Richmond have a good team, a team that should be pushing for finals thanks to their good core group of players.
Any team with Jack Riewoldt, Alex Rance, Dustin Martin, Trent Cotchin and Brett Deledio should be one of the best sides in the competition. Ivan Maric, Shane Edwards, Brandon Ellis, Anthony Miles and Bachar Houli are also good support.
So why did it take Richmond nine consecutive wins in 2014 to make the finals, and why are they going at just a 40 per cent win rate so far this season?
Their first 11 or so players are not the problem. Their next 11 are.
Richmond currently have too many passengers in their side. Players that do not want to take responsibility and take the game on themselves. These players do not want to take risks.
Too many Richmond players lose the ability to kick the football when Martin is in the general vicinity of them, it happens around a dozen times a game, sometimes even more, where Richmond players are in a perfect position to kick and be attacking, but instead opt to hand the ball to Martin, and in other cases Houli.
While it is not a bad idea to get the ball into the hands of your most dangerous players, it is a bad idea to do so when you’re in a good position yourself. You allow the opposition to get back and flood the defensive 50.
Martin, McIntosh, Miles, Maric, Jake Batchelor, Riewoldt, Sam Lloyd and Steven Morris were Richmond’s only players with more kicks than handballs against Geelong. In comparison to Richmond’s eight, Geelong had 12 players, more than half of their side, kick more often than they handballed.
Geelong players were not afraid to take responsibility. They took it. They won. Too many Tigers doubted themselves and would rather give the responsibility to others, namely Martin and Houli.
Richmond’s latter 11 players of their best 22 are simply not good enough to contend deep into September. If they want to become a more balanced team, they need not rely on a small group of players to get the job done. Each and every player wearing the yellow and black should want to kick the ball forward, to be the one who assists the score, to be the one that puts the ball in a dangerous position.
Right now too many would rather handball backwards 10 metres to a standstill Martin or Houli and expect them to do it for them. This is one glaring issue that the Tigers have, and is something rather out of the ordinary for a team to be concerned about. Teams who rely on too few are too easily found out by the opposition. Richmond’s first 11 players in comparison to their second 11 has a difference simply far too great.
This can be simply rectified. The passengers in the Richmond side must step up and be willing to be the one that drives the ball forward, or even then, to be the one to make the mistake.
Richmond currently sit in 11th place, and yet have the sixth best percentage in the league. The Tigers are not far off the pace, and games against North Melbourne, Collingwood, Port Adelaide, Essendon and Fremantle over the next five weeks will be telling to where Richmond are at.
The Tigers can easily win three to four of those games if they play as a team of 22 players, rather than just 11.
Milo
Roar Rookie
Like to think some of us have got it right : " match committee can be brave enough now and select the likes of C Ellis, Lennon, McDonough, McBean, Menadue, Arnot " McBean is playing, Ellis is playing, Menadue is playing, Lennon & Arnot have been up & down to the seniors. Still want McDonough to play. On the flip side, nothings convinced me that Vickery shouldnt be traded, and Grigg and Chaplin are still cruisers holding back others. Thankfully Petterd, Knights, Hampson, Lloyd and Gordon arent playing anymore.
Crunch
Guest
Gee; luckily you posters are not part of the Tiger's selection panel.
Trevor
Guest
Agree on most counts, except for Edwards. He is one of the biggest and most overrated passengers. No poise, poor decision maker, poor disposer, gets lost ball watching, always chasing and reactive. How a bloke who has kicked just 104 goals from 154 matches as a goal kicking small forward and continually gets rated as a star is completely baffling to me. He is never, ever going to win a game for you with a five goal haul or by taking an opposition backfire apart. Not in the same league as Johnson, Breust, Rioli, Betts, yet his lack of impact seems to go unnoticed. Racks up a few ineffective handball stats and that's about it.
Gecko
Guest
This Richmond team's strength is its scrapping, not it's finesse. They have too many poor disposers to play link footy. They need to build a game based on bombing it long from the middle and just locking it in with scrappy play. If it's not in the hands of one of the better kicks (Martin, Houli, Deledio, Newman, Rance) they need to run it out of the back half with handball. Just get it to half way then bomb it long. The Bulldogs have shown you can use the 'bomb it long and lock it in' approach if you don't have enough Hawks-like class to run it from end to end.
