In the Fighting Tiger magazine’s 2011 pre-season edition, then second-year Richmond coach Damien Hardwick told resident Club journalist Tony Greenberg how the team was shaping up for the next phase of the exciting Yellow and Black journey. Here, 10 years on, is that Q & A in full. Given what’s transpired at Tigerland throughout the decade since then, it makes for truly fascinating reading . . .

TG: How did this pre-season differ to your first one at the Club the previous year?

DH: The players now have an understanding of what we’re after. Last year, the pre-season was very much stop-start, with us talking through situations. We had sessions that were going for three and a half hour sessions at that stage, because we were trying to teach a new game plan, a new defensive formation, and that was obviously taking a lot of time. Our sessions now are a lot more intense – much more game-specific training, compared to last year. We probably went into last season a little underdone due to the stop-start nature of training, which we knew would happen, but we felt it was important to get that understanding of how we wanted to play. 

TG: Are there likely to be any major changes to the playing style in 2011?

DH: We’ve got three or four different types of ball movement that we’ve been working on at training. So, we’ll be more advanced than last year, although we’ve still got a little way to go in some of those areas. Defensively, we’ve ramped up a few things that we’ve been doing. Last year, we tried to teach both offense and defence. This year, however, we’ve gone slightly off the offense and tried to create more of a defensive style of training. We’ve been able to focus more heavily on the defensive aspects of our game, which has been really good. Offensively, our guys are pretty much attuned to what we’re trying to do with different styles of ball movement, etc. But this year the defensive aspect has really ramped up. You would have seen in our first NAB Cup game that, offensively, we struggled with the personnel we had out. Defensively, though, we actually tackled quite well, our pressure on the ball-carrier was quite good, and we were pretty happy with the scores we restricted both sides (Carlton and Collingwood) to.

TG: Obviously, Jack Riewoldt was a standout up forward last season, kicking 78 goals, but the next best at the Club scored just 15. How do you see the forward structure evolving this season?

DH: We’ve trialled Ty Vickery up forward for the majority of the pre-season and he’s been pretty good, but it’s going to take him time to work in with Jack (Riewoldt). Ideally, we don’t want Jack kicking 80-100 goals . . . We’d love him to kick around 50-60 goals and, hopefully, we can get a secondary forward kicking 40-50, and a third forward who can kick 20-30. In general, if you can have five or six players kicking more than 20 goals for the season, that generally means you’re going to be a top eight side. We’ve got to work to spread the load . . .This season, we’re also going to look at pushing our midfielders inside the forward half as well. The big plus with recruiting players like Shaun Grigg and Bachar Houli since the end of last season is the fact they not only further complement our midfield, but they also allow us to play Trent Cotchin, Dustin Martin, Daniel Jackson and Nathan Foley forward at times. Instead of them always being rested on the bench, sometimes they can push forward. Good players will generally find the goals. If we can get a goal a game out of our midfield players, that would be a massive bonus for us.

TG: What about the key-defensive positions?

DH: We see Dave Astbury as a long-term player – a guy we can build our defence around for the next 10-12 years, touch wood. He’s very smart, as well as being an outstanding young leader in his own right. There’s a lot of competition for spots among our tall defenders – Kel Moore, Luke McGuane, Will Thursfield and Dave Gourdis. And we’re further developing the likes of Dylan Grimes and Matty Dea, who have made massive inroads already this year. We generally like playing only two tall defenders, and then the third one has to have the capacity to play tall or small, which Kel Moore and Will Thursfield can do. 

TG: How will the team adapt to the league’s new substitution rule?

DH: We think our bench will generally consist of versatile-type players . . . It’s going to be really hard now, from a flexibility point of view, to have one-position players on the bench. You need players on the bench, who are capable of playing in a variety of positions. The game requires greater flexibility now, with just three bench players, plus the substitute, so the specificity of roles is somewhat diminished. As far as the actual substitute player is concerned, we’ll be looking for a player who can have an impact in all areas – someone like a Shane Tuck, who’s got the ability to come into the middle and a have a significant impact, and can also play down back, as well as push forward. So, it’s going to be a player who offers greater flexibility, not so much a specific type of player, like a specialist forward or specialist back. It will be a guy who can offer flexibility – an old-fashioned, utility-type player. 

TG: You must be delighted to have a fit Nathan Foley at your disposal after all his injury problems . . .

DH: It’s exciting to have Nathan back. In effect, he’s a first-round draft pick for us this year. He basically hasn’t played two years, so it’s hard to say he’s going to be an A-grader straight away.  Anyone who misses a significant amount of time is going to take some time to get back to their absolute best, but, look, Nathan’s been terrific with his preparation over the pre-season. He is quick, uses the ball well, and makes very good decisions. We look forward to seeing him back in the midfield, but he’ll spend some time up forward as well, to help is get that goalkicking spread we’re after.

TG: How has Trent Cotchin looked throughout his first full pre-season since joining the Club?

DH: The transformation of Trent from a body-wise point of view has been significant. He’s now looking like a finely-tuned athlete. Before, because of his reduced training capacity, he struggled to get the athlete’s body that he’s now got. So, it’s very exciting. Our fitness staff have done a tremendous job with managing him, as well as Nathan Foley. We’re really excited by what he’s going to offer us this year. He’s just starting to scratch the surface in terms of his potential and what he could do for this football club . . .

TG: What specific areas of the game are you looking for the team to improve in this season?

DH: We’ve got to improve in all areas. There were a number of games last year, where we lost by 10-goals plus. In the majority of those games, there was one quarter where the opposition blew us away with a six or seven-goal onslaught. For the rest of the game we were relatively competitive.  So, look, we’ve got to reduce our points against to probably somewhere in the vicinity of 90-92. We also need to square up our inside-50 differential for the year. But we also want to increase our scoring. We believe we laid some solid foundations last year, and that we’ve improved our talent pool over the off-season, bringing in the likes of Grigg, Houli, Conca, Batchelor, Helbig, Derickx and Macdonald, who have all been very good with their in-put so far. Given our talent pool has improved, I would expect to see some overall significant improvement with the team.

TG: How do you, personally, feel heading into season 2011?

DH: I’m very excited by what lies ahead. In our first year, it was all about starting to lay the foundations and seeing what we’ve got in place. Now we can start building. We’ve brought 24 new players into the Club over the course of the past two years, which is a significant turnaround. We feel we’ve got the list now to move forward . . .  Obviously, we’ve got to complement the list with further talent down the track. But we’ve started the journey, which is very exciting for the Club and our supporters.

TG: What are your expectations for the team?

DH: You look at the back-end of last season and, over the last 13 games, we were 6-7 in terms of wins and losses, which showed the progress we made. Our inside-50 differential ended up plus two for the year, while in the defensive aspects of the game, I think we were ranked in the top eight during that time, too. We are looking to build on that progress we made in 2010 and, hopefully, give our fans reason to sing the song quite a few times throughout the 2011 season.