How Pies loss helped Tigers overcome GeelongLachie Young
Chief football writer
Geelong Advertiser
December 1, 2019 RICHMOND captain Trent Cotchin says his team was able to use the lessons learnt from the painful 2018 preliminary final loss to Collingwood during its defeat of Geelong on the same weekend 12 months later.
The Cats stunned the Tigers in the opening half of this season’s preliminary final, racing away to a 21-point halftime lead at the MCG.
But unlike a year earlier when the Pies held onto their lead – albeit a 44-point margin – against Richmond, the Tigers found a spark to bounce back and ultimately book a place in the grand final.
Cotchin said understanding he and his teammates had time on their side allowed them not to panic and make the most of the momentum shift that came after the main break.
“Geelong is an incredible team so we always knew it was going to be a challenging match. I thought they were very well prepared and our boys were a tiny bit sleepy and they just executed their game plan a lot better than we did for the first part of the game,” Cotchin said.
“At the end of the day though you need to be in front on the final siren and that’s where we were. We experienced it a year before but the beauty of the Collingwood game was we learnt a lot of lessons that held us in good stead for this season.
“You don’t have to make up five or six goals in a matter of ten minutes, you can do it in two or three quarters.”
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