‘Dimma was a bit more erratic’: What will a Richmond game look like in 2024?By Andrew Wu
The Age
March 9, 2024 “It felt like a Richmond game.”
This was one of Damien Hardwick’s favourite phrases during his time at Punt Road to describe how his Tigers played.
Even those whose football persuasion were not to the yellow and black knew the hallmarks of a Richmond game: surging the ball forward, front-half turnovers, dirty goals, just to name a few.
Unlike Craig McRae and Adam Kingsley, coaches who had success in their rookie season with new game plans, Adem Yze has not conducted a root-and-branch overhaul.
It’s not inconceivable that in Hardwick’s first game against his old club, the team he formerly coached will display more of his imprints than the side he now commandeers.
So what will a Richmond game look like in 2024?
StoppagesOne practice game is nowhere near a big enough of a sample size to make such predictions, but Yze said in an interview with this masthead last month he has made “subtle changes”.
The word out of Punt Road is there has been a greater emphasis placed on stoppages, an area which was not necessarily an Achilles heel for the Tigers but one they did not prioritise.
The Tigers ranked 14th for clearances last year but, having been 11th (2017), 16th (2019) and 15th (2020) in their premiership years, it clearly was not a cornerstone of their success.
In Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper, the latter coming off an injury-interrupted first season at Richmond, the Tigers have two big-bodied midfielders to help Dion Prestia on the inside.
“We probably put more focus on centre bounce and stoppage and that’s where we can kind of get the ball into our front half, and we can set up defensively around it,” Prestia said.
“It’s just a territory game. I feel like all teams play pretty similar and want to win clearance and want to win the turnover, but it’s just about having the ball in our front half and putting as much pressure on the opposition defence as much as possible.”
Yze has also foreshadowed more midfield minutes for Dustin Martin and Liam Baker, who made his name as a hard-nosed backman but became a prime mover in Hardwick’s latter years.
“I think there might be a few numbers spin through there a bit more,” Prestia said. “I think we’ll spread the load a bit.”
Young cubsA new coach brings fresh starts, and few at Tigerland have relished the change more than Thomson Dow, who plays in the opening round for the first time since being drafted in 2019.
Strong at the stoppage, Dow is thankful for the work Hardwick put into him to sharpen weaker areas in his game but appreciates the importance the Yze regime places in his craft.
“That’s favoured me,” Dow said. “We want to value that aspect of the game. It can be a very important and defining factor whether you win or lose.
“It’s been refreshing having a new mindset.”
Teams don’t make unexpected rises up the ladder without an unlikely improver, and teammates believe Dow can be that man.
“He has been outstanding, I think he’s gonna shock the competition,” Taranto said.
Tiger cubs Seth Campbell and Sam Banks also get first crack at bedding down spots.
Noah’s arcNoah Balta recalls spending an entire pre-season training as a forward, only to be told by the coaches minutes before round one he would be playing in defence. This time, it appears, the switch to the forward 50 will have a longer shelf life. It is Yze’s most noticeable positional change under their new coach.
“Dimma was a bit more erratic, to say the least,” Balta quipped. “But yeah, I’d go forward, back and ruck in the same game. I know this whole pre-season I’ve been forward and Yze’s pretty certain that I’m going to stick there.”
The idea was Yze’s and sold to the player on the idea his strengths – his speed and power – would be better utilised in attack than defence.
“When I was playing in the backline, it’s a lot of gut running, and there’s a lot of better players that are better than me at that,” Balta said.
“I’m a bit more of an explosive player. Yze explained that to me, and it felt like up forward I get to control how much I can run, actually. So instead of chasing somebody else’s backside the whole day I’m very excited.
“I feel like the fans are actually going to like me now.”
New beginningsPerhaps the most significant change at Punt Road is the one that can’t be measured: the fresh outlook that comes with a new coach. Except for only a few on the Tigers’ list, Hardwick had been the only senior coach they had played under before his shock departure midway through last year.
“He’s a lot younger than Dimma, so maybe he can relate to us a bit more,” Prestia joked of Yze, five years Hardwick’s junior.
“For myself, I was under Dimma for eight years. Some of the players like Grimesy [Dylan Grimes] and Dustin were under him for like 14, 15 years.
“Just having that fresh way to move the ball a little bit differently. It’s similar, but it’s a little bit different. It’s exciting when you have something new or a new game plan or a new stoppage set-up.
“It’s something new that gets you a bit excited because we knew that for seven years our game plan worked so well that we kind of stuck with it the whole way. That’s the exciting part about bringing ‘Ooze’ in.”
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