Unofficial Preview Richmond v Melbourne Casey Fields Saturday 4th March 4.10pm

[Tiger_Of_Old]

Oh.One more thing.
We'll leak more goals if Balta stays in the backline.
He is clueless.

 

[Groupie_]

phil cleary trying to get chimp suspended

 

[TigerTime88]

Positives-
-Liam Baker. Seriously how tough is this bloke? Two weeks off surgery and comes out and racks up 36 and a goal. Loved his link up game off half back.
-Tim Taranto. Was strong and tough at the contest but was also able to find uncontested footy. 13 score involvements which was the most on the ground.
-Tom Lynch. Great battle with Steven May. Tom was fairly underdone in match practise but competed very well.
-Clarke,Ryan,Dow,Young,Green. These kids showed a little glimpse of potential. Each one had moments yesterday that give some positivity to a fairly bleak day.
-Clearence work. I think in both praccys we’ve shown that we’ve improved dramatically in this area of the game. It has been a big focus in pre season and it looks to have improved. Round 1 will be a huge test with Cripps and potentially Walsh to combat.

Negatives-
-Defensive transition. Repeatedly Melbourne were able to slice us apart with run and kicking yesterday and out defenders were running around like chickens without a head. Broad, Grimes and vlastuin were not able to play their normal games at all and were all caught out multiple times trying to sag off but getting caught on very quick Melbourne forwrd movement. The Melbourne talls troubled our backs early which is becoming a worry without Tarrant and McKay and Curnow for round 1.
-Playing cute and turning it over. Especially in the first half we had players trying to do too much. Trying to bite off more then they can chew and hit passes that weren’t there or trying to evade tackles and tripping over our own feet. Too much cute and not enough blue collar work. You have to rattle Melbourne early to beat them. Not play into their hands with showpony bullshyte.
-Cotch&Jack. These two are going down as Richmond legends. Two of the greatest footballers ever to have played at the club. But this year is going to be a very difficult year for both of them. Cotch clearly cannot apply enough defensive pressure in fwd 50 to warrant a permanent role there. When the game is hot he was found out yesterday and that cannot be ignored. Jack struggled badly yesterday to find any separation from Melbournes very good defensive hand offs. He tried to push up the ground but we weren’t winning enough clean ball to hit him up. He tried moving back down deep a few times but we couldn’t get clean entries deep. His mobility is very far off the mark for KPF and this is a huge worry for mine.

Overall. Bleak afternoon. Made to look ordinary by a very sharp Melbourne team. Had some bright spots but also some red flags.
I’ve got Melbourne finishing on top of my ladder before yesterday so it wasn’t a huge surprise to see a skill gap. But there is going to have a be a big turn around in attitudes defensively to be a top 4 team.

I only tuned in for the third quarter and disk notice we still over possess. Always one too many handballs so hopefully they cut that down.

Cotchin could certainly be done but I wouldn’t be drawing any conclusions off a practice match. He is the exact type of player who would cruise through that type of game so until the real stuff starts I’ll reserve judgement.

 

[tiger_tough]

Oh.One more thing.
We'll leak more goals if Balta stays in the backline.
He is clueless.

Rubbish. How many did his direct opponent kick? I can think of one and it was a clear push out by Grundy.

 

[Groupie_]

cripps gets let off for knocking a campaigner out and allowed to win brownlow and chimp is gonna get done for that little touch

 

[fargothegreat]

Ben Miller forward and 2nd ruck. More versatile, experienced and a lot more ready than Ryan.

Same concept that worked all second half of last season. Not sure if the coaches have heard of don't fix what ain't broke. Let's hope they come to their senses by round 1.

Miller would have been much better equipped to defend Gawn/Grundy when they wandered forward too.

He offers quite a bit with his kicking too, but I think the question mark is can he be a marking threat up forward himself?

 

[Groupie_]

 

[smasha]

View attachment 1621874

AFL very excited by the Tigers loss the campaigners.

 

[Nebular]

Nothing like reading the game day melts on a Sunday morning.

I miss footy.

 

[Muddiemoose]

Weirdly enough I think we actually missed Castagna or at least another small forward putting in repeat defensive efforts

Rioli Jr was a solo act in that regard and put in the hard yards but when we have Bolton, Cumbo, Dusty and Juddy wno are all amazing players but very offensively minded it’s just tipped the scales a little to far

Throw in Cotch and Jack who just don’t have the pace anymore we are having oppo defenders creating a lot of time and space for themselves to transition and set up counter attacks

I think the backline issues will sort themselves out and our midfield held its own against one of the best in the comp so that’s very much a positive

Just that forward structure needs a little bit of tweeking imo

Might not be super popular but maybe shifting Baker into the forward line who can still win his own ball and be a threat around goals but really set up some defensive intent, also opens up a spot in the backline for someone like Brown who impressed last week

 

[Groupie_]

chimp and jack went at 5% on purpose

can believe yous are calling em cooked again

 

[Barnzy]

Miller would have been much better equipped to defend Gawn/Grundy when they wandered forward too.

