Why are the Tigers in decline?Chris_S
theRoar.com.au
1 July 2021Alot is being written about the Tigers and the end of an era. But is it really true?
Certainly, they are not the irresistible force they used to be but are they about to fall off a cliff or is this just a reset?
When you look at the Tigers players, most of the seasoned players are still playing well with no noticeable decline. Younger players are just starting their best years. Senior players may have slipped a bit but still earn their spot in the team.
Maybe it is just a hunger thing. Maybe three premierships make the players just that one per cent less desperate. Even their supporters probably don’t feel the losses quite so much now after four unbelievable years.
Is it reasonable to expect the players to maintain that 100 per cent focus and effort during the regular season? We are told by the experts that even a one per cent drop in today’s game seems to make a big difference.
Maybe if they make the finals will they regain that total commitment and get three in a row?
It will be unlikely that the Tigers will succeed this year but for a reason that has not been written about. That reason is the change in assistant coaches.
The assistant coaches that helped Damien Hardwick get this side from a mid-ranked team to the top have now all gone. Ben Rutten left a couple of years ago and Justin Leppitsch and Craig McRae moved on last year.
These were the people who came in after the Richmond review. These are the people who, from the outside at least, drove and enabled the development and changes in 2017. Not just the players, but the coach as well.
Ben Rutten has shown how good he is at Essendon. Alastair Clarkson grabbed McRae for Hawthorn and Leppitsch must surely be a serious contender for the next coaching vacancy. That’s a huge amount of smarts that has left the club. You can’t just replace these guys with like-for-like replacements overnight.
Replacing these three exceptional assistant coaches could not have had worse timing, just when Richmond must find a way to replace five ageing champions.
These ageing champions have earned the right to be first choice in team selection unless a young player is playing too well to be ignored. However, the young Tigers players coming through are just not quite at a level that they demand their turn.
If they don’t get their turn then they may fall away and be lost to the club. This is where Craig McRae in particular appears to be sorely missed.
Not only did these assistant coaches bring footy smarts, they were also senior enough to be on an equal footing with Damien Hardwick. Leppitsch had senior coach experience and Rutten was targeted from Geelong. Clearly Hardwick trusted them.
The current assistants may be very good and hopefully for Richmond they will fill the void but it is a big void to fill especially with reduced soft salary caps.
We know that Richmond still have a good playing group and we know they have a good senior coach. What we are seeing at Richmond is the true value of very good assistant coaches.
Whether this is the end of an era will depend on how good the current batch of assistant coaches can become.
https://www.theroar.com.au/2021/06/30/why-are-the-tigers-in-decline/
