Damien Hardwick defends slow start to 2023 seasonThe Tigers are off to a slow start to 2023, with injuries galore and a poor run of form. However, coach Damien Hardwick says the club won’t change its lofty expectations for 2023.
Sam Landsberger
HeraldSun
April 14, 2023 Coach Damien Hardwick says a depleted Richmond won’t recalibrate its 2023 expectations as 195cm defender Ben Miller prepares to carry the ruck load along with Samson Ryan.
The Tigers face Sydney at Adelaide Oval on Friday night – the only Gather Round match yet to sell out – knowing a loss would condemn them to their worst start to a season since 2016, which was before their golden premiership run.
Miller, 23, was forced to ruck solo for most of last week’s VFL match against Footscray after Bigoa Nyuon suffered an ankle injury and he recorded 33 hit-outs, five clearances and kicked a goal against Bulldog Jordon Sweet.
The wounded Tigers have lost triple-premiership ruckman Toby Nankervis (ankle), spearhead Tom Lynch (foot), midfielder Jack Graham (hamstring) from last week and are still without Jayden Short (calf), Josh Gibcus (hamstring), Ivan Soldo (foot) and Robbie Tarrant (hip).
The Tigers however, do regain veteran Jack Riewoldt to fill the void up forward.
“There wasn’t too many magnets to throw around, to be honest,” Hardwick said on Thursday.
“We’ve just had a rotten run of luck, really, with some of the significantly long-term injuries as well with breaks and those sort of things.
“We need to play better, we know that. But what we are doing is defending well and our contest work is good.
“We’ve just got to make sure we get our offensive game up and going.
“We saw snippets of that last week.”
Hardwick hoped a forward line of Jack Riewoldt, Dustin Martin, Shai Bolton and Noah Cumberland could shake off the scoring woes, with Noah Balta set to remain in defence.
The Tigers have tumbled from the AFL’s best attack last year (averaged 98.4 points) to No.15 (74.
this year.
They are scoring almost four fewer goals from turnovers this season.
But Hardwick was defiant that the Tigers could salvage their season.
“Richmond don’t shift their expectation, we just keep going full steam ahead,” he said.
“The reality is the season’s still young. We’re four games in. Are we where we’d like to be? No.
“But we’ve been very close. We’ve lost by 14 points (to Collingwood) and five points (to Western Bulldogs) against two sides that played finals last year, and the Pies obviously made the prelim.”
Hardwick staunchly defended Lynch post-match last week after he knocked out Alex Keath and while Lynch was referred directly to the tribunal he was ultimately cleared.
“Players have to make split-second decisions. He doesn’t go into that contest thinking I’m going to iron out Alex Keath,” Hardwick said.
“He goes into mark, misjudges the ball and then he’s got to protect himself.
“Reasonable person test – 99 people out of 100 are probably doing exactly what Tom Lynch did.”
Hardwick – who said he once had an eScooter stolen from his home – also pleaded for Shai Bolton’s premiership medallions thief to return them.
He doubted whether the AFL striking replicas to replace them would carry the same significance.
“We hope someone wakes up and says, ‘You know what, I’ve done the wrong thing. I’ll give them back’,” Hardwick said.
“You’d probably have to ask Shai, but from my point of view you get those on grand final day so they’re pretty special.”
https://www.codesports.com.au/afl/afl-news-how-do-richmond-turn-their-season-around/news-story/0db253622d46ec37c97edf28fdc18b8d