He offers quite a bit with his kicking too, but I think the question mark is can he be a marking threat up forward himself?

Indeed.

Rewatching some of those games late last season, Miller was one of our most dangerous threats going forward. It doesn't show out in the stats as he was playing second ruck too but when he floated forward he gave us presence and size we didn't have before. Also fast for size, a good mark and smart player.

I'm really annoyed he's not in the same role right now. I had him down for 20+ goals this season.

But let's see what happens round 1. Because we know Soldo is not the answer unless Nank is injured

 

[Rocco sifreddi]

seriously why is it so hard for the umps to treat us equally ? what do we have to do ?

also how much longer will they keep this stand rule , footy so painful to watch these days. I have zero desire to watch a match

Reamed even in a practice match, the stand rule
Shouldn't even exist, I'm the same it's becoming hard to watch.

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

Rubbish. How many did his direct opponent kick? I can think of one and it was a clear push out by Grundy.

Had his chances to impact on not just his direct opponent.Needs to read the game better and thats my issue with him.

 

[RockJobster0312]

My thoughts on the game:

CAUTION: overly optimistic, please read with care.

Overall: Melbourne are a better team that us as it currently stands. I think they’re competing with us for a top 4 spot and they’re probably a little further along in terms of embedding down their structures. It’s a long season however, and as it currently stands, i would expect us to continue to improve in multiple areas and catch up relatively quickly.

They were also more intense which may just be a reflection of a greater emphasis than RFC put on the game. If not, that level of intensity needed to compete at AFL level is a concern going into round 1.

Negatives

defensive transition: Melbourne carved us up from D50. The culprit was a combination of poor turnovers, poor stoppage defense but also the second line of the defensive zone. This is generally around the 60-90 meter mark (from RFC goal). That’s primarily where you want to kill the ball into a stoppage/ turnover (better chance for repeat I50s) or at least hold it up to enable the zone to fold back to the next line (about 60-90m from Oppo goal). Melbourne being able to get this ball easily passed the first line of our zone and the move it quickly (Gawn and Grundy killed us here as much as anywhere else) meant that Demons going inside F50 had better entries. Why the likes of Balta, Grimes, Vlastuin and Young can all be said to have struggled; we more often than not play a zone based defence with matchups being dictated by where a player is (as opposed to a blanket 1v1 matchup).

Giving up corridor: even in stoppage work Melbourne we’re able to get the ball into the middle of the ground effectively. From a stoppage situation, Graham and Pickett are often the ones tasked with defending the corridor (it’s not an easy task); and Judson Clarke not so much (as expected for a young player). We defended the switch ok, but lack of pressure on the ball enabled Melbourne to find the corridor easily. Corridor is the hardest part of the ground to defend.

Unforced Turnovers: killed our transition as well aa momentum on multiple occasions and killed inside 50 entries. Whether it was from poor kicking I50; or smothers it seemingly was too often and enabled the Demons to set up perfectly behind the ball. This also helps the Demons D50 transition.

Small Forward work: what would have helped is if we could lock the hall inside forward 50 whenever it went to ground. In part, Demons always had at least +2 inside our forward 50 making it hard, but still; locking it in F50 is something we need to be able to do more often. This also helps stopping opposition defensive transition.

Ruck setup: Dimma set last year as hat they’d look at Nank/ Miller or Nank/ Soldo depending on the opposition. I suspect that having Gawn and Grundy leant towards Nank/ Soldo. I understand why, but the ability for Gawn and Grundy to cover the ground and compete in the air (especially at the second line of our defensive press) should have meant that Miller got the nod in this instance. Soldo struggled to go with his direct match-up over the ground and whilst Miller may not have been able to totally negate his direct match-up, think he’d be more competitive aerially.

