Hardwick apologises for rubbish gameBy Jennifer Witham
6:20 PM Sat 02 Jul, 2011RICHMOND coach Damien Hardwick has cancelled the Tigers' review process this week and says he never wants to talk about Saturday's 103-point capitulation to Carlton at the MCG again.
After a dark afternoon for the club, Hardwick was visibly shaken as he faced the media post-match and admitted he was shocked at the way his players gave up.
He was then asked how he would handle his young group, which was silent in the rooms post-match, as they faced the fall-out from the result.
After considering his response for a moment, he gave a simple answer. It would be wiped from memory and they would start afresh again this week.
"We spoke after the game and I just said, I don't ever want to speak about this game again," he said.
"That's as poor as we've played for a hell of a long time and we've just got to move on.
"I've got no doubt they're disappointed but there's no point dwelling on that rubbish, to be perfectly honest.
"Bin the review. It's not us. It's disappointing but it's not us."
Hardwick addressed the fans that turned out to the club's home game - and those who made a donation to the Fighting Tiger Fund (the quest to raise $6 million to erase the club's debt).
"Two words - we apologise. That's it," he said.
"It was probably the first time this year we haven't had a crack, our guys, and I'm very disappointed not only for the players but also for the people who put in the hard-earned dollars to try and get us back to where we need to belong.
"To dish up that performance is very disappointing. Very disappointing. The opposition were too good.
"I don't know … the one thing I can put my hand up and say is I thought our guys for the first 14 rounds of the year genuinely had a crack regardless of the scoreboard, and I thought today they didn't do that."
In breaking down the result, Hardwick admitted the Tigers had no winners across the ground and were sorely beaten in a number of areas.
The final stats sheet said the Blues won the clearances 53 to 31, the inside 50s 67 to 40, the tackle count 66 to 49 and contested possessions 148 to 113.
"It was all of it; our tackling effectiveness was poor, we couldn't get a hand on them, the contested possession work was poor, our inability to take the game on was poor," he said.
"I could go on and keep driving all these stats but at the end of the day, the guys have got to want to have a crack and have got to want to play, and that was really unlike us today and it was really disappointing."
He said the result wasn't considered a setback in his side's development and he didn't believe there was a 100-point difference between the two sides.
After conceding moving players around to cover the bevy of in-form Carlton players was "like shifting chairs on the Titanic", he said changes to the side for next week's clash with Essendon would have a similar effect.
"Dan Connors will probably play at Coburg at some stage, his first or second game for the year. Matthew Dea is the same, so at the end of the day you can change your personnel but you still expect some effort," he said.
"Changing personnel is not going to help us. We just need some effort."
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