Paul Gough
afl.com.au
4:59:21 PM Thu 6 February, 2003
Richmond coach Danny Frawley has forecast a more attacking approach from his side in 2003 now that the Tigers have finally added some much-needed class to their midfield.
Frawley said in the past the Tigers were often forced to try to negate the better credentialed midfields of opposition sides and hope their strong forward line would secure victory.
But with the Tigers having pulled off a recruiting coup over the summer by luring former premiership players Kane Johnson from Adelaide and Justin Blumfield from Essendon to Punt Road - Frawley is hoping to create a more attacking midfield division this season.
"It's probably an area now- we look at our midfield with Johnson and Blumfield coming in and hopefully (David) Rodan and (Mark) Coughlan showing some improvement - and we think we can go into some games of football now and actually we can win the game (in the midfield),"he said during the Tigers pre-season training camp in Traralgon.
"(In the past) we have probably had a negative slant going into games knowing if we can hold the opposition midfields, our ends (backs and forwards) will do the job."
"But now we are just trying to teach our midfield to make sure we can kick some goals."
The Tigers are also hoping the inclusion of Blumfield and Johnson plus the improvement of Rodan and Coughlan - both revelations in 2002 - will also enable the side to boost its strikepower by playing the likes of Joel Bowden in attack to ease the pressure on both Matthew Richardson and Brad Ottens.
Richmond were the third lowest scorers in 2002 as they badly missed the influence of Richardson - who missed nine games for the season - and new recruit Greg Stafford, who had a slow start due to injury which forced Ottens to spend more time in the ruck.
Having experienced virtually the entire performance spectrum in his three years as coach - the Tigers have finished 9th, 3rd and 14th in the past three years - Frawley is not making any predictions about what the Tigers are capable of this year.
But he has promised Richmond fans the team will do everything possible to lessen the gap between its best performances and its worst performances during his time as coach.
"I suppose you look at it and we had an average year the first year, a good one the second and a poor one the third," he said.
"We've got a little bit of resolve this year but we know we have got a hell of a lot of work to gain respect back for ourselves and that's all we worried about at the moment."
"We've got away from setting targets."
"We just want to make sure that win, lose or draw we are going to be consistent (in our performance) and that's something that from year to year hasn't been the case,"he said.
afl.com.au
4:59:21 PM Thu 6 February, 2003
Richmond coach Danny Frawley has forecast a more attacking approach from his side in 2003 now that the Tigers have finally added some much-needed class to their midfield.
Frawley said in the past the Tigers were often forced to try to negate the better credentialed midfields of opposition sides and hope their strong forward line would secure victory.
But with the Tigers having pulled off a recruiting coup over the summer by luring former premiership players Kane Johnson from Adelaide and Justin Blumfield from Essendon to Punt Road - Frawley is hoping to create a more attacking midfield division this season.
"It's probably an area now- we look at our midfield with Johnson and Blumfield coming in and hopefully (David) Rodan and (Mark) Coughlan showing some improvement - and we think we can go into some games of football now and actually we can win the game (in the midfield),"he said during the Tigers pre-season training camp in Traralgon.
"(In the past) we have probably had a negative slant going into games knowing if we can hold the opposition midfields, our ends (backs and forwards) will do the job."
"But now we are just trying to teach our midfield to make sure we can kick some goals."
The Tigers are also hoping the inclusion of Blumfield and Johnson plus the improvement of Rodan and Coughlan - both revelations in 2002 - will also enable the side to boost its strikepower by playing the likes of Joel Bowden in attack to ease the pressure on both Matthew Richardson and Brad Ottens.
Richmond were the third lowest scorers in 2002 as they badly missed the influence of Richardson - who missed nine games for the season - and new recruit Greg Stafford, who had a slow start due to injury which forced Ottens to spend more time in the ruck.
Having experienced virtually the entire performance spectrum in his three years as coach - the Tigers have finished 9th, 3rd and 14th in the past three years - Frawley is not making any predictions about what the Tigers are capable of this year.
But he has promised Richmond fans the team will do everything possible to lessen the gap between its best performances and its worst performances during his time as coach.
"I suppose you look at it and we had an average year the first year, a good one the second and a poor one the third," he said.
"We've got a little bit of resolve this year but we know we have got a hell of a lot of work to gain respect back for ourselves and that's all we worried about at the moment."
"We've got away from setting targets."
"We just want to make sure that win, lose or draw we are going to be consistent (in our performance) and that's something that from year to year hasn't been the case,"he said.
