Richmond deals with Collingwood and rain to jump back on winners list

RICHMOND bounced back onto the winners list on the weekend with a win over Collingwood in very tricky conditions at Punt Road Oval.

Reflecting post match, Tigers’ coach Ryan Ferguson said that he “thought it was a mature four quarter performance.

“We prepared for any conditions because we knew the weather might be around” Ferguson continued.

“We’ve played wet weather footy the last couple of weeks, so we’re quite confident. Whether it was dry, windy, still sunny, it didn’t really matter.

“But we knew Collingwood was going to be very much up and about after last week’s win and we wanted to snuff that out early. Then to come out after halftime was again just to stay composed, come out and want to start the game again but assert our authority.”

The weather was atrocious at times on Saturday afternoon, with the half time break extended thanks to a lightning delay.

Ferguson said that he let his players navigate the extended break how they thought best that they should.

“We just give information and then allow the players to have their own time essentially,” Ferguson said.

“Then just get the last prep right of, hey, when we get the go ahead, you’ll have this amount of time and then we get on the ground, we’ll treat it like a pre game warm up, so you can set yourself.”

“Then outside of that, it’s almost let them, let them relax and let them be who they need to be, and they controlled that really well.”

Despite the weather Richmond had a particularly tall line up, with the likes of Katie Brennan, Tamara Luke and milestone girl Caitlin Greiser all featuring prominently.

However, Ferguson was not worried about the height of his side.

“I still think we had enough run and I still think you need competitors and targets in the wet and they can bring your smalls into the game,” he said.

“So, that’s something you always consider. Is it wet? Do we need more runners? Do we need to go shorter? But the players have the skill set to play those conditions and I thought all of our tools impacted and they brought smalls into the game.”

Monique Conti did get some treatment during the match, but there is nothing to be worried about for Tigers’ fans.

“She got through the game no problem,” Ferguson confirmed.

“She’s a bit of a warrior. She battles through a lot of things.”

“That’s the one thing I only know about our team. I know other teams will be dealing with it, but the way they’ve dealt with sickness and played and got the job done, played our role, soreness, banged up, but get the job done.

“I think that’s a maturity in our group where they know when they step foot on the field, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got to play your role for the team. There’s things that people wouldn’t know they’ve been dealing with because they just get out there and play for their teammates. I think that’s been really pleasing this year.”

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