Tackle Pressure: wasn’t absent by any means but wasn’t consistently at the level it needed to be. Example that is readily available is in Q1 where Tom McDonald

25

Tom Mcdonald

Age

31

Ht

195cm

Wt

101kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

16.4

4star

K

9.7

4star

HB

6.7

4star

M

5.6

5star

T

1.9

4star

G

0.6

4star

D

8.0

2star

K

5.0

2star

HB

3.0

2star

M

3.4

3star

T

0.6

1star

G

0.8

4star

D

13.8

4star

K

6.8

3star

HB

7.0

5star

M

4.4

4star

T

1.4

4star

G

0.0

1star

fumbled the ball about 60m out allowing Grimes to put pressure on. Instead of going to tackle Grimes elected to bump, which McDonald pretty much absorbed then pinpointed an unpressured kick inside forward 50 resulting in a goal. Wasn’t just Grimes but our tackle pressure (last in 2022) wasn’t there again against Melbourne.

Positives

Young guys: Dow was very good at the stoppage. He and Soldo have a nice partnership going. Green showed great attack of the ball and man, and was more polished and aware than I thought he would be. Clarke isn’t a natural wing, but think over the course of the season he will establish himself as a high half forward position (which is similar to most other teams wings and often our wings are folding back in defence and the HFF lead up to the wings). Ryan, looked as agile and fluid as last week; a real surprise. Ability to clunk a mark also a real benefit. Wouldn’t be adverse to seeing Miller play back and Ryan as a back up ruck/ third tall while Tarrant and Gibcus are out injured. Very promising signs however.

Competitiveness: take out Q1 and Q4 (which was more or less a dead rubber), we were pretty much on even terms with Melbourne in Q2 and Q3, despite probably playing the worse football. If we can up the intensity and work on a few of our structural issues, that gives me confidence we are on the right track.

Ball movement: despite some poor execution, the ball movement seemed to be an improvement and more fluid than it was against North Melbourne.

Lynch/ Baker. Both underdone. Lynch was more than competitive against May. Moved well too. Baker best on for us. In for a massive year.

Taranto/ Hopper - Taranto was amazing for the second straight week. Ability to hit the scoreboard, run all day and use the ball very well for the most part (this being the most surprising element) may mean that along with Prestia, they’ll be the two most important players for RFC in 2023. Hopper slightly quieter but just goes about his business. Expect him to continue to improve over the season and his ability to get the ball from a contested situation to the outside cleanly is boarding on elite already.

Conclusion

A disappointing showing overall, but a lot of the issues (outside of general intensity) seem to be structural and interconnected. They are therefore solvable. Since 2018 we have built into the year as opposed to starting red hot; and I hope that is the general trajectory for 2023 and I expect us to get better as the season goes on. Assuming Prestia can make it back for round 1, will have a pretty strong squad to choose from.

Bring on round one.

 

[Groupie_]

12 out

 

[domin8]

Reamed even in a practice match, the stand rule
Shouldn't even exist, I'm the same it's becoming hard to watch.

It seemed to me yesterday that the umps were really slow calling play on when a player moved off the line. Both ways. Also the protected area around the kicker seems to have gone as well. Twice Petracca ran through it. One time he even affected Dusty’s kick.
I would also show the ump department the free that Jack got for a push in the back, and compare it to what Gawn and Grundy did a few times and ask what the difference is. Even though we benefited from the Jack decision the other examples were more obvious.

 

[Muddiemoose]

My thoughts on the game:

CAUTION: overly optimistic, please read with care.

Overall: Melbourne are a better team that us as it currently stands. I think they’re competing with us for a top 4 spot and they’re probably a little further along in terms of embedding down their structures. It’s a long season however, and as it currently stands, i would expect us to continue to improve in multiple areas and catch up relatively quickly.

They were also more intense which may just be a reflection of a greater emphasis than RFC put on the game. If not, that level of intensity needed to compete at AFL level is a concern going into round 1.

Negatives

defensive transition: Melbourne carved us up from D50. The culprit was a combination of poor turnovers, poor stoppage defense but also the second line of the defensive zone. This is generally around the 60-90 meter mark (from RFC goal). That’s primarily where you want to kill the ball into a stoppage/ turnover (better chance for repeat I50s) or at least hold it up to enable the zone to fold back to the next line (about 60-90m from Oppo goal). Melbourne being able to get this ball easily passed the first line of our zone and the move it quickly (Gawn and Grundy killed us here as much as anywhere else) meant that Demons going inside F50 had better entries. Why the likes of Balta, Grimes, Vlastuin and Young can all be said to have struggled; we more often than not play a zone based defence with matchups being dictated by where a player is (as opposed to a blanket 1v1 matchup).

Giving up corridor: even in stoppage work Melbourne we’re able to get the ball into the middle of the ground effectively. From a stoppage situation, Graham and Pickett are often the ones tasked with defending the corridor (it’s not an easy task); and Judson Clarke not so much (as expected for a young player). We defended the switch ok, but lack of pressure on the ball enabled Melbourne to find the corridor easily. Corridor is the hardest part of the ground to defend.

