Richmond race past Port, turns attention to bigger fish

RICHMOND has continued its strong early-season AFLW form, winning a fourth match in a row last night after defeating Port Adelaide by 21 points.

Reflecting post match on what transpired in the match, Richmond coach Ryan Ferguson was proud of his troops’ “strong performance”, which was built on the back of a four-goal head start.

“I like the way that we started,” he said. “I would love to have had more scoreboard pressure. We missed some chances that we definitely could have and should have taken.

“But that’s going to happen from time to time and [we] just stuck at our game, got forward territory, lots of front half turnovers, that’s the game that we want to play… I thought that set the game up, and then you could definitely see the fatigue in the game, the league’s created that.

“I like that we controlled the game from the outset and then, just some, some professional moments where we just hold up strong, absorb some pressure, get some counter attack, get field position.”

After the Tigers struggled in front of goal early, Katie Brennan’s major really got things going for her side.

“She set the tone the last few weeks and actually really impacted the game heavily early and set the tone with intent, but also with scoreboard pressure,” Ferguson said.

“I thought it was a bit opposite tonight. She was a bit scrappy at the start and just a bit reactive. But then she made the adjustment and in big moments as the game wore on, that was when she impacted.

“So that’s a real leader’s game to be able to not get seduced into worrying about your own stuff and actually, what does the team need in this moment and how can I impact?”

It is a big week for the Tigers, who have the unenviable task of trying to defeat North Melbourne in Tasmania on Sunday.

Ferguson says the plan for the rest of the week is to “recover, rest up, and get to work on our game”, with the Richmond brand of football continuing to be established.

“We’re in a building phase and we need to keep improving, and there’s so much from the game again to reassert In our own minds,” Ferguson said.

“I just feel like we’re learning so much every week, but we’re also doing it from a pretty dominant position at the moment in some of our games. Obviously, we’re coming up against a red hot opposition this week.

“So, pretty excited about that challenge. The Kangaroos are probably the form team of the competition, so we can’t wait to put our game to the test against them.”

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