RICHMOND’S AFLW Coach Ryan Ferguson was certainly a happy man after his side upset the ladder leading Brisbane on Saturday.

He felt that it was the best win his team had ever had.

“We’re a new club in the comp essentially, we’ve got a few years under our belt, so there’s a lot of firsts. When I first came on board there were a lot of firsts, firsts wins and two in a row, and we’re still there. We’re still creating a lot of firsts and it was a breakthrough moment. We felt like we had chances against the Crows and we couldn’t put them away, and to play against the best, in clearly the best form in the comp at the moment and in our opinion outright premiership favourites, it was a breakthrough that we’d been looking for.”

While his defenders were calm under pressure in the last few moments of the match, the same could not be said for Ferguson.

“Lucky I was on the bench, because if I was in the box I might have skewed into a bit of erratic behaviour” he said with a laugh. “But the bench keeps you nice and calm because you know you’ve just got to deliver in the moment and the fact is that all of our experiences over the last four weeks have allowed us to play that situation really well. So it’s been brilliant that the attitude of the players has been learn, grow, get better, take belief, get better and it literally took all four games of experience and moments put into action to get over the line in a really tight, intense – the crowd was unbelievable – brilliant atmosphere.”

He also later noted that “That was as good as I’ve seen us perform in those tight moments and playing the percentages and playing it smart and situational awareness.”

Ferguson noted that the win was even more special because his side was missing the likes of Sarah Hosking and Katie Brennan.

“It also shows the journey that we’re on in terms of building that depth and using our whole list and that’s what’s required to be a good team. In previous years we’re building and jeez if we get a better run of injuries we might be okay. No, let’s get better then that and let’s be competitive and let’s win games regardless of what we’ve got on the park, because we’ve recruited well, we’ve trained well and we’re moulding a list that we think can be competitive no matter who’s out there.”

Richmond really lifted in the second half and rather than blaming it on what he said at half time, Ferguson said the players came in on a high.

“I think they took a fair bit of belief out of the second quarter. Brisbane have been destroying teams in the second quarter and we knew that, and to be able to match it with them in the second quarter. It seemed like in the rooms that there was a sense of belief, we’d maybe taken some of their best punches others haven’t been able to absorb, and we are ready to play the game out and see if we can get a result.”