Injury-free Richmond raring to go
The Age
March 18, 2008 - 5:10PM
Richmond coach Terry Wallace believes an injury-free list entering the AFL campaign vindicates his decision to keep competitive training work to a minimum during the pre-season.
The Tigers will enter Thursday night's season opener against Carlton at the MCG at full strength, a far cry from 2007 when they began without key players Nathan Brown, Troy Simmonds, Mark Coughlan and Will Thursfield and lost their first nine games.
Wallace said Richmond had deliberately eased off body-on-body work at training over the summer.
That means last year's wooden spooner starts this season with no major injury problems, but also no excuses.
"Over the last two or three years we've had something like 27 or 28 fractures to separate bones to players in the side," Wallace said.
"A lot of our injuries have been almost 18-month injuries, they've occurred in one season, had a player miss most of the pre-season and then that's impacted on his next season.
"But everyone's fit and well ... so that's a lot better shape than we've been in the last couple of years.
"We wanted to make sure from a football work perspective we didn't over-burden them.
"The grounds are getting harder and harder ... and we thought we lost about six guys last year with stress-related fractures in the lead-in to the season, and this year we thought we've got to get to round one with all our players up and running.
"You've always got a better chance of kicking off the season well if you've got most of the blokes out there."
This season shapes as a huge one for Richmond and their coach given finishes of 12th, ninth and last in the first three campaigns of Wallace's five-year contract.
Although annoyed at having his side written off by so many over the off-season, Wallace said he had deliberately kept a low profile over the summer so not to be accused of trying to spin positives in the Tigers' build-up.
But he acknowledged both he and his players had to handle the extra scrutiny well in 2008.
"What happens in this game is the microscope gets aimed at one person or one club and if you handle that well - the Kangaroos were in the same position last year and they handled it very well in the early part - all of a sudden the cannons get aimed somewhere else," he said.
"We've got a responsibility to get out and play some good footy and we believe we've copped a fair bit over the summer when there hasn't been a ball kicked in earnest yet.
"But that's the nature of when you're 16th, you've got to wear that and do something about it."
The only Tigers sidelined at the moment are Danny Meyer and draftee Trent Cotchin.
http://news.theage.com.au/injuryfree-richmond-raring-to-go/20080318-201i.html
