Wallace hails Tigers' breakthrough win
Stephen Rielly | The Australian | August 20, 2008
IT remains unlikely, which is not to say impossible, that Richmond's unexpected victory over Hawthorn on Sunday will enable the Tigers to squeak into eighth position on the ladder and reach September for the first time in seven years.
Even if the Tigers defeat Fremantle at the MCG on Saturday and complete the regular season eight days later with a win over Melbourne, the club's final destination is still likely to be ninth -- Richmond's natural home as the position is known.
But Sunday's surprisingly assured performance against the Hawks will still amount to more than a breakthrough victory over a top-eight side even if it does not sneak the Tigers into September through the tradesman's entrance, according to coach Terry Wallace.
Wallace is well aware of the oft-heard and delusional Richmond cry which, after yet another narrow finals miss, goes something like, "we're the best team outside of the eight".
The Tigers have finished ninth five times in the past 14 seasons, most recently two years ago, and yet Wallace was prepared to attach particular significance yesterday to the win.
For a start, the patient and intelligent use of the ball that allowed the side to control much of the match spoke, Wallace said, of an emerging maturity.
"Clearly there has been almost a demarcation line with us during the year where, against the sides below us, we've done OK and against the sides above us we haven't done so well," Wallace said.
"We drew with the Bulldogs when they were in their best form. That was a pretty reasonable effort, on that particular occasion, but I think four-quarter-wise that was what we were more pleased about.
"From start to finish we got the job done the way we wanted to. We put a plan in place and the blokes stuck absolutely, 100 per cent with that."
But if this was heartening for a coach who knows that a shake-up within his football department is under way and only a week ago conceded he would be out of a job this time next year if finals were not certain, there was also a message in the result.
Richmond is a notoriously volatile football club, always willing to turn on itself and resort to blood-letting in difficult times. If self-belief, or a lack thereof, is the source of this, then Wallace believes that beating Hawthorn may restore some faith.
Perhaps he is hoping so, more than anything else. He is the 11th man to have coached Richmond in the past quarter of a century.
But Wallace described taking down the team placed second on the ladder only a fortnight before the finals as "really important".
"From a self-belief point of view, it's important for our guys to know that they can compete with sides that have been right up there for the entire year. I think that's really important," he said.
"From a direction point of view, too, as much as I can sit here and say I believe in our younger group of players and I think we're very even in the group of players coming through, for them to actually see it themselves.
"Even guys who are playing at Coburg at the moment -- a young Alex Rance goes to that game and says, 'well, I'm not breaking into the side at the moment but when I do break into the side it might be not a bad side to be a part of'.
"All those sort of things probably help us sell the message to ourselves."
Forward Nathan Brown is unlikely to return to the line-up for the match against Fremantle as he continues to recover from what Wallace describes as a combination of leg and hip injuries.
Brown did little at training yesterday and would appear to be in doubt for the following week as well. Midfielder Nathan Foley, who was a late withdrawal from the match against Hawthorn, was the better chance of the two to return, Wallace said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24209406-5012432,00.html
