Pressure's off and Tigers are loving it
Rohan Connolly | April 30, 2009
HAVING kept the wolves at bay for the time being with its first win of the season, Richmond approaches its clash with Sydney on Sunday with a fresh mountain to climb.
The Tigers have a shocking recent record against the Swans, losing their last five meetings — most by large margins — and have beaten Sydney only once during Terry Wallace's five-year stint as coach. Richmond's last win at the SCG came back in 2004, when Danny Frawley was still in charge.
But Wallace yesterday was taking heart from the way his side was able to turn around a similar run of outs against North Melbourne last Sunday. Richmond had lost six of its previous seven games against the Kangaroos.
"We've had a pretty horrid run against the Swans … and I think last year up there it was 13 goals to one at half-time, so we certainly don't want a repeat of that. It's a great challenge," he said.
Wallace said he was particularly pleased his players had improved their hardness against North. The Tigers were clear winners of contested possessions.
"It always starts with contested footy, and we really prided ourselves on where we'd been as a contested side at the end of last year, and we sort of got away from that a little bit in the early part of the year," he said.
"The one thing we know is that Sydney will play a contested game, so that will really allow us to see how much ground we've made in that area."
Richmond is confident Matthew Richardson, who strained his buttocks against the Kangaroos, will be fit for Sunday's game, but is unlikely to gamble on Ben Cousins, Andrew Raines and Trent Cotchin, who are on the comeback trail and expected to line up for Coburg in the VFL.
Spirits were noticeably buoyant at training yesterday after the ice-breaking first win of the season.
"I was just looking at a couple of players out there … and they seem to be up and about again. That's the pressure and nature of the game," Wallace said.
"Now the job is to try to string a few together."
Wallace conceded the opening four weeks of the season had been one of his toughest periods in more than 30 years in the game.
"There's no doubt it was, because it's tough on family and friends, and it's more that you can't get away from it, that's the issue," he said.
"But I've very much tried to not get involved in what people are writing and what people were saying, because it's all opinion-based, and a couple of years ago I was writing those opinions myself.
"I don't take it personally. I never have taken it personally, and I think that allows you to keep some sort of control of it."
Wallace said it was nice to be able to go about his work this week without having to run the gauntlet of probing cameras and microphones.
"I think when you're in the game you never like to see anyone in crisis mode, because you know what it's like, your own feeling when you're in that sort of situation, but the reality of life is it spins from one to somebody else," he said.
"We just don't want it spinning back our way too quickly."
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/rfnews/pressures-off-tigers/2009/04/29/1240982277553.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
