Tiger coach holds out hope for clash with Port
May 12, 2007
The Age
RICHMOND coach Terry Wallace last night expressed hope — though nothing stronger — that his players will compete against early-season AFL surprise packet Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium today.
Six days on from the 157-point loss to Geelong that broke all kinds of unwanted records, Wallace said the horrors of that afternoon would stay with the club for some time yet.
But he was hopeful a strong showing against Power would start to heal the wound.
"We hope we at least come with the game of the first five weeks where we were competitive in each of those games, but certainly last week was a horror for the club in general and has been all week," he said last night.
"It's been one of those that has lasted on and in supporters' minds will for a fair while, so we've got a fair bit to make amends for.
"We rate ourselves as wanting to be competitive every time we play and so that's the bare minimum (expectation)."
The Tigers are grateful for one small mercy with the successful recovery of marking target Jay Schulz, who ran freely at the team's late afternoon run yesterday and is now odds-on to take his place.
"We're hoping he'll back up OK, we put him through a bit of a fitness test prior but brought over an extra player anyway just in case," Wallace said.
While expressing a desire to keep things open and aggressive, as he had done in narrow losses to competition benchmarks Sydney and West Coast, Wallace conceded Port's ruck combination of Brendon Lade and the returning Dean Brogan was capable of tearing his on-ball division to shreds.
"It's an extreme problem for us and it has been the whole year, we lost (Trent) Knobel and (Ray) Hall before the season, Troy Simmonds has been struggling to come up, Adam Pattison played in the early games and battled as an immature developing ruckman," he said.
"We've thrown (Matthew) Richardson in there because he's a man and can compete, but stoppages and first hands on the ball has been a major issue for us."
Port Adelaide's prospects seem as rosy as the Tigers' are grim, particularly after Kane Cornes and Brogan proved their fitness for today.
Coach Mark Williams put on a prickly front for the second consecutive week, after ensuring his players remained fired up for a meeting with fellow struggler Melbourne last round.
In terms of ammunition, Williams need only look as far as last year, when the Tigers applied a successful choke to an injury-affected Power side to run out a comfortable winner.
"I'm sure the Tigers would've just rolled out last year's tape and it would've showed they're pretty similar sides playing, I'm not sure we need too much motivation," he said.
"I'm sure they'll be harking back to playing pretty good against Sydney and West Coast and we're looking at those games rather than last week."
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