Matthews’ scathing assessment of ‘training drill’ Tigers as “internal confusion” remains on game plan

AFL great Leigh Matthews says Richmond’s performance on Saturday night against Brisbane looked more like one of his old training drills than the performance of a professional club, as questions are raised on the Tigers’ game plan.

Adem Yze’s Tigers were handed their biggest loss of the season – and ninth worst of all-time – when going down to the Lions by 119 points at the Gabba.

Yze was missing at least nine of his best 22 from an injury list of 15, yet the Tigers had 89 less disposals and allowed Brisbane to take marks at will, with Chris Fagan’s men racking up 164. Their season average had been 107.

Reacting to the loss on Nine’s Footy Furnace, Matthews – a four-time premiership coach – was scathing in his assessment.

“What I would have been disappointed in watching the game yesterday… when we used to do training drills but not complete match training, we used to call a shadowing drill, where one team would let the other team retain possession, full ground stuff, but you’d be just trying to pressure them, not get the ball off, but pressure them. Richmond looked like the shadowing team on (Saturday) night,” Matthews said.

“They just looked like they were out there but the Lions kept finding open targets.”

It came after SEN regular and Channel 9 journalist Tom Morris told the program that not all at Punt Road are on the same page regarding Yze’s game plan.

In his year of senior coaching, Yze – formerly at Melbourne – has been smashed by injuries but recorded just one win through the opening 10 games.

“What I can bring you tonight is there is some internal confusion at the Tigers and it’s around their game plan,” Morris said.

“Adem Yze has come in and he’s trying to play a game plan in terms of ball movement which revolves around going long down the line to packs, like Carlton and like Melbourne, they’re the two examples he’s been using internally as, ‘that’s who we want to play like’.

“But the argument against that is they don’t have the cattle to do it. Even at full strength, you could argue they don’t have the cattle to do it, but certainly given all the injuries they’ve had, they don’t have the cattle.”

Morris also raised concerns about Richmond’s list profile, given the Tigers have been one of the nine oldest teams across the competition in every round this year.

Fellow cellar dwellers North Melbourne and Hawthorn have the 18th and 17th oldest lists in the competition respectively.

But Matthews is happy to give Yze a pass with his game plan thus far given the Tigers’ availability woes.

“You can’t have a game plan when you’re constantly changing your team because the game plan has to be known by all the players who are playing the same way at the same time and it’s impossible for that to be happening at Richmond when they’ve got so many injuries and therefore they’ve used 39 players… you can't have that much change and be on the same page,” the former Lions coach said.

Richmond has a seven-day break into Dreamtime at the ‘G against Essendon, who hasn’t lost since Round 4.