Here's what we need to improve in '09
Fighting Tiger Bulletin - Issue 1 March 2009
By Richmond coach Terry Wallace
After a long, hot summer which saw the horrible bushfire tragedies within our country communities, I'm sure football fans are glad the 2009 AFL season is finally upon us. For Tiger supporters, the prospect of being entertained this season by the boys representing the Yellow and Black, is an enthralling one. . .
As we enter the new season, each club in the competition is trying to improve in every aspect of the game. It's your ability to keep players on the park, grow confidence throughout the team, and gather momentum, that can impact any season.
The fierce nature of this competition is to crawl over the top of those teams in front of you, while not allowing anyone to pass you along the way from lower down the ladder. In simple terms, for us, it means staying ahead of the pack currently outside the top eight. and lifting the intensity to seriously challenge last year's finalists. To do this, we must continue to improve in all aspects of the game, as the AFL landscape changes quickly.
The question I've been asked most regularly is, where will the team improve in 2009?
Depth
In recent years we've had a core of players good enough to play AFL football, but with so many young boys on our list, the depth of our squad was regularly being tested. When injuries hit, particularly to key players, the replacements were immature, undersized, inexperienced footballers, and this impacted the team's ability to win games. Through last year's trade and draft periods, however, we were able to add some ready-made recruits from opposition league clubs, as well as young, developing players for the future.
Adam Thomson, from Port Adelaide and Tom Hislop, from Essendon, are both ready to play senior league football for us on call. The pair of them have been in the system long enough, and possess the necessary ability, to impact AFL football immediately. Whether or not they are regular senior members, or support players for the squad, time will tell. but they certainly help bolster our depth.
Robin Nahas, while extremely small in stature, has played senior level VFL football, kicking 50 goals in a very impressive season for runner-up Port Melbourne last year. He is equipped to play against men straight away, adding a third option over and above what was at the Club last year.
Then, of course, there's the inclusion of Ben Cousins, who will not only add to the team's running ability, which was already a major strength, but also strengthen our midfield structure. This, in turn, will put pressure on our opponents in their decision-making, with regards to who, in our side, they lock down on through the midfield.
Those four players mentioned above certainly give us greater depth in our 2009 line-up immediately. Then, there's the return of key players from injuries, which will be a significant factor in bolstering our depth this season as well.
Angus Graham had an horrific injury run last year and virtually lost a season of football, but his return in '09 will clearly strengthen our ruck stocks, while regaining the services of some our tougher players, in Andrew Raines, Dean Polo and Jacob King, (from their '08 injury problems), also will give the match committee some genuine headaches with selection of our best 22 on a weekly basis. Add to that the return of Mark Coughlan, and you can see that our playing list is very even and now bats deeper than a lot of others in the competition.
Maturity of the playing group
I expect us to get a natural improvement from the development of players, who are now just establishing themselves as strong, regular senior Richmond footballers. The ability of our defence, particularly our key-position backs, to play together regularly, will assist in their understanding and belief in each other. Players such as Kel Moore, Luke McGuane, Will Thursfield and Jay Schulz are developing a great rapport together as a unit.
At the other end of the ground, young key-position forwards such as Jock Riewoldt and Cleve Hughes, now need to start to show greater maturity on game day and prove that they can regularly impact matches. These guys were given the opportunity to be the key playmakers in the forward line over the pre-season. Throw Mitch Morton into the mix, and it's clear we hove some young, developing forwards, who we expect to further develop in 2009.
In the middle of the ground, we received a huge boost last year from Victorian representative Nathan Foley and Jock Dyer Medal winner Brett Deledio, with strong improvement from players such os Daniel Jackson and Matthew White. All of these players are still in a growth phose of their AFL careers, and every Richmond supporter should be excited about their continued development and improvement os midfielders, as it offers us up a wonderful opportunity for us, os a team, to be extremely potent in the "engine-room".
This shows that we have development over over the ground, with other players eagerly waiting in the wings for on opportunity. . .
The importance of senior players
In pressure situations, wise heads always prevail and, usually, that wisdom comes from experience on the field of battle. At the moment, the Club has on excellent blend of developing players, as well as a strong core of experienced, senior footballers, who are starving for their own chance to achieve success. Providing this senior group remains hungry, they have the capacity to deliver some top results for the team this year.
Our core group of Matthew Richardson, Joel Bowden, Kane Johnson, Nathan Brown, Troy Simmonds and Ben Cousins, have class and experience personified. These boys will make their own luck along the way, and they deserve to have success, having either followed Richmond all their lives, or backed the Club by coming to Tigerland from elsewhere, to assist us in our resurgence.
The leadership group
During the pre-season, the Club decided the older senior players would naturally lead, without having to be part of the leadership group, and that it was time for a group of fresh, young players to take the Tigers into their next successful era. New skipper, Chris Newman, along with Nathan Foley, Brett Deledio and Kelvin Moore, really led by example over the summer months. They have been growing and developing along the way, plus challenging the entire squad to improve in every aspect of the game. They are the leaders of the next successful generation of Tigers. . .
Game plan
Those who were at the Jack Dyer Medal count last year, will recall I stated that tne most important area of improvement for us, as a team, was to pick up two goals a game defensively from our opposition. We have an attacking team, and are quick and damaging with our run-and-carry game. At times during the 2008 season, however, we defensively punctured and were not capable of restricting opposition teams to moderate tallies.
Later in the season this certainly improved as we fine-tuned some of our structures, but, more particularly, got the same team on the park week in, week out, which enabled us to ettle our plans and tactics for the team.
While our emphasis will always be on playing an exciting brand of football that our supporters are proud to watch, if we are to win those extra games and boost our percentage, it will be through structuring up in a manner that prevents teams from scoring too easily against us. We believe all our players have a clear understanding of what is expected of them after a preseason of regular meetings, walk-throughs and structural training. Nothing too much has changed; it has been more of a finetuning process, to ensure we continue doing what we did at the end of last season.
The key to our improvement last year was the team's desire to be known as one of the best-contested outfits in the competition. This, once again, will be a linchpin of our game, as every Tiger supporter wants to walk through the turnstiles each week, knowing the boys are always having a red-hot dip.
