Richmond is master of the rebound game
Jake Niall
The Age
July 3, 2006
There has been a pattern with Richmond this year, so an upset win yesterday was on the cards.WE COULDN'T see it coming, could we? Well, everyone should have known that, at the least, Richmond would come out snarling and attack both the ball and the Magpies with an intent that had been absent a fortnight ago.
This has been the Tigers' pattern in 2006. They are a group whose best performances have followed their periodic worst. And Terry's Tigers are far more comfortable hunting, as unfancied outsiders, than being in the opposition's crosshairs, as they were in Tasmania when whacked by Hawthorn.
Consider the Richmond rebounds. Round one, the Tigers were belted by the Bulldogs by 115 points; the following week, they ran a near full-strength St Kilda close and might have pulled off a monumental upset if not for mid-game injuries.
Their round-seven hammering by Sydney was even worse — 118 points — although they fielded a papier-mache defence that afternoon. Seven days later, Terry Wallace reached into his bag of tricks, devising an ugly chipping-game style that brought unwarranted attacks (including one from Kevin Sheedy) but, more importantly, delivered his club a three-point victory over the Adelaide Androids in what remains the season's greatest turn-up.
Then, the week before the break came what Wallace has deemed to be his team's worst performance yet in 2006, when it was smacked by Hawthorn. Yesterday was arguably its best, given the margin and the fact the Tigers did it by more conventional means — winning the contested ball and using it well — than was the case in the Twilight Zone of the Adelaide game.
Whence does this capacity to re-group and rebound with such ferocity come? From the coach, perhaps. "Terry's got a fantastic ability to bring the best out of the players and not to let them dwell on the past and the bad performances, but to continually lift them up and take them forward," explained Richmond chief executive Steve Wright. "I mean, you're going to have bad games but you've just got to make sure they don't become three or four bad games in a row.
"Terry doesn't let momentum go the other way. He gets self-belief back after a loss. He works them hard after a loss and the players come out and want to prove themselves."
Wallace's response to the Tasmanian capitulation was to train the Tigers hard immediately after the defeat, before allowing them their head over the break. But his big decisions came last week, as a confident Collingwood beckoned.
"I don't know how the Socceroos would feel. They've got to wait four years to get another opportunity," Wallace observed. "I thought a fortnight was too long for us … we wanted to prove a point."
"The Plough" had kept an eye on the weather, and in his mind, it was evident four days from the game — in as much as anyone can predict Melbourne clouds — that the MCG would be sodden and soft underfoot yesterday, and that the Tigers would prepare and select their team accordingly.
Matthew Richardson was ruled out — he had a sore hand — and Andrew Krakouer, who had taken his holiday prematurely on the afternoon of the Hawthorn game, ruled in, on account of his wet-track form. "In those conditions, he's magnificent," said Wallace, after Krakouer's three goals and slick ball handling. "Today was an Andrew Krakouer day."
Wallace had taken the step of organising a closed Friday training session at Trinity Grammar, where players reacquainted themselves with the soapy ball and the simplicity of wet-weather football.
"It was about wet-weather footy, adapting to the conditions and setting up a different forward structure and what we were going to do with our back line if the conditions were wet." The lessons were reinforced, Wallace said, at "an extraordinary meeting" at Punt Road before the game yesterday. "What was on the line was our pride."
If Krakouer is one with a W next to his formline, Shane Tuck is surely another — and one only has to recall his remarkable father Michael, and uncle Gary (Ablett), to know he's bred for all conditions. It was Tuck, as much as anyone, who set the ball rolling Richmond's way yesterday, with six hard balls plucked from the congestion in the first quarter. Wallace compared his barging body type to that of Nathan Buckley and Michael Voss.
Richmond is now in the eight. It has beaten two top-four teams, and been beaten by a combined 233 points by two other highly capable sides. Brilliant sunshine follows the storm clouds at Punt Road, but unlike Melbourne's weather, there is a pattern.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/07/02/1151778813722.html
