RICHMOND will ramp up its reliance on Jack Riewoldt to kick a winning score in tomorrow night’s must-win clash against Brisbane Lions after losing patience with Tyrone Vickery.
Tigers coach Damien Hardwick yesterday declared Vickery fully fit but left the struggling spearhead at home despite flying a 25-man squad to Queensland.
And Hardwick declared his battling forward mix worked better after red-vesting Vickery before half-time in last week’s disappointing loss to Collingwood.
PICS: JONATHAN BROWN THROUGH THE YEARS
Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE
Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.
READ NOWVickery was the sole axing, replaced by Ricky Petterd as Richmond plots to spoil Jonathan Brown’s 250th match at the Gabba.
The Lions brought in debutant Darcy Gardiner, former Tiger Luke McGuane and Ryan Lester to cover injured stars Matthew Leuenberger and Pearce Hanley, while Ryan Harwood was omitted.
Hardwick rated Vickery’s season a “6/10” and said his form was reflective of the struggling Tigers, who enter the Easter Thursday match perilously perched at 1-3 and 14th on the ladder.
“Ty’s working on his game. He’s a very important player to our football side, he knows that and we know that,” Hardwick said.
The Tigers have been smashed in first quarters this year, outscored 14.11 to 6.9 in their three losses and Hardwick put the onus on his forwards to capitalise early at the Gabba tonight.
“(The poor starts) are developing a bit of a trend at the moment,” he said.
“We’re having shots but not actually getting the scoreboard. We’ll try a few different things this week to try and get the scoreboard flowing our way.”
Hardwick also threw down the challenge to his midfielders to help Trent Cotchin after the captain was bullied out of last week’s loss by tagger Brent Macaffer, but the coach did not ask the umpires department for more protection.
“We felt we could have helped him out a little bit more around the scrimmages and off the ball and that’s something we’ve addressed during the week with our players and we expect a better result,” he said.
“Sometimes you need to take a step back to go two forward, and that’s where we feel we’re at the moment.”
The Lions are yet to win a quarter under Justin Leppitsch, who spent the past three years under Hardwick at Richmond.