Thoughts of playing finals football in 2016 are far from the minds of Richmond players right now, according to star Tiger key defender Alex Rance.
Following three consecutive finals campaigns, the Tigers are struggling in 14th place on the league ladder at the midway mark this season, with just four wins from their 11 games.
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While they certainly haven’t conceded finals are out of reach, Rance is adamant they currently have more pressing matters to focus on, as they prepare for Sunday’s Round 12 clash with Gold Coast at the MCG.
“It’s just more about the process and nullifying any inconsistencies with that. And, being really familiar when the heat does come on that the process remains the same,” Rance told the media at Punt Road earlier today.
“We just (have to) keep punching out the same performance, regardless of what opponents we come up against . . .
“You always play to win, so if you’re not aiming for finals there’s something wrong. But we have more important things to worry about than that at the moment.
“We’ve got to worry about our process, the next game, and the next training session, really, because that’s where you really start to perform good habits and get on the right track.”
Rance acknowledged there was one particular part of Richmond’s game that had been causing the team problems throughout the first half of the 2016 season.
“We probably kick along down the line a bit too much at the moment, which really plays into a lot of other teams’ defences hands, so they can rebound pretty quickly,” he said.
“You’re not really going to win a lot of games if you’re just going to be kicking long down the line.
“That’s one thing that is pretty well publicised that we need to improve on, and we’ll do that.”
