RIDING the tide of the Dreamtime victory Richmond came north to Darwin and got lost in its own dreams, playing as poorly as it had in a year and leaving coach Damien Hardwick bitterly disappointed and stewing on the fact that with a bye this week it would be a fortnight before it could atone for the ugly lapse.
Richmond was a mess from start to finish in the match that - mercifully for fans - was played in the twilight zone of Saturday night, interstate and on pay TV only but also in the half-light of a ground of failing lights.
Played on a warm Darwin night in dry but humid, and so slippery, conditions, both sides fumbled terribly and executed skills poorly. Port Adelaide, however, was able to adapt to the conditions while Richmond overdid the handball. It was forced into indecision and panicked. It was ugly.
''It's probably the poorest we have played for quite some time, so it is disappointing and the thing that really hurts us is we have to wait two weeks before we get back and have another crack,'' Hardwick said.
''No doubt we over-handballed it,'' he admitted. ''We call it referring pressure, we were going around in circles there at one stage and a lot of that was due to Port's pressure.
''I think they out-tackled us by a differential of 27 so their pressure around the ball was a lot better than ours and forced us into those handball chains we didn't want. We tried to rectify that mainly in the second quarter when we started to get on top of it but we couldn't capitalise on some of our chances and I think we ended up with three goals seven for the quarter.''
In a stalemate contest early, neither side could score for large chunks of the game, and the Tigers' second quarter, in particular, was an exercise in frustration when in a period when, with 18 inside 50s to 13 they should have broken the game open, they squandered their chances. It meant that in the second half they began to just surge at goal and scrap for an opportunist chance rather than through deliberate, structured play.
''We didn't use the ball well at all and because our skills were relatively down I thought we just had to attack the goal face more and scrounge our goals,'' Hardwick said. ''I think our retained possession inside 50 over the last six weeks has had us number two in the AFL. As of last night I would say it would be well down.
''I don't know if emotion had anything to do with it [after the Dreamtime win], I just didn't think we hunted the ball anywhere near hard enough and Port's ability to handle the ball was outstanding and I thought ours was very, very poor. So it was a real let down.
''By the way our guys were handling the ball you would have thought it was slippery. ''I thought we fumbled the ball all night. I thought they were a lot cleaner with their disposal, their efficiency by hand and foot seemed a lot better than ours and it was uncharacteristic of our guys.
''I wish we were playing next week to be honest. We have to stew on this loss for two weeks so we will give the guys a couple of days off then hit the training track pretty hard.''
In losing to Port, bottom of the ladder with only one win before Saturday night, the Tigers wasted a great opportunity to claim a spot in the top eight.
Richmond was a mess from start to finish in the match that - mercifully for fans - was played in the twilight zone of Saturday night, interstate and on pay TV only but also in the half-light of a ground of failing lights.
Played on a warm Darwin night in dry but humid, and so slippery, conditions, both sides fumbled terribly and executed skills poorly. Port Adelaide, however, was able to adapt to the conditions while Richmond overdid the handball. It was forced into indecision and panicked. It was ugly.
''It's probably the poorest we have played for quite some time, so it is disappointing and the thing that really hurts us is we have to wait two weeks before we get back and have another crack,'' Hardwick said.
''No doubt we over-handballed it,'' he admitted. ''We call it referring pressure, we were going around in circles there at one stage and a lot of that was due to Port's pressure.
''I think they out-tackled us by a differential of 27 so their pressure around the ball was a lot better than ours and forced us into those handball chains we didn't want. We tried to rectify that mainly in the second quarter when we started to get on top of it but we couldn't capitalise on some of our chances and I think we ended up with three goals seven for the quarter.''
In a stalemate contest early, neither side could score for large chunks of the game, and the Tigers' second quarter, in particular, was an exercise in frustration when in a period when, with 18 inside 50s to 13 they should have broken the game open, they squandered their chances. It meant that in the second half they began to just surge at goal and scrap for an opportunist chance rather than through deliberate, structured play.
''I don't know if emotion had anything to do with it [after the Dreamtime win], I just didn't think we hunted the ball anywhere near hard enough and Port's ability to handle the ball was outstanding and I thought ours was very, very poor. So it was a real let down.
''By the way our guys were handling the ball you would have thought it was slippery. ''I thought we fumbled the ball all night. I thought they were a lot cleaner with their disposal, their efficiency by hand and foot seemed a lot better than ours and it was uncharacteristic of our guys.
''I wish we were playing next week to be honest. We have to stew on this loss for two weeks so we will give the guys a couple of days off then hit the training track pretty hard.''
In losing to Port, bottom of the ladder with only one win before Saturday night, the Tigers wasted a great opportunity to claim a spot in the top eight.
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