Unforced Turnovers: killed our transition as well aa momentum on multiple occasions and killed inside 50 entries. Whether it was from poor kicking I50; or smothers it seemingly was too often and enabled the Demons to set up perfectly behind the ball. This also helps the Demons D50 transition.

Small Forward work: what would have helped is if we could lock the hall inside forward 50 whenever it went to ground. In part, Demons always had at least +2 inside our forward 50 making it hard, but still; locking it in F50 is something we need to be able to do more often. This also helps stopping opposition defensive transition.

Ruck setup: Dimma set last year as hat they’d look at Nank/ Miller or Nank/ Soldo depending on the opposition. I suspect that having Gawn and Grundy leant towards Nank/ Soldo. I understand why, but the ability for Gawn and Grundy to cover the ground and compete in the air (especially at the second line of our defensive press) should have meant that Miller got the nod in this instance. Soldo struggled to go with his direct match-up over the ground and whilst Miller may not have been able to totally negate his direct match-up, think he’d be more competitive aerially.

Tackle Pressure: wasn’t absent by any means but wasn’t consistently at the level it needed to be. Example that is readily available is in Q1 where Tom McDonald fumbled the ball about 60m out allowing Grimes to put pressure on. Instead of going to tackle Grimes elected to bump, which McDonald pretty much absorbed then pinpointed an unpressured kick inside forward 50 resulting in a goal. Wasn’t just Grimes but our tackle pressure (last in 2022) wasn’t there again against Melbourne.

Positives

Young guys: Dow was very good at the stoppage. He and Soldo have a nice partnership going. Green showed great attack of the ball and man, and was more polished and aware than I thought he would be. Clarke isn’t a natural wing, but think over the course of the season he will establish himself as a high half forward position (which is similar to most other teams wings and often our wings are folding back in defence and the HFF lead up to the wings). Ryan, looked as agile and fluid as last week; a real surprise. Ability to clunk a mark also a real benefit. Wouldn’t be adverse to seeing Miller play back and Ryan as a back up ruck/ third tall while Tarrant and Gibcus are out injured. Very promising signs however.

Competitiveness: take out Q1 and Q4 (which was more or less a dead rubber), we were pretty much on even terms with Melbourne in Q2 and Q3, despite probably playing the worse football. If we can up the intensity and work on a few of our structural issues, that gives me confidence we are on the right track.

Ball movement: despite some poor execution, the ball movement seemed to be an improvement and more fluid than it was against North Melbourne.

Lynch/ Baker. Both underdone. Lynch was more than competitive against May. Moved well too. Baker best on for us. In for a massive year.

Taranto/ Hopper - Taranto was amazing for the second straight week. Ability to hit the scoreboard, run all day and use the ball very well for the most part (this being the most surprising element) may mean that along with Prestia, they’ll be the two most important players for RFC in 2023. Hopper slightly quieter but just goes about his business. Expect him to continue to improve over the season and his ability to get the ball from a contested situation to the outside cleanly is boarding on elite already.

Conclusion

A disappointing showing overall, but a lot of the issues (outside of general intensity) seem to be structural and interconnected. They are therefore solvable. Since 2018 we have built into the year as opposed to starting red hot; and I hope that is the general trajectory for 2023 and I expect us to get better as the season goes on. Assuming Prestia can make it back for round 1, will have a pretty strong squad to choose from.

Bring on round one.

The pleasing thing for me re Hopper is that although he didn’t seem to have a massive game he still led the game for contested possies with 14
The next best Oliver and Racca with 13 and Taranto with 12

Hopper also = 1st for the game in clearances tied with Oliver with 13

Very pleasing numbers and shows what he adds to our engine room

 

[Greggy]

Think we missed that George type manic forward pressure. They just ran out every crumb that fell from the marking contest. Cumberland has to stop flying with Jack and Tom and get front and centre, he takes himself out of the lock it in brigade.

 

[smasha]

Dees power stancing while we chewed on cubans.

 

[Keilor Tiger]

Positives-
-Liam Baker. Seriously how tough is this bloke? Two weeks off surgery and comes out and racks up 36 and a goal. Loved his link up game off half back.
-Tim Taranto. Was strong and tough at the contest but was also able to find uncontested footy. 13 score involvements which was the most on the ground.
-Tom Lynch. Great battle with Steven May. Tom was fairly underdone in match practise but competed very well.
-Clarke,Ryan,Dow,Young,Green. These kids showed a little glimpse of potential. Each one had moments yesterday that give some positivity to a fairly bleak day.
-Clearence work. I think in both praccys we’ve shown that we’ve improved dramatically in this area of the game. It has been a big focus in pre season and it looks to have improved. Round 1 will be a huge test with Cripps and potentially Walsh to combat.

