Errant Hawks happy Roughead aim is true
Michael Gleeson | April 28, 2008
CONFRONTING the conundrum of where best to use its best player, Richmond's answer yesterday was "everywhere".
Matthew Richardson, the Tigers' most important player, played on a wing, drifted to defence to put the finger in the dyke of Lance "Buddy" Franklin and Jarryd Roughead and still went forward to kick four goals.
Former Richmond coach Danny Frawley had mused last week that after Richardson's successful migration to a wing, the experiment should be expanded to make him stand the AFL's most irresistible force in Franklin.
Playing one-out on Franklin was a bridge too far, but not the ploy of using Richardson in defence.
It symbolised an approach by Richmond throughout the match: ceding the potency of Hawthorn's forward set-up and the singular deficiencies of Richmond's defence if allowed to remain man-to-man, the Tigers pressed extra numbers to defence.
Ostensibly, this was Richardson, but in his stead, it was always a tall player. Variously, Graham Polak and Adam Pattison were also used and smaller running players also clustered back.
This left a largely barren forward structure for Richmond but also a congested Hawthorn one.
It contributed significantly to Hawthorn's wasteful scoreline, which on pure shots at goal, would suggest the final margin should have been in the 10-goal realm. But many a shot was taken from wide afield.
The other consequence of the numbers in defence, along with the team's usual marking target, was that fast ball movement was denied the Hawks. This appeared to create the belief in the Richmond players that shuffling the ball forward by hand — which often also entailed handing it back and in circles — was preferable to kicking it.
After the Collingwood loss, when Richmond descended into a basketball-like handball frenzy, coach Terry Wallace worried that teams couldn't win with numbers like that.
Yesterday was further proof to the argument, for even with a better structure and intensity, he was right.
Again yesterday, the Tigers had vastly more handballs than kicks (226 to 170), with 13 players enjoying a stats sheet weighted to handballs. As it was against Collingwood, several of these were midfielders and the disparity was enormous (read Tuck and Johnson).
This approach also worked partly into Hawthorn's pattern of play, for the Hawks are among the most intense sides at pressuring the ball coming out of their forward line. And that does not mean their forward 50 alone, but right through the ground.
It is like fighting through set after set of waves, trying to breach the break. There is no clear break and errors inevitably follow.
Moments before half-time, the Tigers took a kick-in and carried the ball to the wing by handball after handball before finally taking a kick from the boot of Adam Pattison. Pattison is a ruckman. Kicking is not his strength.
After the half-time break, Richmond returned to a slightly more familiar structure and approach. While players continued to press harder to defence, they ran the ball with more familiarity and style of movement.
Hawthorn had kicked twice as many behinds as goals to the main break and Richmond was left with a sniff that it should not have had. When the Hawks continued to miss early in the third term, Richmond was encouraged when was able to find avenues to goal. Early it seemed the only way the Tigers would score would be through the fantastic — a one-handed Richard Tambling mark, a snap on the wrong foot from 50 metres by Nathan Brown. Now they were coming via more customary routes.
Cyril Rioli matched Richmond's heroics with his own, kicking a goal-of-the-year contender when he crumbed the pack, broke two tackles without actually touching the ball at any stage with his right hand, held off another tackle and laid the ball on his left foot and curled in a goal. Buddy will not be the only concern in Hawthorn's forward line over the next decade.
And neither will Cyril. The match-winner, on the day, was not the man Richmond had troubled with but his foil, Roughead. The Tigers remained in contention in the final term — just five points down at the midway point — and it was Roughead who found space and clean hands in front and twice goaled.
BEST Hawthorn: Roughead, Hodge, Mitchell, Osborne, Bateman, Ladson. Richmond: Richardson, Deledio, Foley, Tuck, Thursfield, King.
THE UPSHOTDespite the win, the Hawks would be less than happy with the way they went about things, especially their goalkicking. They should have won by a street. Richmond would at least be pleased with the way it fought hard to stay in touch.
TALKING POINTHandballs. By half-time, Richmond was on target for a 250-handball game. Only five Tigers had more kicks than handballs. Things were only marginally better in the second half. The reason? Hawthorn's relentless pressure.
HOT AND COLDWith all the recent hype surrounding Lance Franklin, his return of 1.7 was terrible. On the flip side, he had enough of the ball to perhaps have nailed half a dozen. Matthew Richardson, however, even at the ripe old age of 33, continues to astound with his incredible work rate.
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