Looking at Richmond’s draw at the start of the season, a safe bet would have been to predict an unbeaten beginning in the first month of the season.
They were a top eight team from last year, and were playing four of 2014’s bottom six in their opening rounds.
However, this is Richmond we are talking about and again we have been fooled. They beat Carlton after a struggle, lost to the Bulldogs disappointingly, thrashed Brisbane and were then overwhelmed by Melbourne on the Friday night stage.
It was a poor performance and again indicated that they are a mile off challenging for the flag. The way they are playing they might be hard pressed to be in the finals.
They don’t have enough stars in their team and their depth is badly exposed when missing just a few of their best.
The better teams can adequately cope without some of their stars, but the Tigers can’t, with Brett Deledio again missing on the weekend along with Troy Chaplin.
They need some class. Stephen Morris, Nick Valustin and to some extent Brandon Ellis are honest. However, they are not match-winners along with Bachar Houli and Shaun Grigg, who have been good servants.
Deledio is probably their fourth best player and they are badly missing him, and when Jack Riewoldt doesn’t fire up forward, they lack other options on a consistent basis to take up the slack.
The other issue hurting the Tigers is their lack of effort at times. You don’t have to be talented or super skilled to have a good work ethic. You just require a good attitude and desire. Unfortunately that has been in short supply so far for Richmond.
On talent alone they won’t get anywhere near Hawthorn, Sydney, Port and Fremantle and they will struggle to beat the next tier of sides, which contain North Melbourne, Collingwood, Essendon and probably Adelaide.
It’s Damian Hardwick’s sixth year as coach and despite the club trying to rebuild for the previous 27 years and failing dismally before he took over, he elected to construct his own rebuild.
He managed to get them in the finals, but two elimination final losses in a row doesn’t constitute a successful era. The pressure now has to be on the man known as ‘Dimmer’ if they miss out on September this year.
They need to win every match where they are the favourites in order to extend their season. Taking nothing away from the Bulldogs and Demons, but the Tigers didn’t fire a shot and continue to be one of the league’s most inconsistent teams.
When will they grow up? Well, hopefully in the next four weeks as they have Geelong and then three monster ties against North Melbourne, Collingwood and Port Adelaide.
That could be the season on a plate and the coach as well.
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