Wallace makes possession law
02 April 2007 Herald-Sun
Jon Ralph
RICHMOND coach Terry Wallace last night said his side was guilty of chronic over-possession after it coughed up what should have been a matchwinning lead against arch rival Carlton.
Wallace's Tigers were 27 points up after a pair of Kayne Pettifer goals in the third term, before the Blues recorded a 44-point turnaround.
Despite 70 more possessions, Richmond had 19 less inside-50s and wasted a golden opportunity to gain early-season momentum.
Despite the lead, Wallace denied the Tigers should have easily taken care of last year's wooden spooners.
"It was obviously disappointing," he said.
"We started all right in the second half and kicked the first couple of goals and got ourselves to a position where we were 27 points in front.
"(But) I thought it was probably a fool's economy, the 27-point (margin).
"They had had real opportunities to capitalise and didn't do so early in the game and just missed goal opportunities. I thought the game was closer than the score suggested."
He said his side had continually gone short from the backline and through the midfield, despite being instructed to take risks and get the ball moving forward.
"I thought we (over-possessed) all night," he said.
"I went to the Collingwood game yesterday and for a lot of the game they were in exactly the same position. Sometimes going short and keeping hold of the ball is OK for an individual because you don't want to lose possession, but it doesn't give you an opportunity to get the carry into the game."
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,21487121"It's obviously disappointing to be 27 points up. I thought it was probably a fool's economy the 27 points — they had had real chances to capitalise and didn't do so, so I thought the game was closer than the scoreboard suggested and I just think we went back into our shells. We missed targets because we weren't prepared to pull the trigger early enough and played a real stationary brand of football," Wallace said.
"I thought we did (over-use it) all night. Sometimes possession of the ball — going short and keeping hold of it is OK for you as an individual because you don't want to lose possession so you say 'I will go short chip it short' and make sure you maintain but it doesn't give you an ability to get the carry into the game.
"At half-time even though we were well up in possession rate and well up in time in possession we were well down in inside 50s. It wasn't correlating to playing a winning brand of football, something needed to change and it actually got worse, not better."
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