Richmond coach, Damien Hardwick stressed the Giants’ promising recent results against top-eight sides is evidence the young team have improved since the Tigers’ 113-point away-win in Round 10.
Key to the Tigers’ recent form has been winning the all-important contested ball, a trend that Hardwick wants to see continue in this Saturday’s match at the MCG.
“We’ve got to make sure we come to play, get our game up and going and make sure we win the contested ball count because that’s crucial to getting the game on our terms,” Hardwick told media in a press conference at the ME Bank Centre.
“They (the Giants) probably had a bad patch during the middle part of the year where they got a bit tired before their bye, but their form and their numbers have improved dramatically since then.”
Damaging Richmond key forward, Jack Riewoldt booted an 11-goal haul when the sides last met, but Hardwick wants a more even spread of goalkickers on Saturday and stressed the need for the Tigers to negate Greater Western Sydney’s dangerous forward line.
“We’ve got to make sure we play some physical football against them because if they get up and running and get those balls into the big key forwards, they can cause a lot of damage as you saw in the last couple of weeks,” he said.
A handful of Tigers are in the mix for selection this week with suspended forward Ty Vickery and tough defender Steve Morris, who underwent surgery on a broken hand, to miss this weekend’s game.
“We’ve got a number of guys putting their hands up. A couple of guys at VFL level – Ben Lennon played well, Brad Helbig played pretty well on the weekend, Ricky Petterd’s back from injury so he’ll be thereabouts,” Hardwick said.
