Equal parts deflated, disappointed and proud, Richmond coach Adem Yze was left ruing the mission that proved about five minutes too hard for his emerging team.
The Tigers led from 10 minutes into the first quarter until 25 minutes into the last, before goalkicking inaccuracy came back to bite them brutally in Saturday’s three-point AFL loss to GWS.
Had they held on, it would have rivalled their round-seven upset of Gold Coast as rebuilding Richmond’s best win of the season – and arguably even better given this game was away.
But once again this season, the Tigers lost no friends.
“(It’s) deflating. I feel that we almost have a split personality in the rooms … so proud of our effort, so proud of our start,” Yze said.
“So proud of every quarter, really – the last quarter got away from us a little bit, but it wasn’t method, it wasn’t system, it was slight role execution (and) their good players played really well.
“We sit here really flat, but understand that we’re on the right path. We came up here on a mission … we were a few minutes away from having an enormous win – really disappointed.”
The Tigers did a lot of things right, especially centre clearances and contested possessions, and had seven more scoring shots.
But they sprayed 10.17 – including 1.6 in the second term when they could have killed off the game – and that left the door open for GWS.
Former Giants Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper shone against their old team in the midfield, while fellow onballer Dion Prestia excelled in his first game for the season after returning from injury.
Prestia, Tom Lynch and Toby Nankervis all were back this week and the three Richmond premiership heroes led well.
“Our leaders stood up,” Yze said.
“I commented to the boys about Dion, looking like it was just like riding a bike for him – you can just get back into AFL footy and get 30-odd possessions, but be just so calm at the ball.
“It’s not that, he’s put (in) a lot of time and effort.”
