Richmond coach Damien Hardwick says his side’s discipline was “incredibly poor” against the Swans, claiming Tigers fans had every right to be disappointed with some “ridiculous” lapses by players.
The Tigers on Friday night were humbled by a Tom Papley-inspired Sydney outfit, which ran away from Richmond in the fourth quarter to claim a comprehensive 44-point win.
While the Tigers threatened the Swans throughout the second half, Hardwick’s troops coughed up costly 50m penalties – some that led to goals – as the Tigers tried to close Sydney’s margin.
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Speaking to reporters post-game, Hardwick said he was disappointed his side couldn’t capitalise on its momentum more often throughout the night.
He said the Tigers needed to improve their smarts and ball execution inside 50 – and their discipline.
“I thought our discipline was incredibly poor,” Hardwick told reporters. “A couple of instances where we just look at it and go ‘that’s ridiculous what we’re doing’. We’ll chat to the boys about that.
“At the end of the day, it’s all good to push and shove, but the reality is you’ve got to pick the ball up. That’s tough sort of stuff.
“I’m disappointed with that and our fans will be and I’m sure they (the players) will be when they see them.”
Hardwick insisted ill-discipline hadn’t been an issue throughout the season so far, instead claiming it just bubbled over on Friday night.
“I actually think we’ve been pretty good. We certainly had a focus on reducing our number of free kicks and it’s been a lot better this year,” he said.
“But we let ourselves down (against Sydney). They kicked two 50m penalty goals – just easy goals that you can’t defend against. It’s disappointing.”
Hardwick pointed out Richmond gave up eight front-half goals, which is “unlike us and certainly made our job a hell of a lot harder”.
The Tigers had few AFL-listed players in their VFL line-up on Friday, proving the depth of the list is being challenged severely just five rounds into the season.
“It looks a little bit disjointed at the moment because we’ve got four changes then four changes and all those sort of things. But the side that we played are a little bit the same,” he said. “They just had a superstar in Papley stand up and kick six goals, which is the difference.
“We’re just not executing our offence well enough. We’re missing kicks that we should kick, there’s a couple of players that if we just had have kicked the ball to grass, we probably scored two goals. We leave it short, a guy marks it, goes back the other way for a goal just prior to three quarter-time. Those sorts of things we’ve just got to better.”
Asked if he felt like his hands were tied considering the lengthy injury list, Hardwick said: “No I expect us to be better than what we’re delivering at the moment. We’re not where we need to be. We know the things we’ve got to fix.
“Sides will go through injuries, but we’ve got to get our players playing to a more acceptable standard for longer. We’ve got splits and spurts – that doesn’t cut it in the AFL. It’s such an even competition and if you fall away by 10 per cent, as we did in the last quarter, you get belted.”
Hardwick lauded the performance of veteran forward Jack Riewoldt, who recovered from a nasty cut on his head to boot 4.1 in a lone hand effort inside Richmond’s forward 50.
“He looked dangerous inside 50. We didn’t have a lot of great looks tonight, but he’s probably the guy that stood up,” Hardwick said.
“I didn’t see the actual incident (that left Riewoldt bloodied), but I saw him come back on. He’s a warrior, Jack. He’s had multiple breaks and all these sorts of things and he just continues to play. He has a couple of operations every year, but it’s what’s made him one of our game’s greatest players.”
