Heading into last week’s contest with Geelong, I was extremely nervous about our boys.

It’s no secret their confidence has been shaken. They lost a few difficult matches against Sydney and Melbourne, and were demolished in periods against Essendon and the Gold Coast.

By browsing Richmond forums, our Facebook page and even Twitter responses a lot of our supporters are getting frustrated, which is completely understandable. Our supporters were furious with the performance against Carlton and our haters were laughing at our first half against Geelong.

Let’s not forget however, that we are one of the youngest teams in the competition.  And until we stop seeing improvement from our players then we can begin to question the coaching staff.

This year however, Tyrone Vickery has become one of the best ruck/forward options in the competition. He’s kicked 28 goals for the year thus far. That’s 25 more than last year. He’s averaging twice as many marks, and almost twice as many kicks as he did last year.  What an improvement!

Then we have Alex Rance. He was in and out of our senior list last season, now he’s cemented his spot deep in our defense. Rance managed to blanket the forward attacking pressure of larger opponents such as Jonathon Brown. How about Dylan Grimes, Jake Bachelor, Robin Nahas, Trent Cotchin and Jake King? They’ve improved significantly on last year too.

I urge all Richmond members to look beyond the scoreline, and try to spot young Bachelor’s smother on Fremantle’s giant Aaron Sandilands, or Dylan Grimes incredible spoil on David Hille during Dreamtime at the G’. Damien Hardwick and his team need to be given time to develop the strengths of our list, and eliminate the weaknesses too. Let’s give them time.

Until next time, Go Tiges!
Constandinos Bouliopoulos.