Wary Brown looks to finals
Lyall Johnson
The Age
June 18, 2006
RICHMOND was starting to believe it was a realistic chance of making the finals, senior Tiger Nathan Brown said on the eve of the club's must-win match against Hawthorn at Aurora Stadium in Launceston.
While the players "haven't spoken about finals yet", due in part to their poor start to the season that included a couple of 100-plus-point thumpings, Brown said their recent form had put them in a position to challenge for a spot in the eight.
"We realise finals (are) a realistic chance, but I guess to make finals, we have got to beat sides like Hawthorn who are in the same sort of running as us," Brown said yesterday before heading to Tasmania for his second game in two weeks on his return — again — from a broken leg. "We have got to beat the teams we're expected to beat and then try to pinch a few against sides that people probably think should beat us.
"We pinched a game against Adelaide, we beat Geelong down at Geelong. People didn't expect us to win that. We threw one away against Fremantle a couple of weeks ago, but … finals is a realistic chance. At the same time, it is a long way away."
The Tigers go into today's match warm favourites, with six wins from their past eight matches, compared with the Hawks' recent record of six straight losses.
Yet Brown said the club had to be mindful it was not over-confident or thinking it was already enjoying its mid-season break.
"Hopefully, blokes don't go into holiday mode a week early," he said. "Some blokes will go away and freshen up, get a suntan, but the task at hand is this round and this is a must-win for us," he said. "… But the last 10 games … isn't a new season. It's just picking up where you left off and making sure you do all the things you did to win six out of (eight) games before the break."
Brown said he was feeling good about his recovery progress and that last week was the first time he had been able to train fully after playing a match.
"(I) trained fully this week. It is the first time I've been able to do that after playing a game and I'm so excited to be out there two weeks in a row," he said.
"I've just got to spend a lot more time on the recovery and rehab part of it — getting massages, icing up every couple of hours. I've got to make sure I get down to the bay and walk in the water and, I guess, not have a beer at night …
"I've got a compression stocking that I wear for it — it's just precautionary — that makes sure I can come up week after week now."
Missing from the Tigers' line-up for the second week will be Tasmanian key forward Matthew Richardson, who has a wrist injury.
Richardson, who also said the clash was a crucial one for the club, was disappointed at missing out on playing in Tasmania, the state where he first played senior football for Devonport when he was 16.
"When the draw came out and I saw we were playing in Tasmania, straightaway I thought it would be good to have a game down there wearing the Richmond colours," he said.
"I was looking forward to it, and to have the injury now is very frustrating, disappointing."
The Tigers enjoy a strong support base in Tasmania, and Events Tasmania director and former Richmond coach and premiership player Paul Sproule said the match was expected to break attendance records at Aurora Stadium.
Sproule said Richmond's popularity in Tasmania had surged during the 1960s and '70s, partly due to the Tigers' success in that era and partly to the number of Tasmanians who had played for them, including the legendary Royce Hart.
With MICHAEL COULTER
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/06/17/1149964788354.html
