Assistant coach Craig McRae speaks to Richmond Media about the Qualifying Final loss to Brisbane in this week’s edition of Coaches Corner, presented by Hostplus.

Tough night at the office

“We reviewed the game yesterday and there is a lot of things that we just normally expect to see from a Richmond side, and we went away from those things. Credit to Brisbane they were outstanding in a lot of areas but we went back over the tapes individually yesterday and just thought there is so much growth still left in us which is exciting.”

Connection with forwards lacking

 “It’s been a bit of an issue for most of the year to be honest. There’s a couple of parts to it; the patterning from our forwards which we can do better, but (also) just the execution was really poor on the night in particular. We gave away a lot of unforced errors and we addressed that yesterday as well, we will be working on that during the week.”

Dion Prestia performance

“Yeah (happy with his performance), you look at Dave Astbury too he has only played a little bit of footy in the last month and Shane Edwards (is) the same, so as much as we would have loved to have won and gone through, another week for those guys to get back to their best is something we are looking forward to as well.”

Jack Graham’s form

“His pressure is enormous around the ball; you just watch his work rate and his contest-to-contest is unbelievable. He is a valuable player and he is at the top of his game.

“Shai Bolton and these guys all of a sudden get squeezed out of the midfield, we have got some real talent and decisions to make at match committee because of how much quality we have in there at the minute.”

Tom Lynch

“He is such an integral part of our forward line. I was part of his fitness test if you like last Saturday and I saw him run around, kick goals from 50 and jump on the jumping bag and run at full pace and tackle. I thought this guy is playing for sure, but unfortunately there just was not the certainty in his preparation.

“In my eyes, the way he is moving he is going to be hard to leave out this week.”

St Kilda match-up

“They had our measure early in the year and we have grown a fair bit from that game, and they have the same. They have got a lot of threats and unfortunately have got a couple of injuries, but I am sure they will get some players back in who will play pivotal roles for them.

“We are certainly going to have to be near the top of our game to stretch them.”

St Kilda’s aerial power

“Their aerial power is a strength of theirs and one of our great strengths is getting the ball to ground. We did that on the weekend, but I think we have got some RFIs (Room for Improvements) in terms of ground level support and I have already addressed that with some of our smalls this week. Hopefully, we get a spike in that area.”

Saints ability to get 'walk-in' goals

“Yeah ‘Butts’ (Dan Butler) has had a great year for them and they attack the goal-front really well, and back the contest in. They get a lot of goals from the goal square or around that area like you said. (It is usually) running into an open goal or getting a crumb off, so our aerial power is going to need to be strong, but that ground level support to back it up at both ends is going to be really important.”