Richmond face a line in the sand contest and it’s only Round 5, says Mark RobinsonMark Robinson
Herald-Sun
May 02, 2015ONLY at Richmond can it be Round 5 and we have a line in the sand game.
How did it come to this?
Coach Damien Hardwick was brutally honest with his post-match assessment last week and several times I reckon he wanted to label his team as soft. No one would’ve disagreed.
But by Monday, the furnace surrounding the players suddenly became a public defence of Hardwick.
Chief executive Brendon Gale indulged the commentariat rather than ignore questions about Hardwick’s future and because he did, the coach became the headline.
The players should be ashamed they put Hardwick and Gale and the club in that position.
Hardwick’s problem is his team is not good enough in enough areas and his post-match musings for the past couple of years sound a like Groundhog Day.
Round 15 v North Melbourne, 2013: “I thought we didn’t come to play early. They were harder than us ... just couldn’t get our game up and going.”
Round 21 v Carlton, 2013: “We certainly thought we were in better shape than what we played today.”
Elimination Final v Carlton, 2013: “We didn’t win contested ball at the defensive end. There is (a bright future). We know there is.’’
Round 4 v Collingwood, 2014: “Our guys can play, make no mistake. We’ve just got to find our mojo.”
Round 6 v Hawthorn, 2014: ‘’We just made some really poor blues.’’
Round 9 v Melbourne, 2014: “The one thing we’re really poor at was winning those one-on-one contests. They turned up to play and we didn’t. We go inside 50m we lose a one-on-one; we go down the other end and we get beaten one-on-one.’’
Round 11 v Essendon, 2014: “We’re just going to have to find some players that are willing to put up their hand and play the Richmond way.’’
Elimination Final v Port Adelaide, 2014: “We just couldn’t get our hands on the ball, we turned the ball over and we just couldn’t win critical contests. I didn’t think we played anywhere near our potential.”
Round 2 v Bulldogs, 2015: “The fact of the matter is we made too many mistakes. we can fix, we should fix and we will fix.”
Round 4 v Melbourne, 2015: “Tonight we didn’t come to play. We weren’t tough enough, the opposition out-hunted us, outmuscled us. Our best is well and truly good enough.’’
After that last game, Hardwick said his team could beat anyone.
His confidence isn’t shared by many.
It’s becoming increasingy obvious that if Tigers are not allowed to move the ball quickly they are then not prepared to scrap it out.
A couple of years ago they were a good stoppage team. They’d win it at the clearance and “whooshka”, everyone would be on their bikes and it was why the Tigers were known as quickest transition team in the competition.
The problem against the Western Bulldogs (Round 2) and Melbourne (Round 4) was those teams applied so much pressure at the contest and on the man, There was no “whooshka”.
It’s all about transition from the back half.
Champion Data calls it scoring chains originating behind centre.
Round 1 against Carlton they scored 56 points.
Round 2 against the Bulldogs it was 23 points.
Round 3 against the Lions it was 64 points.
Round 4 against Melbourne, it was just eight points.
Carlton and Brisbane are the two worst teams at stopping defensive transition, so the trend is obvious: Stop the run and you stop Richmond kicking a winning score.
Hardwick was frustrated last week because his team couldn’t play how they wanted to and his players wouldn’t scrap when they couldn’t run.
So, they don’t have enough scrappers and clearly they don’t have enough talent. So, we are left with a team floating mid-table.
Which poses short and long-term questions for Richmond.
The most pressing is: Where are they right now?
Hardwick started the rebuild in 2010. It’s 2015 and there are serious doubts this core group is good enough to challenge for a premiership.
By core, I mean Trent Cotchin, Jack Riewoldt, Brett Deledio, Dustin Martin, Alex Rance, Shane Edwards, Brandon Ellis, Bachar Houli, Troy Chaplin, who were the first nine placings in last year’s best and fairest, and 29-year-old Ivan Maric.
Then there are the players ranked between 10 and 25 and, sorry, other than flashes from Nick Vlastuin, the hardness from Anthony Miles and glimpses from Ben Griffths, there don’t appear to be many players who can join the core group.
So, do the Tigers hang mid-table or admit they aren’t good enough and start planning to be a contender for a flag in, say, 2020? I’m sure Richmond is asking itself the same question.
As for Hardwick, he can coach and he shouldn’t be an agenda item on a Monday night after Round 4 when he is contracted to the end of 2016. That said, it’s time we heard something different in the post-match press conferences.
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