A very inexperienced Richmond side produced a highly-competitive performance against last year’s runner-up, Sydney, in a NAB Regional Challenge match at Canberra’s Manuka Oval last Saturday. In a richmondfc.com.au exclusive, we caught up with coach Terry Wallace to discuss that trial game and what’s next in store for the Tigers.
How did you rate the team’s performance against the Swans?
Overall, I was very pleased with the whole process revolving around the match. Obviously, we’ve had some injuries in the pre-season to key players, so to be able to, firstly, rest our senior blokes and not risk further injury last weekend, was a plus. More particularly, however, to be able to play the younger blokes and give them the experience of travel, was really good. We had all our first-year boys there, so they’ve now had the experience of travelling as a group and everything that involves, from five star hotels to preparation – what to eat, what not to eat. With the match itself, I thought the boys were more than competitive. The few experienced players that we had within the group did a terrific job in rallying the troops and the younger boys responded impressively. Sydney had a strong squad, with 13 premiership players, and they played them all for the entire game. At one stage in the last quarter, we had little Jacob King lining up on Adam Goodes, which is a fair task in terms of size and strength alone. But he handled himself very well. We ended up having as much of the footy as what they did throughout the match, and we won the stoppage duels, which is something they’re renowned for. They just had a little bit more finishing class, which made the difference in the end.
Who were some of the better Tiger players on the day?
I thought Cam Howat was close to best on the ground again. The Howat-Foley combination, which has been so prominent throughout the entire pre-season, once again was excellent. The skipper was fantastic, too. Kane led the way the whole weekend, just making sure the boys were really focused on what they had to do . . . keeping them in line and positive. And he played a very good game himself, kicking two goals in his midfield role. I was really pleased with Kel Moore. He played on Ryan O’Keefe, who was runner-up in Sydney’s Best and Fairest last year, and kept him goalless and to just 10 possessions, with only one inside 50. So, I thought that was a top performance from him, and it was particularly pleasing to see him take that step. Jacob King did a terrific job coming out of the backline. He gave us some real drive in the middle quarters of the game. There were some much better signs from Brent Hartigan, too. He’d been looking quite good over summer, but just didn’t perform as we would have hoped or liked in our NAB Cup game against Geelong. He played up forward again last weekend and kicked 1.2, so he probably had the chance to nail a couple of other goals. Overall, he had 14 possessions and was a good player throughout the game. Our rucks competed well . . . we got annihilated in the tap-outs, (54 to 8) as you would expect against Everitt and Jolley. But around the ground I thought we beat them. Adam Pattison had 15 possessions, took six marks and kicked a goal, while young Angus Graham kicked two goals and did some solid work.
Who was the most impressive of the first-year players?
Andy Collins, as a later draft pick, has probably jumped up and shown the most out of our young boys so far. We threw him into the middle of the ground at times, where he played on Brett Kirk . . . a fair assignment for a kid just learning the game. And he acquitted himself very well. He’ll go in and win his own ball, which is really pleasing and important. He laid five tackles and was our strongest tackler in the game, that’s because he hunts the footy and either gets it himself, or is around whoever does get it. And, he’s a classy finisher as well . . .
What’s the plan for this Saturday’s practice match against Melbourne at Princes Park?
We’ve still got a couple of the senior boys, in Simmonds and Richardson, who won’t be there this week, but expect both of them to be available the week before the season starts. We haven’t got a practice match scheduled that weekend, so we’ve just got to work out what to do with them then. Apart from those two, and Coughlan, Hall and Kingsley, fairly much everyone else will be available for the game this week against Melbourne, so we’ll pick our best possible side. We’ll probably use only 22 players, so that we get into our normal routine as quickly as possible. I found last year that we had some fantastic rotations going through the pre-season, but because you’ve got seven or eight on the interchange bench, and you keep players fresh, it gives you a false sense of where you’re at. Once you get into the season proper, it’s all different because you’ve got only four on the bench. Over the next couple of weeks, I want to get back to playing 22 players – 18 and 4 – so that we can get our rotations right, and do exactly what we need to do to make sure they’re absolutely ready to go in Round 1. We’ve got our VFL affiliate, the Coburg Tigers, playing a practice match at Princes Park before our game this Saturday. It will be Coburg versus the Richmond left-overs . . . Coburg will pick their best side, they’ll give us what’s left of their playing group, and they’ll join our boys and have a game. What I’ll probably do out of that is pinch two or three players, and sit them on the bench, where I don’t have to use them unless I have to. I can still do my rotations, then, at half-time, we’ll see if we’ve got someone who’s a bit sore, or a bit tight and replace them . . . You’re still working with the 18 and 4 set-up, rather than having seven or eight on the bench, and that’s fairly important at this time of the year. All in all, we’ll be starting to get a fair bit closer to the side that we’ll be going into Round 1 with, but obviously we’ll be a bit smaller without Richardson and Simmonds.
How are Ray Hall and Kent Kingsley progressing following their surgery late last week?
It’s been very frustrating from our point of view already this year to have three guys (Hall, Kingsley and Mark Coughlan) go down with long-term injuries, and all three out of our control . . . We haven’t lost anyone with a major hamstring injury, or anything like that. All three have just been unfortunate circumstances. To have three guys who you would consider are in your best senior line-up out long-term, is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination. But that’s where your depth has to come into play, and we believe we’ve got more depth at the Club now. We didn’t have Kent last season anyway, and the main reason we got him into the Club late last year was to add a bit of forward-line depth. It just means young players such as Jay Schulz and Adam Pattison have to stand up and do the job for you. Kent and Ray are both likely to be out for six weeks, so we’re looking at them being back in action around Round 3 or 4. So, they’re not missing a major part of the season – you can get blokes reported in the pre-season comp. and all of a sudden they’re missing a quarter of the season . . . It’s not ideal from a preparation point of view. You want to have all your players up and running, and get three or four lead-up games into them. That’s not the reality, however, and Richmond people have to know that’s the case. But, in saying that, we think we’ll be at full strength for the opening round, with the exception of those three boys (Coughlan, Hall and Kingsley), who are ‘long-termers’.