CONTINUED GROWTH OUR AIM IN '06
By Terry Wallace
Fighting Tiger Bulletin
March 2006
Well, another season is upon us and once again expectations are high for all 16 AFL clubs. When I meet Tiger fans in the street they remark how quickly the season has come around. In my couple of years out of the game it seemed like it was the Spring Carnival, Christmas, the tennis, cricket finals, and then the footy was back on. But the reality is that when you are full-time in this business, the summer months drag on, especially for all the hard-working players, who put their bodies through up to 20 sessions weekly in an effort to find a percentage of improvement in their game.
No coach, administrator or player has the answers to how their team will perform in the 2006 season. All we can assess is our training performances and improvement in our own structure and players. Obviously, we have no control over the strength of opposition clubs' lists and their ability to also improve.
The reality of football life is that not much changes in a 12-month period. Many of the sides who were strong and on the move in 2004 are those who had successful seasons in 2005 (Geelong, St Kilda, Sydney, and West Coast). You will always find a team which will make a quantum leap over a 12-month period, and Adelaide was that team last year. The reality is that trends usually take three or four years to evolve and you witness teams showing promise, who finally mature to become genuine challengers in the competition. That is where our expectations should lie. We need to continue to find improvement in the squad, so that our game style, competitiveness and win/ loss record continues to advance. This, in time, will ensure we become a power once again in the competition.
Those teams, whose graph shows one high year, then one low, normally fall by the wayside. Therefore, our expectation for the 2006 season should be continued growth and improvement for our Club, on and off the field. This statement may be a little tame and boring for some, but we are trying to be as realistic as possible in a tough, competitive environment. If we continue this strong line of improvement, Tiger fans will finally get the success they desire - and deserve.
In assessing what determines a good preseason and what does not, we all look for improvements in the strength, speed and stamina of our group. But it is usually the consistency of each player's pre-season program that determines what type of season they will have. Fortunately, I can report that most players at our Club have completed a full pre-season. Obviously, at times over a long, hot summer, you may have players who ease back for a week or so through fatigue. It's essential, however, that they complete most sessions to build not only a fitness base, but hardness in their bodies to cope with the rigors of a 22-week home and-away season.
Nathan Brown is the obvious one who has been slowly integrated back into full training, while Mark Chaffey and Greg Tivendale have had restricted programs due to 2005 injuries and off-season corrective surgery. It has also been important to ease several of our young players through the pre-season. Will Thursfield has had on-going back problems, but has gradually improved with the correct program and medical care. Other youngsters, such as Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls and Travis Casserly, have found it difficult going from three training sessions a week, to the demands of elite, professional AFL Football. As a result, these boys have been closely monitored throughout the pre-season.
All aspects of training are covered over the long summer months, but if you were to look for one noticeable difference in the players when they run out for the opening round of the '06 season, it would be the development through their core-strength areas. When I arrived at the Club, I believed that our boys appeared to have sailors' or tennis players' legs. But with a genuine emphasis on improving their core strength, we have seen a huge improvement in their leg strength and power throughout the pre-season.
HOW DO WE IMPROVE IN 2006
Obviously, we would expect our game style and plans to be more ingrained into the group with 12 months of this under their belts. Most improvement, however, comes from individuals within the team structure. Although many supporters are very keen to see development and improvement in last year's draftees, I believe, at times, we can expect too much, too quickly, from players who are new to the AFL system. My expectation is not huge on our first and second-year players, and at the top end I do not expect massive improvement from our senior boys, who all finished in the top half dozen of the Club's Best and Fairest last year. Players such as Joel Bowden, Matthew Richardson, Darren Gaspar, Andy Kellaway and Kane Johnson need to hold ground and give at least the same level of performance in 2006.
If we are to genuinely improve, it will need to come from those players who have been in the system four years-plus, but have not yet reached their potential. We need a quantum leap from players such as Chris Newman, Chris Hyde, Ray Hall, Kayne Pettifer, Patrick Bowden, Troy Simmonds, Trent Knobel and Andrew Krakouer. These players have been in the system long enough to understand the level of performance required to be an elite AFL player. If the Richmond Football Club is to have genuine success in 2006, it will be through the efforts of some of these boys taking a quantum leap with regards to their input to the team.
SETTING THE FUTURE DIRECTION
Last year the team was very much driven by the coaching staff and football administration. We set the rules, objectives and values that we wanted within a new club structure. This was important in the first 12 months because we believed the group needed a firm hand and some direction and guidance to get back on track. But in all successful sporting organisations, the values of the group and objectives of the team need to be owned by the players, as without this ownership the club's vision is not necessarily shared by all. On our return to pre-season training, I challenged the playing group to take more control of their own destiny at the Club. They needed to drive Richmond forward towards future success as a group. I was extremely pleased that the senior leadership group took on this challenge. Through Kane Johnson and the team leaders, they organised the players to come up with their own values and vision for 2006 and beyond. This group has set themselves to meet and assess how the group's performance has been, both on and off the field, which I believe creates an extremely healthy environment to work in.
FOCUS ON THE START OF THE SEASON
I have never held much weight to performances in the pre-season, NAB Cup or practice .match series. In the past, I have seen teams fail after a successful summer blitz, and other sides get away to a flyer despite having lost all their pre-season games. The reality is the season starts Round 1 and no previous form enters into calculations from that day onwards.
It is fair to say that the AFL draw has set us a very difficult assignment at the start of the 2006 season, but this should be seen as an enormous challenge for all our players. In the past few years the Tigers have jumped out of the blocks, only to fall away in the second half of the season. After studying this year's fixture, I reckon if we can be competitive early on, and win our fair share of games, we have a superior run home with many home MCG matches in the latter part of the season. We are setting ourselves for the opposite to recent seasons and hope to come home with a 'wet sail'.
Competitive performances in the first two months of the 2006 season will determine whether we are in a position to take up this challenge in the second half of the year.
