Cautious Brown Looks To Finals

The Sunday Age

Sunday June 18, 2006

By LYALL JOHNSON With MICHAEL COULTER

RICHMOND was starting to believe it was a realistic chance of making the finals, senior Tiger Nathan Brown said on the eve of the club's crucial match against Hawthorn at Aurora Stadium in Launceston today.

While the players "haven't spoken about finals yet", in part because of a poor start to the season that included a couple of 100-point-plus thumpings, Brown said their recent form had put them in position to challenge for a spot in the eight.

"We realise finals (are) a realistic chance, but to make finals we have got to beat sides like Hawthorn who are in the same sort of running as us," Brown said yesterday before heading to Tasmania for his second game in two weeks on his return - again - from a broken leg.

"We have got to beat the teams we're expected to beat and then try to pinch a few against sides that people probably think should beat us. We pinched a game against Adelaide, we beat Geelong at Geelong. People didn't expect us to win that. We threw one away against Fremantle a few weeks ago . . ."

The Tigers go into today's match warm favourites, with six wins from their past eight matches, compared with the Hawks' recent record of six straight losses.

Yet Brown said the club had to be mindful it was not over-confident. "Hopefully, blokes don't go into holiday mode a week early," he said.

Brown said he was feeling good about his recovery progress and that last week was the first time he had been able to train fully after playing a match.

"I've just got to spend a lot more time on the recovery and rehab part of it - getting massages, icing up every couple of hours," he said. "I've got to make sure I get down to the bay and walk in the water and, I guess, not have a beer at night . . .

"I've got a compression stocking that I wear for it - it's just precautionary - that makes sure I can come up week after week now."

Missing from the Tigers' line-up for the second week will be key forward Matthew Richardson, who has a wrist injury.

Richardson said he was disappointed at missing out on playing in Tasmania, where he competed in senior football for Devonport aged 16. "When the draw came out and I saw we were playing in Tasmania, straightaway I thought it would be good to have a game down there . . ." he said. "I was looking forward to it, and to have the injury now is very frustrating, disappointing."

The Tigers enjoy a strong support base in Tasmania, and Events Tasmania director and former Richmond coach and premiership player Paul Sproule said the match was expected to break attendance records.

Sproule said Richmond's popularity in Tasmania had surged during the 1960s and '70s, partly because of the Tigers' success in that era and partly because of the number of Tasmanians who had played for them, including the legendary Royce Hart. -- With MICHAEL COULTER

© 2006 The Sunday Age

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