The underlining ‘hunger issue’ that could stop Richmond going back-to-back (Fox)

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The underlining ‘hunger issue’ that could stop Richmond going back-to-back

June 23, 2020
Matt Balmer
FOX SPORTS

But so far this season, a number of premiership fancies have struggled to fire a shot, with GWS, West Coast and Richmond among the clubs outside the top eight.

All three are tipped to go deep into finals action, but so far Richmond is one of the major shocks.

With one win from three matches, Damien Hardwick’s men have a tough job to compile back-to-back premierships, with a number of Grand Final heroes unable to have a major impact.

St Kilda great Nick Riewoldt believes the lack of atmosphere at games was hurting the Tigers, with their system breaking down like never before.

“The Tigers have been box office for three years. We know they love the prime time, the big stage. I think it’s a hunger issue for them,” Riewoldt said on Fox Footy’s On The Couch.

“You look through their team, they are such a system based team. When everyone is playing well, they all look great. When everyone is buying into the system they all look great.

“When a few are off and you play in that sort of system, they look bad. We see these uncharacteristic mistakes.

“That’s when the Tigers run and gun with handballs, we haven’t seen this stuff (long kicks, turnovers) for years from the Richmond Football Club.

“I think they’ve been to the top and they know what that feels like and they feed off the Tiger Army, they feed off the drums before the game. Right now there’s a vacuum.”

AFL 360 co-host and Herald Sun chief AFL reporter Mark Robinson believed their game was “falling apart”, given a number of crucial stars were unable to get their hands on the ball.

“If Nick Vlastuin and Dylan Grimes didn’t play on the weekend, they would’ve lost by 80 points, that’s how bad they are going,” he said on AFL 360.

“Their small forwards aren’t touching it… Dan Rioli has fallen off a cliff in the last couple of weeks. Their game is falling apart.

“Playing their game, they’ve got to be on. Richmond aren’t. Three years they’ve been up, I can understand why the motivation levels aren’t there. It’d want to come pretty soon.”

https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2020-richmond-nick-riewoldt-afl-ladder-form-slump-on-the-couch-mark-robinson-afl-360/news-story/0f014c44b2cd6ce0c9d5db2cf792d487