Negatives-
-Defensive transition. Repeatedly Melbourne were able to slice us apart with run and kicking yesterday and out defenders were running around like chickens without a head. Broad, Grimes and vlastuin were not able to play their normal games at all and were all caught out multiple times trying to sag off but getting caught on very quick Melbourne forwrd movement. The Melbourne talls troubled our backs early which is becoming a worry without Tarrant and McKay and Curnow for round 1.
-Playing cute and turning it over. Especially in the first half we had players trying to do too much. Trying to bite off more then they can chew and hit passes that weren’t there or trying to evade tackles and tripping over our own feet. Too much cute and not enough blue collar work. You have to rattle Melbourne early to beat them. Not play into their hands with showpony bullshyte.
-Cotch&Jack. These two are going down as Richmond legends. Two of the greatest footballers ever to have played at the club. But this year is going to be a very difficult year for both of them. Cotch clearly cannot apply enough defensive pressure in fwd 50 to warrant a permanent role there. When the game is hot he was found out yesterday and that cannot be ignored. Jack struggled badly yesterday to find any separation from Melbournes very good defensive hand offs. He tried to push up the ground but we weren’t winning enough clean ball to hit him up. He tried moving back down deep a few times but we couldn’t get clean entries deep. His mobility is very far off the mark for KPF and this is a huge worry for mine.

Overall. Bleak afternoon. Made to look ordinary by a very sharp Melbourne team. Had some bright spots but also some red flags.
I’ve got Melbourne finishing on top of my ladder before yesterday so it wasn’t a huge surprise to see a skill gap. But there is going to have a be a big turn around in attitudes defensively to be a top 4 team.

Agree with pretty much all of this. I would say though:

• disappointing day rather than bleak
• Cotch /Jack. Will give them the benefit of doubt that they are not fired up for a practice match & that they are experienced enough to contribute when the real matches start. But I reckon that one or both won’t finish the season.
• this time year I wouldn’t have picked Cats to win it or the Dees the previous year. Teams don’t win it in March. Let’s not get too carried away just yet. But it wasn’t a great performance.

 

[Rocco sifreddi]

Think we missed that George type manic forward pressure. They just ran out every crumb that fell from the marking contest. Cumberland has to stop flying with Jack and Tom and get front and centre, he takes himself out of the lock it in brigade.

Agree , add cotchin to that and its a problem we need to adress.

 

[Downtown06]

12 out

Do they even have 12 players

 

[Mr Magic]

Weirdly enough I think we actually missed Castagna or at least another small forward putting in repeat defensive efforts

Rioli Jr was a solo act in that regard and put in the hard yards but when we have Bolton, Cumbo, Dusty and Juddy wno are all amazing players but very offensively minded it’s just tipped the scales a little to far

Throw in Cotch and Jack who just don’t have the pace anymore we are having oppo defenders creating a lot of time and space for themselves to transition and set up counter attacks

I think the backline issues will sort themselves out and our midfield held its own against one of the best in the comp so that’s very much a positive

Just that forward structure needs a little bit of tweeking imo

Might not be super popular but maybe shifting Baker into the forward line who can still win his own ball and be a threat around goals but really set up some defensive intent, also opens up a spot in the backline for someone like Brown who impressed last week

I am not fussed over a lot of possessions for Baker. His goal was more productive. I think in the forward half he might do some more damage. When the real stuff comes along Hopper will have to get in the faces of Petracca and Oliver more. They won too much ball too easily in at the bounce.

We have to develop Ryan, he is really looking like a prospect

 

[Sir_Loin]

I only tuned in for the third quarter and disk notice we still over possess. Always one too many handballs so hopefully they cut that down.

Cotchin could certainly be done but I wouldn’t be drawing any conclusions off a practice match. He is the exact type of player who would cruise through that type of game so until the real stuff starts I’ll reserve judgement.

We kicked the ball into the mark, disposals turned over by the oppo just doing the fundamentals like putting their hands up when guarding. We used to be so good at that. Hoping its just rust, but Dimma and the coaching team would do well to have a couple of sessions to remind these guys not to be so lazy and there a strict non-negotiables when you play at this level. Im not going to wet the bed over it, but I'd want to see huge improvement the next time they walk out on the ground.