It’s a match-up that has many coaches baffled, and Richmond coach Damien Hardwick concedes he's losing sleep over it.
Against league leader Fremantle at the MCG on Saturday night, it's not runaway Brownlow Medal favourite Nat Fyfe that has the Tigers worried.
It's man-mountain Aaron Sandilands, who was a major point of resistance for the Dockers when the two teams last met.
Richmond inflicted Fremantle’s first loss of the season in Round 10, but were dominated at stoppages by Sandilands.
With Ivan Maric in a primary ruck duel with Sandilands, the Tigers were beaten 72-30 in hit-outs and thumped in clearances (52-35).
“I think we lost the clearances by an extraordinary amount, it might have been minus 20,” Hardwick said.
“You don't win many games when you lose the clearances by that, so we need to rectify that.”
It means Hardwick is engaged in a struggle to balance his ‘talls’ and ‘smalls’ to compete in the ruck without losing something at ground level.
He has confirmed Shaun Hampson in the line-up, has all but ticked off Maric, and could also field Ben Griffiths.
“Do we go in with two rucks, which we haven't really done over a period of time, or if Griffiths is available, do we just play two, or do we play all three?” he pondered.
“Are we going to have enough smalls to compete at ground level, or are we too tall and too slow?
“It’s why coaches don't sleep much at night . . . you wake up at 3 o'clock going, ‘What I am doing this for’?”
Richmond is chasing a fifth straight win to improve to 11-5 and keep in touch with a top-four berth.
Hardwick breaks down the season into four-week blocks, with the Dockers rounding out the latest group of four.
He feels the final-quarter fadeout against St Kilda last Sunday shows that the Tigers have more to do despite their recent winning streak.
“We've ticked three of those boxes (the past three wins), not playing our best, granted, but we've ticked three of those boxes,” he said.
“Within our four walls, we know where we're at, we know what we need to improve, and we know our strengths.
“We're probably a little bit like Freo, we're not playing our best footy, neither are they, but we both know we're capable of winning games.”
