'What Went Wrong Last Night'

[B1 and B2]

l think Richmond thought it was a 7.10pm start..

They kicked 4 goals after that.

B2

 

[OzStick]

If true, it would be the senior players leading the revolt. If true then it only underlines that the blokes not up to going any further than 9th should go as soon as enough kids can come through. If true, this confirms that the action was the correct one and the on field leadership is hopelessly flawed. I wouldn't like to think they staged a protest with our time and money.

Agreed - you'd have to think that footballers at the elite level are a little more professional than that. More importantly you'd hope that they have some pride in the way they perform as well.

Having said all that, I hope that it isn't true - probably more just a case of lots of skinny kids playing, below par leadership being even thinner on the ground and being incredibly mentally fragile.

I would LIKE to agree with this as well, but I can't. How is it that over the space of 25 years Kevin Sheedy has been able to continually re-invent Essendon through heavy reliance on "skinny kids"? And why is it that skinny kids from EVERY other club are better than Richmond's?

The real answer is that they aren't. The various drafts now in place see to it that a certain level of equlity is achieved, so over a period of time things even out. So it has to be the way they are being developed.

Great players don't make a great team, a great team develops good players. What I mean by that is the coaching and development team, not the team on the ground. At the moment I feel we are being kidded that "we have a great support team at Richmond who are doing a fantastic job with a really promising group of young players".

I just don't understand how Richmond can be so consistently woeful over such a long period of time at developing "future champions", especially when you consider that there is such a big turn over of staff every time a coach gets the boot.

Surely at some time there have been "the right people" in those positions, so why haven't we seen tangible improvement in our young recruits when they ARE getting developed effectively, Unless of course the wrong players were being recruited at those times........

I am sick of seeing glimmers of hope - either keep me in the dark or dazzle me with brightness for an entire season, but don't keep showing me a dirty flourescent light with a dodgy starter and then tell me it's a ray of pure sunshine!!!

 

[Ghost of Punt Road]

Don't only balme Wallace.

It is the football department who brings players to the list.

Where are the Ruckmen they knew we needed for the last two years?

Additionally, 2.4 years of Royal and Wallace drilling our players has had no effect on skills, heart or tactics.

 

[poppa x]

What we saw last night should have been no surprise. I actually thought our performance in the Wizard Cup against Geelong was equally as bad, except that the scoreboard was more flattering. It all starts in the middle. I would love to see a stat on how many goals were kicked from clean centre clearances by the cats. It is actually a simple concept that if a side gets a run on, you man up in the centre to make it a 50/50 contest at worst. We maintained our loosechecking attacking midfield set up and they just continued to win the ball.

After Geelongs 6th goal and with Ablett tearing us apart, the next centre bounce had Ablett out on a wing on his own. His opponent (Newy) was 20 metres away from him playing Terry's much loved zone defence.

Guess who got the ball and handed the pussies there 7th goal?

 

[TigerSkills]

Poppa....

Fair to say that we didnt man anyone up. The only player that we manned up was young Selwood. Didnt bother with Chapman, Ablett, Corey, Mackie etc.

 

[itsintheblood]

So many theories & excuses on the debacle our club went through last night. I've heard rumours that the players tanked it in retaliation to how Gaspar was treated, but the way I saw it last night I saw players out there fingerpointing to each other, hands on hips, very bad body language, players where second guessing, and many where waiting for something to happen.

What was the root cause last night, or are there too many causes to mention?

The root cause GPB is simple. We're no good and our core group of senior players are rubbish. We have no leadership on the field. Paul Chapman talked the talk during the week and then he walked it. We talk it and then get smashed.

 

[clown]

1. No leadership. I've said it before and will say it again we havn't had good leadership since Matty knights was in his prime.
2. Passion, Spirit. The team is absolutley void of passion & spirit its like watching robots run around. Even in the 80's and early 90's when we did have some ordinary lists and we were gettin beaten most weeks we still played with the Tiger spirit which has now been missing for a number of years. Even though back then we copped some hidings we would often get a sniff and have a good come from behind win or be the under dog and have a good spirited win. Back in those days the supporters were rattling tins ,the players probably didn't get paid and the list on paper was a lot less talented than it is today but i still enjoyed watching them play every week. This current team has no passion ,spirit, heart or Balls.