Better but not good enough: Wallace
By Katrina Gill
richmondfc.com.au
Saturday, May 12, 2007
RICHMOND coach Terry Wallace said there were some positive signs on Saturday, despite the Tigers suffering a 40-point loss at the hands of Port Adelaide.
The Tigers are still without a win this season but Wallace said he couldn’t question the endeavour of his young team in the 16.19 (115) to 10.15 (75) loss at AAMI Stadium.
“It’s a long hard season,” Wallace said after the game.
“If you just keep ripping into them and ripping into them on a regular basis you’re going to get no response eventually. It’s like kicking the dog in the corner isn’t it? Eventually you’re really not going to have the impact you desired anyway.”
Richmond trailed by 10 goals at the last break but unlike last week, fought on bravely to outscore the Power in the final term.
“I thought our effort and our intensity around the contest was far better than where it was last week so I have no issue with my players in those areas,” Wallace said.
“Skill level, execution and those sorts of things, we obviously still have to improve with a developing team.”
It was Port Adelaide’s transition from defence that proved too much for the ailing Tigers.
Inaccurate kicking in the second quarter not only punished Richmond on the scoreboard but gave the Power defenders numerous opportunities to launch a fast-paced attack.
“We made some fundamental errors, particularly in that second quarter, and our turnover rate and rebound rate going back the other way - it cost us. Every time we made an error they managed to kick a goal out of it,” Wallace said.
“Especially when you’re away from home and kick seven behinds in the second quarter, you need to put some sort of scoreboard pressure on to at least keep yourselves in the game and in the hunt.”
The Tigers on the other hand were stagnant in their ball movement, quite often forced to chip backward and sideward to avoid a costly turnover.
“I sat there at three-quarter time and sort of said we should take a leaf out of the manner of which they were running out of half-back,” Wallace said.
“We had three or four half-backs that hadn’t got themselves over the middle of the ground, yet you see guys like [Jacob] Surjan and [Michael] Pettigrew just charging up the middle of the field,” Wallace said.
“That’s good play and it’s also confident play. You see that when a side is winning, you’re prepared to back yourself in.”
The Tigers matched Port Adelaide in the clearances despite being forced to move Matthew Richardson into the ruck to help youngster Adam Pattison.
But it wasn’t until the last quarter that Richmond was able to make good on its forward entries with two late goals to Brett Deledio.
“I thought our guys really ran the ball hard, and the opposition may have dropped off a bit in that last quarter, but we can only deal with what we’re dealing with. I thought our guys probably had our best run and carry in the last 45 minutes of the match,” Wallace said.
The Tigers coach said while the result was a significant improvement on last week it would not erase the memory of the record loss.
“I think when you have a game like that (the Geelong loss) it probably from your own supporter group it probably takes about a month- six weeks to get over,” Wallace said.
“I mean, we’re sitting bottom of the ladder, we haven’t had a victory for the year yet, so there’s not much joy in the camp.”
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