Round 3 Report CardFoxsports
22 June 2020RICHMONDFor the first time in over a year, Richmond was beaten; and at the MCG, no less. If we’re honest, the Tigers never looked like themselves on Thursday night, with the Hawks running past defenders described as “turnstiles” by St Kilda champion Nick Dal Santo on Fox Footy’s coverage. A team that averaged 104 points in the finals last season has now kicked just five goals in consecutive weeks. Obviously not having Dustin Martin hurt, but this was otherwise a full-strength side. Something has to be wrong.
In the votesIt’s never a good sign when your leading disposal getters are all defenders. Bachar Houli (25 disposals, six marks), Nick Vlastuin (22 disposals, six marks) and Dylan Grimes (18 disposals, seven marks) were forced into action all night and did about as well as could be expected; they gave up 16 scoring shots and recorded 14 themselves, which doesn’t sound quite as bad as the night looked. Only Trent Cotchin (18 disposals, three clearances) stood up in the midfield.
Room for improvementWhere do we begin? That frantic pressure that has become a hallmark of this side was missing all night; far too often the Hawks just ran through the Tigers. Then there was the ball movement, which was mostly non-existent. Far too often the Tigers were caught plodding their way down the ground as Alastair Clarkson’s boys flooded back and set up a tight defensive structure. On the few occasions the ball actually did get to the forward line, the Tigers made a mess of it, hacking kicks into intercept defenders or in one particularly poor moment watching Tom Lynch miss from the top of the goalsquare. Jack Riewoldt and Ivan Soldo were the lowlights.
GradeD-
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