to maintain that kind of unreasonable expectation to win all the time . . . beat everyone and always be there (up the top of the league ladder), which you kind of have to have, otherwise you can’t win. But if that’s all you’ve got to do, you can talk yourself out of it a little bit,” Balme said on Macquarie Sports Radio.
“What our blokes have tried to do is look at the reality of the (2018) season and say, what were you trying to do? We were trying to put ourselves in a position to challenge again.
“Did we do that? Yes, we did.
“When we got the opportunity, one of the games (against Hawthorn) was okay, the other (against Collingwood) was pretty ordinary.
“We were beaten by a side, who really played our game better than we did.
“So how do we deal with that? What we try and do is say okay, well we recognise that.
“We know that each time we play someone, it’s all about that day. It’s not about what’s going to happen in two weeks’ time or one weeks' time.
“And we’re hoping that will be enough for us to retain the belief in ourselves and the confidence in ourselves, to put ourselves in a position to challenge again, and then see what happens.
“So it’s almost as simple as that, I think.”
http://www.richmondfc.com.au/news/2019-02-01/practical-tigers-primed-for-new-season-
