Possibly, I also think that maybe as fans we all got ahead of ourselves a little bit. Reality is that progression isn’t always an upward linear trajectory. There are extenuating circumstances for a few of our young guns clearly, injury (JD, Raz), tagged (Zerrett), Pidgeon (still probably a year or so away from really hitting his straps).
IMO we are a work in progress and probably still two years away from really taking that next step when we have our senior core of 24-29 year olds consisting of JD, Raz, Stringer, Smith, Saad, McGrath, Heppell, Merrett, Stewart, Tippa, McKenna, Parish, Langford, Gleeson and possibly Francis. That is a serious core of talented players, only thing missing is a little bit of grunt.
It is good that Stringer is getting into games more and getting more touches. But at this stage he isn’t really providing any ‘hurt’ factor with those touches.
He is building nicely, it was always a year about stability, learning, growth and development for Jake.
If he is stable, happy and committed to his job as a footballer he will only improve. The real reward is 2019 and beyond.
The best part is his talent is best in the comp level, so if he can fulfil it through the work he is doing now we are going to have some special performances to watch in the next few years!!
Just on Stringer, I feel that he is almost being played exclusively around stoppages and the forwardline.
May be my imagination, but you dont see him too often around the ground itself, involved in general play, all his midfield posessions seem to come at or immediately after a stoppage.
As bad as his bad games have been, I reckon he’s had more good games than bad ones and I think he’s been getting better as the year has wore on. I also think this his almost his first good game when the team has played like trash, so it’s a great result.
Hooker isn’t fast, so a smaller fwd line will show him up in defence. Against contested marking forwards he is a monster. It’s about the matchups and I think it’s a coaching issue personally.
Clearly the tigers are quick moving ball and took most of their grabs on lead, not high bombs in. So change up the fkn team.
Nah - Richmond’s preferred way of moving the ball inside forward is to hit a long bomb, the big guys to bring the ball to ground and then let the smaller players do the business.
Pops up in defence a fair bit. The guy is not limited to the forward line and center bounce. He’s travelling some kms if he’s making meaningful impact in the D50.