Jack
Roar Pro
I don't like how Richmond are stuffing around with Morris in a forward pocket playing a defensive role on a defender, because when it comes a time for him to be attacking and make his man accountable, he just doesn't have the football nous to make it as a forward. He's a see ball, run at ball, or see man, run straight at man type of player, and this is why he is suited to a back pocket lockdown job. Up forward he's a liability. I think he has a place in the team, but I think the experiment is over and needs to be played in the backline where he can be far more effective. Corey Ellis in particular looked very good on debut, hopefully maintains his spot throughout the season. Menadue also looks exciting but will need a little bit of time to develop.
Jack
Roar Pro
I conceded this in the article. While it is not a bad idea to give the ball to your most dangerous players/kickers, it is a bad idea to do this on each and every occasion, and fail to put any responsibility on themselves, it becomes a very one sided team where half of the team is doing the heavy lifting and the other half is doing the spotting, so to speak. There are too many players who pass the ball off not only because a designated kicker is in the area, but because they do not want to take the responsibility themselves. Liken it to a basketball situation, if you have one designated three point scorer and are looking to him in 90% of plays to hit the jump shot, then your team is going to get found out very quickly. Houli and Martin in particular should receive the handball as their kicking is pretty good, but they should not be as heavily relied on as they currently are. The percentage point doesn't solely imply that they aren't far off the pace in that regard. What it intends to suggest is that if they do get some crucial wins on the board over the next 5 weeks against tough opposition, they will jump ahead of many other teams with a weaker percentage and get straight into the 5-7 ladder position rather than middling from 8-10th. As we know, for non top 4-5 teams, percentage can be crucial when push comes to shove in the final few rounds of the season when many teams are pushing to edge into the top 8. And yes I'm with you, a strengthening of those bottom 6 players in Richmond's 22 is mandatory if they are to become a real force, they have a lot of top end players that were mentioned in the article, they just need to become more even across the board as they start to drop significantly once you get to the bottom 11, in particular the bottom 6. Thanks for the post!
Daws
Guest
You have the top end talent (Cotchin, Martin, Deledio, Riewoldt, Rance). You have some solid types (Maric, Griffiths, Houli, Edwards). And you have some youth (C Ellis, Lennon, McDonough, McBean, Menadue, Arnot). The youth need another year, in the mean time abandon some of the B-graders for better players or abandon a B-Grade coach and get another in to make them better players.
Milo
Roar Rookie
Spot on Jack. There are a number of players not up to the required standard in the team. Players such as Chaplin, Grigg, Hampson, Petterd, Knights, Gordon that have been recruited from other clubs just havent got the skills needed to support the team when the top players are held. Some of them are definite cruisers (Chaplin & Grigg spring to mind) some just havent got the talent. Other players such as Vickery, Morris, Newman, Foley probably need to consider their future for different reasons at the end of the year if not before. It will be sad to lose Newy and Axel especially, but the time is probably right. If the match committee can be brave enough now and select the likes of C Ellis, Lennon, McDonough, McBean, Menadue, Arnot and play them for the rest of the season win lose or draw (injuries notwithstanding) thats got to put them in good stead for the seasons coming. 2015, does not look great for the RFC and this need to start playing some new blood, not necessarily a rebuild, was probably there last year, but papered over due to the winning streak. So to get something out of this year, the Tigers need to make some tough calls now.
WhereIsGene
Guest
If the Tigers had've run an airline these past 30 years Richard Branson would be out of a job. As for a few of your assertions, some are wildly off base. Firstly, Richmond players handing off to Martin or Houli is not a bad thing. Hawthorn players frequently hand off to designated kickers Birchall & Suckling. All teams do that. However sometimes players will be forced to kick under pressure themselves even when those two are in the vicinity, and that's when their own decision making & footskills come into the equation. Second, pointing to Richmond's percentage as evidence they are "not far off the pace" is sheer wishful thinking. What it really means is that Richmond is the second biggest bunch of flat-track bullies in the league behind West Coast, who excel against teams that aren't capable of putting them under significant pressure for four quarters. Against real teams they fold like a cheap suit almost every time. They are a million miles off the pace and will be very lucky to make the finals. You are right about one thing. Richmond's bottom 6 players are laughably ordinary. If Shuan Grigg is getting a game in your best 22 you ought to know something's wrong.