Richmond's Biggest Weakness

[Michael F]

In my opinion, and in the opinion of a few of my friends, we have always thought that one of Richmond's biggest weaknesses is LEG SPEED and genuine burst, especially through the midfield.

Eg: Campbell good player, but plods along, pretty slow, we had Knights, great player, but prettly slow again, Duncan Kellaway, great player, but slow. Now we have Coughlan who is going to be a great player, but one of his weaknesses I think is he's not very quick leg wise; not slow but definately no speedster. Hilton has been used in the middle and he is also slow. Great to see we picked up Rodan. Now he has speed & burst. These are the type of players we need. More explosive, powerful, quick players if we are to match it with the bigger, quicker, better teams.

I'm interested to hear any replies on this subject.

I think we're gonna rip Melbourne apart tomorrow night. As long as Richardson is in, we can do anything, and I really hope they give Marty McGrath a run. I think he is going to be something special. Seen him train, the way he moves, kicks, marks. Looks the goods.

GO TIGES!!!

 

[admin]

Agree 110% Michael, and I think it's been a weakness for a long time.
I think our big men ie Richo, Otto, Razor etc are pacy enough for their size but our midfield has looked slow for years.
I really hope Fiora comes on this year. I think he's got a real touch of class and plenty of pace. Dragga would help too.
Rodan's burst of speed is awesome. Maybe more players could do that for a short period if they had his enthusiasm.
Overall we look too slow and are caught out too often because of it.

 

[johnson2richo2003]

speed isnt everything.
look at mick"the gasometer"nolan and brian "whale"roberts ;D

 

[admin]

speed isnt everything.
look at mick"the gasometer"nolan and brian "whale"roberts ;D

Haha that brings up our second biggest weakness. You don't have to run away if you can crush them. ;D

I saw a bit of an old game that was on the end of a video when a movie ended last night......one when we were miles in front of Collingwood and let them get back within a goal. Grrrrrrrr.
Anyway Tivva flew down the ground and kicked a goal from outside 50.
I look forward to seeing more of that from him now we have reinforcements in the midfield.
Go Tiges.

 

[PMac]

Michael F,

I suppose I'll sort of disagree, we havent lacked speed, we've lacked power.

None (ok except Ackermanis) of the gun midfielders is really fast. What they have is power.

Campo/Bowden/Tivendale et al are all as fast as Bickley, Riccoutto, Voss, Buckley, Harvey, the Johnsons etc but they just lose out in those vital 3 or 4 clearances/hard ball gets every match that converts to about 20 odd extra inside fifties to the bad guys and we lose.

So I say sort of agree because I think you're on the right track but got the wrong problem. We dont need a running coach or more runners, we need weightlifters or shot putters to teach our guys how to explode off one step for 2 or 3 meters.

On the other hand it could be I've said exactly the same as you but just phrased it differently ;D

 

[mightytiges]

When you're second to the ball in the middle most of the time you always look slow. If we start getting some confidence and ability in winning the ball out of the middle instead of being too defensive and trying to shut the opposition down most of the time, I'm sure the likes of Tivas. Fiora, Johnson, Rodan, Bowden, etc.. will be able to show off their leg speed.

 

[admin]

I thought (only from a watching on telly perspective admittedly) that we looked very slow on Friday night.
That mightn't bother us against similar teams to us, but against pacy teams like Melbourne looked it will prove costly imo.