Posted on April 6, 2008 | Category: Match Reports
Richmond 11.12 (78)
Collingwood 18.14 (122)
Once again, we were blown out of the water early in the game. Collingwood were absolutely ruthless in their efficiency early, with barely an inside 50 that didn’t result in a goal. The problem didn’t reside with our defenders, who fought gallantly all day, but with our inability to take a single mark inside 50. We actually didn’t take a single one (unless I’m mistaken), until well into the third quarter. The contrast between the Richmond and Collingwood forward structure was devastating. Where Collingwood had three or four dependable marking targets, the Tigers entire plan was to bomb it up to three Collingwood defenders and Richo. A surge in the third quarter brought us to within 5 goals, but the flicker of hope was put out by a team that just worked a whole lot harder than the boys in yellow and black.
Could only single out individual efforts today. Our backline performed a great effort to keep the margin under 100 points, which it looked like blowing out to late in the second quarter. Kelvin Moore has gone from scrawny Danny Meyer type no-name to cementing a place as our second tall defender. Jake King was back in some sort of form, and Nathan Foley battled manfully. Graham Polak had a woeful first half, culminating in being almost knocked out, but came back as a forward target and was actually willing to go at the ball. Adam Pattison played a decent game, and looks a whole lot more comfortable anytime that Troy Simmonds is taking first ruck. Tambling was good again this week: he’s a different player to the Richard Tambling we saw last week. We did win clearances, but were much too wasteful with the ball going forwards.
Forward structure. We continue to do the thing that every defence in the land knows we’re going to do, and bomb it up in the air to Richo. And while Richo was hardly in good form, it is impossible to ask him to mark against three men. The Deledio experiment has to go down as a failure: he does not get enough of the ball to warrant us losing his impact in the middle of the ground. Kane Johnson and Shane Tuck should both be taken out the back and shown how to kick, because in most situations in the game, they simply refused to. Nathan Brown still looks much too slow to play his style of game, and Kayne Pettifer needs to actually remember that he is playing a team sport. Pettifer plays for number one exclusively and needs to be dropped if the tribunal don’t do that for him.
Basically, we didn’t work at anything like the intensity of the Magpies. Collingwood never stopped moving, they were never stationary, while we sat back, watched and expected the game to come to us. While I’ve mentioned that Polak had a better second half: there were a couple of key points in the game that demonstrated this point. The first was after a ball was centred to the Magpies 30 and Polak was pathetically pushed aside by Cloke. Cloke actually wanted the ball, we didn’t and the pies kicked one as a result. The second, with three Tigers surrounding the ball in the back pocket, none of them showed any interest in going in and getting the ball. In the end, Polak had the ball virtually taken out of his hands by a pies player (either Medhurst or Didak from memory), who went on to slot a goal. Just not good enough from a player who can show some fantastic things at times, but seems desperately to lack in confidence.
3 - Nathan Foley
2 - Jake King
1 - Kelvin Moore
There’ll be plenty to work on this week, and Wallace seriously needs to actually think about installing a gameplan into the minds of our midfield - because at the moment there isn’t one. It’ll be a happy day when our delivery into the forward 50 looks anything like Collingwood’s this week.
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April 6th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Come on Freo next week!!!
What happened to Polak? I noticed the commentator brought out the “Polak is poleaxed’ line for about the 3 millionth time.
April 6th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
No idea what actually happened to him - the problem with being at the game without the (dubious) insight of a boundary rider. Don’t hold out a heap of hope for the mighty tiges against Heave-ho, not unless something changes drastically between the ears of our troops. The only positive is that Pavlich and Farmer might actually be required to work for kicks. Our inexperienced backline has been the only part of the team that’s really put it together.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:47 am
Is that because they had the most time on the ball??
Btw, Pavlich did give ‘fullback of the century’ (according to West Toast Media) Glass a football lesson on the weekend!!
April 7th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Marko - I’m not saying he won’t kick a bag: Pavlich is all class and will probably do just that. I’ve just been impressed with a number of players who have stepped up a few notches this season. Will Thursfield is another who has made forwards work hard for their goals.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Thats good. I am sure that the Tigers will work their way back up the ladder. Sounds like the whole Holland/Casey thing was a storm in a teacup and will blow away.