Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player.
HEAVY losses to Hawthorn and Collingwood hasn't dented Richmond coach Damien Hardwick's faith that his side can match it with the best teams in the AFL.
And despite having won just once in 17 attempts against Geelong since 2001, Hardwick is as confident as ever that the Tigers can defeat the Cats at the MCG on Sunday.
Richmond will be boosted by the much-anticipated returns of Brett Deledio and Alex Rance from injury.
TIGERS: OUR SEASON IS STILL ALIVE
Deledio has been missing since Round 3 because of an Achilles injury, Rance played Round 1 before falling off his bike and fracturing his foot.
Both trained strongly at Punt Rd yesterday and Hardwick said the pair would help the team's run and carry out of defence.
Brett Deledio (left) and Chris Knights in high spirits at Richmond training. Source: Getty Images
"You want to compete to the best of your ability against every side — sometimes you're going to win, sometimes you're going to lose," Hardwick said.
"But as long as you put your best game forward you can probably tolerate losses. Unfortunately for us I think our best this year has probably been three quarters, or two and a half, against Carlton. We just haven't put those four-quarter performances together.
"And the reality is that you're not going to win games of footy playing two and a half quarters. So we have to make sure we consistently do things well all of the time."
The Tigers haven't beaten the Cats since 2006 and are winless against this weekend's opponents at the MCG this millennium — 1999 was the last time they beat them there.
But Hardwick said he is as confident now as he would have been at the start of the season that his team can defeat Geelong on Sunday.
"I back our players in every day of the week," he said.
Alex Rance returns for the Tigers. Picture: Colleen Petch. Source: News Corp Australia
It's an often-used cliche in professional sport that teams focus on what they can do rather than on what the opposition will dish up, but Hardwick said that was genuinely the case this week.
After the disappointing 66-point loss to Hawthorn in which the side conceded five goals from centre bounce clearances and four from kick ins Hardwick said the players had taken it upon themselves to lead the team review process this week.
"We probably have scaled a little bit down with the opposition stuff and gone back to what we know," he said.
"We showed them vision of last year and the year previous where we were moving the ball a little bit better. The thing is, we know what to do, we just have to transfer that knowledge from the classroom out on to the ground."
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Heavy losses haven’t dinted Tigers
Dengan url
http://olahragasehatiku.blogspot.com/2014/05/heavy-losses-havenat-dinted-tigers.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Heavy losses haven’t dinted Tigers
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Heavy losses haven’t dinted Tigers
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar