Posted here a bit late. There are already pages on PRE with posters in melt down over being perceived as negative. If the shoe fits I reckon ...
Gloomy outlook on Punt Road horizon
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/general/gloomy-outlook-on-punt-road/2008/02/23/1203467463190.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2Karen Lyon | February 23, 2008
IT’S still February and already the claws are out for Richmond.
An awful performance against an undermanned St Kilda in the opening week of the pre-season competition has sent the passionate and volatile Tiger faithful into a tailspin.
Still weeks away from the opening bounce of the real stuff, the Richmond masses are already venting their collective spleen. The ever popular Punt Road End, the Tigers’ unofficial website, has been awash with disappointment since the half-strength Saints took an almost full-strength Richmond side to task last week and won by 40 points.
The word in football circles was that the Saints had no interest in winning the match and the betting followed suit, with Richmond backed from $2.30 into $1.50 favouritism. Before being beaten — badly.
After a strangely quiet pre-season at Punt Road, expectations rose quickly then were dashed in a half. Questions were quickly asked about the team’s lack of skill, lack of class, lack of leadership and lack of size in comparison to their opposition.
Four years into Terry Wallace’s reign, expectations that the young Tigers would stand up were immediately replaced by the belief that 2008 would mean more of the same for the fans.
Already, the Tigers share woodenspoon favouritism with Melbourne — the team it beat in a practice match on Friday — at $3.80 on TAB Sportsbet. It is, at $1.18, the most favoured team to miss the top eight — one wag on puntroadend.com suggesting that those odds are better than bank interest and arguably just as safe.
It’s the $71 outsider to win the flag. It’s a $21 chance to make the top four. It’s mid-February, and according to the bookmakers, the season’s as good as over for Richmond.
Of course, to suggest that preseason form is in any way an accurate guide to a team’s home-and-away performance is fraught with danger. Look at Carlton — in 2005 it won the NAB Cup from eventual grand finalist West Coast, then won the wooden spoon.
Last season, it beat Brisbane to win the NAB Cup, then finished second last, winning four games for the year and sacking its coach with six rounds to go.
Then there’s North Melbourne’s cautionary tale — smashed by Adelaide by 147 points in the first round of the 1993 pre-season competition, the Kangaroos sacked coach Wayne Schimmelbusch, appointed Denis Pagan and went on to make the finals.
Few inside the football world are willing to write off the Tigers — or any team — before the season even starts. Publicly, a group of former Richmond players contacted by The Sunday Age this week were not prepared to criticise or even comment on their old team.
But privately, several expressed their serious disappointment at the first-up performance and said the signs were not promising. "The fact that they were almost at full strength and St Kilda had half a side out and they didn’t give a yelp, that was the most disappointing aspect," said one.
"Perhaps it just does give the indication that people have overrated a lot of players at Richmond, and the list is obviously not that good, and the players that they have brought in haven’t been able to give them a lot."
Collingwood premiership captain Tony Shaw was another who wondered whether Wallace simply "doesn’t have the cattle".
"I didn’t like some of the early signs," he said. "Their kicking skills, turning the ball over under pressure . . . maybe he just doesn’t have the cattle. If they don’t have the ball in the hands of their quality players, players like Nathan Brown, Deledio and maybe Joel Bowden, a lot of the other blokes don’t kick the ball well enough.
"If you don’t hit targets by hand or foot, you are putting enormous pressure on yourself and you are going to be scored against," he said.
Shaw, like most observers, was keen to see what changes Richmond had made in the off-season but felt what was presented was more of the same. "I didn’t see a lot of style changes," he said.
"They were very indirect going into their forward line, a lot of wide passes instead of hitting the top of the square. I think they have got to start even thinking about playing a big body in the top of the square, whether its a Simmonds or somebody else, who can stand there and just straighten them up a bit, because they are indirect.
"You will really worry if it happens in the first round (of the premiership season)."
RICHMOND football director Greg Miller doesn’t hide from the fact that last week’s loss was disappointing, but thinks perspective is needed in examining a match that occurred before the weather has even turned cool.
"As far as we are concerned, sure we are disappointed in the result — it is not something that we would have liked at this time of the year — but putting things into perspective, obviously we are very pleased with our training, we are very pleased with how the club is going and we expect that to carry over to the main season," Miller said.
"The main objective of every team over summer these days is to get a solid base into as many players as you can. So there is no complaints, we have got a solid base for the majority of our players. Trent Crotchin, he is about the only one (who hasn’t), there have been a few who have had slight interruptions but we have had a good summer.
"I couldn’t tell you the same thing this time last year, when we had the Browns and the Coughlans and the Simmonds, these guys out. We are pleased with our summer."
Cotchin, the club’s highly rated No. 2 draft pick, was this month added to the long-term injury list with stress fractures of the feet. Despite rumours the classy midfielder could miss a sizeable chunk of his first season, Miller said he would be available from round three.
Recruiting has been a major cause of Richmond angst in recent years. The poaching of the highly respected Craig Cameron from Melbourne over the summer provides some light at the end of the tunnel for supporters still angry with the selection of Richard Tambling ahead of Lance Franklin in the 2004 draft.
After claiming last year’s wooden spoon, the Tigers have hardly been spotted all summer. Usually one of the most high-profile coaches in the competition, Wallace has honoured a request from his players in spending much of the summer in the background, as other issues such as the expansion of the competition, the fate of the Kangaroos, Ben Cousins and drugs in sport have dominated the headlines.
Miller is adamant there will be no big headlines out of Punt Road before the real season starts. "We will let our onfield (performances) do the talking, it’s as simple as that. There won’t be any comments about anything and the Richmond faithful will have to wait for round one," said Miller.
"We didn’t do it in round one of the NAB Cup but we look forward to doing it in round one of the premiership season. When it counts."
