Is Tiger Tough Enough?

Troy Willis looks at how Richmond will fare in season 2006 by taking a peek at its recent past.

Passion. It is defined as a powerful emotion, such as love, joy, hatred or anger. You will find it hard to get a more passionate supporter base than those who head along to the MCG to watch the Richmond Football Club ply their trade.

What brings about this passion? It might be the fact that even the Melbourne weather doesn’t change as much in a day than the emotions of a Richmond Club Member. They are a club that has two finals appearances since 1990. Have not won a premiership since 1980.

Yet they are consistently in the top five of the AFL for attendance and dominate the headlines of newspapers. During these lean years though there has always been hope. Richmond started the season in 1995 with seven wins and finished with 15 for the year and played finals football.

With players such as Wayne Campbell, Nick Daffy, Brendan Gale just entering their prime, good things were envisioned for the club. Supporters had to wait until 2001 to taste finals football again. Still lead by Wayne Campbell, but this time it was Matthew Richardson, Darren Gaspar and Brad Ottens giving him support.

Richmond has finished ninth on numerous occasions between these rare finals appearances. Love at making the Preliminary Final in 2001, joy at making the finals for the first time since 1982, hatred of waiting 13 years, anger at another Richo miss from 15 metres out, straight in front.

Richmond is a club that now is considered again on the way up. Nathan Brown was lured with a big money offer followed by Coach Terry Wallace the season after. Mark Coughlan and Darren Gaspar both returned after missing most of 2004, Shane Tuck emerged as a leading midfielder in the comp and Brett Deledio was the Rising Star.

The midfield has been an area of the ground that Richmond, while having big names such as Campbell, Knights, Daffy and Broderick have always struggled to maintain dominance. Previous Coach Danny Frawley liked to play N.G Brown, Campbell, Kane Johnson and Bowden through the middle.

All are very good and skillful players. But none of them are what is known in football terms as an “in and under” or “accountable” players. So when Richmond had the run of play the midfield looked great. But too easily opposition midfields were able to win contested football.

When Wallace came on board he wanted to increase the pressure in the midfield as well as all over the ground. Tuck, Coughlan, Hyde, Chaffey were brought into the midfield last season. Bowden moved to half back, Brown deep in the forward line until his horrific injury and Campbell played various pinch hitting roles all over the ground.

Coughlan, Tuck and Hyde would make Tommy Haffey smile. They are tough and would rather walk on hot coals than see the ball won by the opposition. These moves provided better balance with the creative flair but sometimes loose checking of Captain Kane Johnson.

However halfway through the year Coughlan and Tuck tired. Wallace has identified the depth of the midfield as where the Tigers need to improve this year. Most teams in modern day football rotate at least eight players through the midfield. Richmond supporters need only to look at the current Western Bulldogs side if they need assurance Wallace will live up to his word and improve the depth.

Cross, Gilbee, McMahon and Giansiracusa are all products of Wallace’s system before he departed the Bulldogs. Youngsters such as Krakour, Foley, and Deledio along with Newman are earmarked initially as players to improve the depth for Richmond. Krakour and Deledio have the pace and skill to be creative additions while Foley and Newman will fill a similar role to Coughlan and Tuck.

While coaching at the Western Bulldogs, Wallace got the reputation of being one of the best tactical coaches in the AFL as well as getting his players to play tough unrelenting football. Danny Frawley should always be remembered as a good coach. He coached the way he played, with his heart.

There was always the query on his tactical noose. There was a plan A, sometimes a plan B but never a plan C. It was evident in his first season that Wallace had the Tigers playing smarter football. Some of this saw players playing more suited roles to their skill set, and some of this was the match day tactics.

Terry’s Triangle was a much publicized implementation for Richmond’s Forward Structure. To long had Richmond’s only plan entering the forward line being kick it to Richo. Terry’s Triangle is based around a basketball offence made famous by Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

The concept of the triangle offence is to keep the floor spaced, constant movement of players leading to one on one match-ups and unpredictability. Matthew Richardson is one of the elite forwards in the game. One on one he is a nightmare for any AFL defender with his height, strength, pace and leaping ability.

He has constantly battled two defenders for countless number of years. Nathan Brown given a little bit of space is also very difficult to stop with his pace, football smarts and silky skills. Troy Simmonds or Greg Stafford was generally the third player in the triangle.

While neither being outstanding one on one players they generally were able to bring the ball to ground or take the occasional mark. The idea of the triangle was to give the team multiple options going forward and stopping teams from doubling teaming and triple teaming Richardson and Brown. 16 goals a game was the target.

This structure when implemented effectively shouldn’t need Richardson or Brown on the field to be able to produce goals. Another advantage for Wallace with Richardson being classed an injury prone player.

This new forward setup leads to Richmond being third on the ladder after nine rounds. Then the unfortunate injury to Nathan Brown and the wear and tear of an intense pre-season started to show on the Tigers side. Leading them to miss out again on the finals.

The positive from the injury was though that the side was still able to achieve Wallace’s target of 16 goals a game, only five times failing to achieve there target. Coming within two goals on two occasions and another occasion played in atrocious rain.

The future is bright for Richmond. Deledio, Tambling, Oakley-Nicholls are high draft picks showing tremendous potential. Schultz, Pattison and Patrick Bowden are young key position players.

Only Richardson is on the wrong side of 30 from what you would consider the side’s key players. They have a proven coach regarded as one of the best in the game here for the long haul. Can this be the time the Tiger’s not only make the finals, but can then play consecutive finals and allow there supporters to feel the one emotion of passion they rarely feel ... Joy.

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