Well we’re at the half way mark of what has been a rollercoaster ride of a season so far, and not just for Richmond supporters.

The competition is insanely even, and what was shown especially in round 12 is that even if you’re 10% off your game, you will lose or come close to it against any team in the competition.

I think the Tigers certainly have woken up to that fact over the last two weeks, having lost to Fremantle at the MCG and getting an almighty scare against the Giants.

The ideal scenario would’ve been going into the bye having won both those games and sitting pretty with a seven-five record.

Not much can be done now and as it stands we’re six and six with a percentage of 108.7. I reckon most of us around here would’ve taken that at the start of the year taking into account the incredibly difficult ‘fixture’. 

Unfortunately I’m not around the fan forums as much as I was in the past, so I’m pretty unaware of what the general ‘vibe’ is among the average Richmond supporter right now, but I’ll give my view about what’s happened in the last two weeks from my eyes.

The main point about both the Fremantle and GWS games was the weather. The keys to wet weather footy;

- Tackling
- Efficiency
- Contested Footy
- Inside 50’s

I’ll break down the key indicators for where we’ve gone wrong in the last two weeks…..

First of all both GWS and Fremantle brought their A-games. They saw the conditions, and they played it to a tee. Tackle numbers confirm that; Fremantle were an amazing +34 and GWS were +19.

Richmond are a highly skilled team, going at 73% disposal efficiency (equal third in the competition), but when the pressure was really cranked up by the opposition, we went at 66% against Fremantle and 63% against GWS.

Contested footy is another stat Richmond has been very good at over the season. Currently we’re the sixth best in the competition and we showed it. This was not the problem. We were -1 against Fremantle (bear in mind they’re the fourth best contested team in the competition) and were +37 against GWS.

The most amazing stat of all was the inside 50 counts for both games. Against Fremantle we had 15 more inside 50’s and against GWS a whopping 37 more.

So what you get of out that is that Richmond got their hands on the footy, and kicked it inside 50 much more than opposition. Pretty simple hey?

So why did we lose to Fremantle and get awfully close to doing so against GWS?

Efficiency. At the end of the day that’s all it is. I’m not even talking about the combined 20 goals, 32 behinds. Yes, that was part of the problem, but the bigger one was the delivery inside 50 and then the ability to lock it in there.

For the amount of times we went in there, 43 rebound 50’s for Fremantle and 48 for GWS is a sad tale.

The worrying thing is opposition clubs will really look to sustain the pressure on our midfield and the drive the half backs give us.

Chris Newman was heavily tagged by James McDonald and that is a trend I think we’ll begin to see. It’s up to Bachar Houli, Jake Batchelor and Matty Dea to really step up their rebounding game when the skipper is under that much attention.

The positive is; at least we’re still getting the footy in our forward 50.

Footy is so scrutinised these days. Clubs have access to behind the goal footage etc to dissect an opposition’s game plan to every minor detail.

We’ve possibly been exposed in the last two weeks, but we also exposed Hawthorn three weeks ago; look at them now. It’s nothing a few adjustments here and there can’t fix.

The main thing to bring out of the first 12 weeks is most definitely the endeavour and hunger from the players. You can’t question it.

The skill level has been incredibly high and there have been glimpses and genuine quarters/halves of footy against quality opposition where we have had dominance.

Let’s not forget this is the third youngest team in the competition. There will be inconsistencies and bumps along the road, no doubt, but its all part of the process.

What we have to look forward to is hopefully welcoming back Nathan Foley, Tyrone Vickery, Dylan Grimes and Steve Morris back to the team against Adelaide. Those are four crucial inclusions and it will be interesting to see what happens at the selection table.

Being in the position we are now, we can certainly look to have a decent crack at some September action. A few things will have to go our way, but we’ve built ourselves a block.

It looks to be a promising second half of the year. There’s a lot to achieve, and I reckon we’ve also got a decent chance of netting our first Brownlow Medallist since Ian Stewart in 1971. Cotch and Lids will surely be up there 12 rounds in!

Go Tiges!

You can follow me on Twitter @KristianPisano