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The pressure is on for the Richmond Tigers and their coach Damien Hardwick in 2016 – and judging by his actions on Thursday night, he knows it.
You can’t blame Hardwick for getting a bit frustrated on Thursday night. In the space of three quarters, he looked to have lost all of Shane Edwards, Shaun Grigg, Reece Conca and Jacob Townsend to injury. All four of them are players he would’ve had locked into or at least have been considering for his Round 1 side.
As it turns out, the news wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Edwards, one of Richmond’s most important players, is expected to be fit for Round 1 after scans revealed no major damage to his injured shoulder.
Given Eddie McGuire was conjecturing a 6-8 week absence for Edwards in the commentary, that’s a pretty good result.
Townsend is also likely to be fit for Round 1. He suffered a concussion, having charged head first into Hamish Hartlett, but should recover in time to take to the field against Carlton, should the Tigers decide to call on him for that match.
The news is not so good however for Shaun Grigg, who will miss 3-4 weeks with a fractured left thumb, and Reece Conca, who will be out for two months with a hamstring injury.
All in all not an ideal night for the Tigers, with the worst aspect being that it all happened in a pointless pre-season match where players who cop injuries do so without giving any service to the quest to gain premiership points.
It was Hardwick’s reaction to the situation however that has garnered the most attention. In the final quarter he marched down to the interchange bench and began calling off his most important players, refusing to let them go back onto the field.
The Tigers spent most of the last term with just fifteen men on the field, as the likes of Brett Deledio, Alex Rance, Dustin Martin and Trent Cotchin watched from the sidelines.
Those four, along with Jack Riewoldt who seemed to refuse to come off, and Ivan Maric who wasn’t named to play, form the spine of the Richmond team. An injury to any one of them would’ve been absolutely devastating.
We could debate for a while whether Hardwick was within his rights to call them off. Strictly speaking no rule prevents it, though it’s also fair to say that it wasn’t a great advertisement for the code, and perhaps not really up to the standards of the competitive spirit of the game.
What I’m more interested in is what his reaction says about the pressure he is under. To make such a drastic move this early in the piece says a lot about Hardwick’s situation coming into this season.
Everyone knows the story so for the sake of Tigers fans I’ll be brief. The club has been close to the least successful of the modern era – almost completely absent from finals in this new millenium, finally becoming regular finalists in the last three years only to slump to three consecutive first-week eliminations.
The fanbase is the most success-hungry in the league. Sure, followers of teams like the Bulldogs, Saints and Dockers have plenty more reason to crave a premiership, but they for the most part have developed a certain kind of patience. The Richmond fanbase, for the most part, has not.
I wrote last month about my belief that genuine success for the Tigers still lies about three or so years into the future, and I stand by that as the most realistic scenario for when Richmond will deliver the success their fans crave.
So no, unlike many, I do not believe the Tigers must win a final this year in order to justify their current list strategy, or in order for Hardwick to retain his job.
However that is the popular external perception and the one that the media will judge them by in 2016 – mercilessly so, should they fail.
The fact that Hardwick remains without a contract extension this close to the season will only intensify the scrutiny surrounding the club. If they have a poor start to the season, it will be at fever pitch.
That desire to avoid a poor start to the year was no doubt a key factor in Hardwick’s decision to pull off his most important players. After all, there are already some serious concerns for the Tigers coming into the start of 2016.
The injuries to Grigg and Conca are fresh worries, but there is also an injury cloud over trade recruit Chris Yarran, who Hardwick some time ago said he expected to miss the early part of the season due to a calf injury.
That may not be the case however with word emerging that Yarran has made a spectacular turnaround and got through an intra-club match unscathed earlier this week. Hopefully now he will be ready to line up for the Tigers in Round 1 – but if not, they will still be missing that line-breaking ability he was recruited for.
The biggest concern in my view though is Ivan Maric. While he doesn’t have any fitness issues as yet, the 30-year-old’s form was very patchy at times last season. While he may not be of the same quality as players like Rance, Riewoldt or Deledio, he’s arguably just as important to the team, both in terms of his contribution at the stoppages and the leadership he provides to a team often lacking in it.
There is a clear link between his form and the team’s. He averaged six less hitouts per game in losses last year compared to wins. Simply put, if he has a good day in the ruck, Richmond are much more likely to prevail. If he doesn’t, they run into trouble – recording four of their eight losses last year in games where he managed less than 20 hitouts.
If his form continues to falter then the Tigers will be in real trouble. Their next best option is either to regularly play Shaun Hampson – a fate which all teams dread – or rob Peter to pay Paul in the form of moving Tyrone Vickery or Ben Griffiths from the forward line to the ruck.
The Tigers also suffer from a lack of reliable options up forward, and while their defence was one of the league’s most effective last year, they could definitely use an upgrade in personnel there to give better support to Rance.
These are all problems that can be fixed with the passage of time, with some clever recruiting and proper development over the next few years – but barring some unforeseen miracle, they cannot be fixed right now. Right now, they add up to a nasty headache for Richmond in the early part of 2016.
Regardless of the extenuating circumstances, the media will without a doubt judge Hardwick on the right now. If the Tigers start poorly this year – as they regularly have in the past few seasons – they will begin to call for his head.
Right now, Hardwick is acting like a man who believes he is facing his make or break season. If that view is shared by the Tigers board members, who will ultimately decide his fate, then whichever way the season goes, one thing is certain.
2016 is going to be a big, interesting, possibly calamitous year for the Richmond Football Club.