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- Sep 17, 2006
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- #1
This Saturday the 1-1 Tigers, who were soundly beaten by Port, head to everyones favourite football ground, Marvel Stadium, to take on the 1-1 Saints who fell over the line against Moe by the Sea aka Geelong.
After a stirring win against the hapless Blues in round 1 Richmond were given a bit of a reality check as the Power did as the pleased in the first half to effectively kill off the contest before 1/4 time. To their credit the young Tiger cubs kept plugging away and avoided a triple figure defeat that looked almost certain to happen. The Tigers young KPF duo in Armstrong and Fawcett both managed to kick their first career goals as did Jacob Blight who was given the opportunity to play further up the ground and showed a few things as a result. May mean we get to rehash the 'Is Balta a backman or forward?' debate again, but now we can add Blight to the discussion. The Tigers older statesmen will be looking to rebound from a poor showing as all 4 of Nankervis Taranto Hopper & Ross were soundly beaten by their Port opponents and if we're going to match it with the Saints at Marvel they're going to need to be firing on all cylinders this weekend. The one area that has looked rather sound is our back line, albeit the ease of entries that Port had wouldn't necessarily make you believe that. Miller Blight Brown Broad Vlastuin Trainor & Short have played solid consistent games over the first 2 weeks and if we can sort out the midfield issues we should be right in the contest against the Saints especially with Big Sexy Lynch returning from a week off.
As for the Saints, well they came out all guns blazing against Geelong kicking 6 goals in the first quarter to open up a margin that would prove a bridge too far for the old campaigners from Moe by the Sea who fell just short, perhaps longer quarters would have helped, hey Mr Dangerfield. The Saints midfield unit of Marshall Macrae Jones Wood Steele Sinclair Windhager & Wanganeen-Milera combined for 218 disposals 33 clearances 50 tackles & 6 goals as they ran rings around the Cats for the first 3 quarters before hanging on in the last quarter as the Cats surged home late. As mentioned above our midfield unit of Nankervis Taranto Hopper McIntosh Ross Lalor Dow & Trezise are going to have to play much much better games this week if we want to avoid another drubbing and at least be in the contest for longer than 5 minutes.
As far as selection goes, Big Lynch returns while Sam Banks will miss with concussion after a nasty head clash with Sweet, which means that we're likely to also see either Sonsie return or McAuliffe get his first run for the year. It would be great to see Smillie debut, but I'm guessing they will have him play in the VFL to build up some match fitness before throwing him into the seniors. Who makes way for Lynch will be interesting, as mentioned Armstrong and Fawcett both showed glimpses of what they can bring to the table and it would be ideal to have both of them playing alongside Lynch, but I worry if that will make us too top heavy in the F50, while Bauer hasn't really done anything wrong in his 2 games this year he may be the one that makes way to give us 3 big marking targets up forward to try and stretch the Saints back line.
Potential Line Up:
B: Miller Broad Blight
HB: Short Vlastuin Trainor
C: Trezise McIntosh Dow
HF: Mansell Campbell Green
F: Armstrong Lynch Lalor
R: Nankervis Taranto Hopper
INT: Brown Ross Fawcett Smith Sonsie
Prediction:
I believe we'll see a much better performance than what we dished up against Port as Lynch will certainly help us make the most of our I50s and the leaders will want to show that last week was a one off showing rather than what we can expect every week. Hopefully that means that we're at least in the contest until well into the 2nd half and if we are then as we saw against Carlton, anything can happen when you have a young team that believes they're a chance of winning.
However in the end I think the Saints will be a little too strong in the end and will likely win by 2-3 goals, but as many of us understand the win/loss record isn't the be all and end all this year, it's the long term development of our next generation that is more important and being in contests will aid that development more than getting belted will.
After a stirring win against the hapless Blues in round 1 Richmond were given a bit of a reality check as the Power did as the pleased in the first half to effectively kill off the contest before 1/4 time. To their credit the young Tiger cubs kept plugging away and avoided a triple figure defeat that looked almost certain to happen. The Tigers young KPF duo in Armstrong and Fawcett both managed to kick their first career goals as did Jacob Blight who was given the opportunity to play further up the ground and showed a few things as a result. May mean we get to rehash the 'Is Balta a backman or forward?' debate again, but now we can add Blight to the discussion. The Tigers older statesmen will be looking to rebound from a poor showing as all 4 of Nankervis Taranto Hopper & Ross were soundly beaten by their Port opponents and if we're going to match it with the Saints at Marvel they're going to need to be firing on all cylinders this weekend. The one area that has looked rather sound is our back line, albeit the ease of entries that Port had wouldn't necessarily make you believe that. Miller Blight Brown Broad Vlastuin Trainor & Short have played solid consistent games over the first 2 weeks and if we can sort out the midfield issues we should be right in the contest against the Saints especially with Big Sexy Lynch returning from a week off.
As for the Saints, well they came out all guns blazing against Geelong kicking 6 goals in the first quarter to open up a margin that would prove a bridge too far for the old campaigners from Moe by the Sea who fell just short, perhaps longer quarters would have helped, hey Mr Dangerfield. The Saints midfield unit of Marshall Macrae Jones Wood Steele Sinclair Windhager & Wanganeen-Milera combined for 218 disposals 33 clearances 50 tackles & 6 goals as they ran rings around the Cats for the first 3 quarters before hanging on in the last quarter as the Cats surged home late. As mentioned above our midfield unit of Nankervis Taranto Hopper McIntosh Ross Lalor Dow & Trezise are going to have to play much much better games this week if we want to avoid another drubbing and at least be in the contest for longer than 5 minutes.
As far as selection goes, Big Lynch returns while Sam Banks will miss with concussion after a nasty head clash with Sweet, which means that we're likely to also see either Sonsie return or McAuliffe get his first run for the year. It would be great to see Smillie debut, but I'm guessing they will have him play in the VFL to build up some match fitness before throwing him into the seniors. Who makes way for Lynch will be interesting, as mentioned Armstrong and Fawcett both showed glimpses of what they can bring to the table and it would be ideal to have both of them playing alongside Lynch, but I worry if that will make us too top heavy in the F50, while Bauer hasn't really done anything wrong in his 2 games this year he may be the one that makes way to give us 3 big marking targets up forward to try and stretch the Saints back line.
Potential Line Up:
B: Miller Broad Blight
HB: Short Vlastuin Trainor
C: Trezise McIntosh Dow
HF: Mansell Campbell Green
F: Armstrong Lynch Lalor
R: Nankervis Taranto Hopper
INT: Brown Ross Fawcett Smith Sonsie
Prediction:
I believe we'll see a much better performance than what we dished up against Port as Lynch will certainly help us make the most of our I50s and the leaders will want to show that last week was a one off showing rather than what we can expect every week. Hopefully that means that we're at least in the contest until well into the 2nd half and if we are then as we saw against Carlton, anything can happen when you have a young team that believes they're a chance of winning.
However in the end I think the Saints will be a little too strong in the end and will likely win by 2-3 goals, but as many of us understand the win/loss record isn't the be all and end all this year, it's the long term development of our next generation that is more important and being in contests will aid that development more than getting belted will.
