Richmond resurgence rides on Alex Rance's football smarts Rohan Connolly
The Age
August 21, 2014 Athletes who can play football are a dime a dozen in the AFL age. What’s perhaps at an even greater premium these days are genuine footballers who happen to be athletic. And Richmond might have got lucky on that score with key defender Alex Rance.
For much of the three decades it has mostly languished in the football wilderness, Richmond has been saddled with defences that couldn’t negate that well, and frankly butchered the ball on the rebound.
In his first few years at Punt Road, that was often the knock on Rance as well. But as the Tigers continue their late-season rally, compiling their longest unbeaten streak since their last premiership year of 1980, the tall defender has had a lot to do with both the victories, and the changing of that perception.
Football smarts, and in this case bloodlines, have much to do with it. Rance fares well on both counts, the lessons learnt from his father, former Footscray centre half-back and West Coast captain Murray Rance still invaluable even six seasons into his AFL career and having recently passed the 100-game milestone.
“We try not to overdo it because you lose that father-son relationship and it becomes a bit too businesslike,” Rance told SEN after another solid defensive game on Adelaide’s Taylor Walker last weekend.
“But we definitely do bounce off each other and chat about the different things involved [in a defensive role]. He has taught me a lot, and he does still see the game very well.”
No longer can defenders, even key position players, afford to be purely stoppers. Anticipation of opposing forward thrusts and the ability to rebound has become an integral part of the profile required, and Rance has it down to a fine art.
The Tiger backman has had no peers in the AFL this season when it’s come to cutting off the lead of an opposing key forward. And genuine football nous, along with the confidence of becoming an established part of the senior group, has played a big part, as Rance explained to Fox Footy’s On The Couch last Monday night.
“I’ve come to a point in my career now where I know what works for me and what I feel comfortable doing,” he said. “Some payers are comfortable taking lead lanes, some like to have the contact.”
But knowing which tack to take for which opponent is a key. “For players like Nick Riewoldt, who’s just a machine and chews up the turf, I might take a few more liberties and take the lead space a bit more,” he said.
Against Walker, Rance combined that with a more physical approach than he’s usually taken on his rivals, which managed to at times throw the Crow off his game, finishing the low-scoring scrap with only two goals.
And what can no longer be disputed is Rance’s ability to pick the right option at the right time. Judgment has become a key to his game, and the figures this year indicate just how much.
Rance currently ranks No.1 in the AFL for intercept possessions at an average of 8.1 per game, comfortably ahead of North Melbourne’s Scott Thompson, who has been a serial leader of the statistic.
But increased consistency is also a key. Since the start of 2012, Rance ranks seventh overall for intercept marks, 127 of them over his 59 games in that period. And the more defensive aspects of his job haven’t suffered, either, Rance over the same period sixth overall for spoils.
Indeed, his numbers for disposals, uncontested possession, rebounds, intercept marks, spoils and tackles have been remarkably similar since 2011, just his third season of AFL football.
Rance has become bigger, stronger and obviously more experienced during that time, but football smarts continue to serve him just as well. And perhaps it’s rubbing off on his teammates, too.
“I don’t think we’re any fitter or stronger, I think we’re probably just a smarter group now,” he said after the Adelaide win. “We know when to go, when to locate, and that really shows with the good defensive sides, they know when to run off and it’s not a Russian roulette game, it’s very calculated. I think that’s the main thing we’ve improved on.”
And done so with the articulate and football-smart key backman leading the way.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/richmond-resurgence-rides-on-alex-rances-football-smarts-20140820-106ekl.html#ixzz3AxK64Z9F
