Comeback win comes at cost for Tigers

Richmond’s sensational comeback victory against the Western Bulldogs has come at a cost with captain Trent Cotchin expected to miss a few weeks due to a hamstring injury suffered late in the game.

Cotchin was one of the driving forces behind the Tigers’ incredible resurgence which saw them outscore the Dogs by eight goals from midway through the second quarter.

He will now join fellow premiership stars Dion Prestia (calf), Kane Lambert (calf) and Nick Vlastuin (knee) on the sidelines, but Dustin Martin (concussion) is expected to return for the grand final rematch against Geelong next week.

“He was incredible tonight, I thought he really led from the front and was part of the resurgence,” coach Damien Hardwick said of Cotchin.

“It’s disappointing. It’s just sad to see great players not playing.”

If anything will be credited for Richmond’s win, it certainly won’t be Hardwick’s halftime address.

The Tigers coach admitted that he lost his train of thought as he was talking to his troops in arguably the most important juncture of his team’s season as they were staring down the barrel of a 3-4 start to the year.

“My halftime speech was probably … I lost where I was towards the back end,” Hardwick said.

“I said to the players, ‘I don’t even know what I’m talking about. Just get out and get the job done’. So it was a bit funny. I thought the players just lifted.”

Hardwick used an ice hockey analogy to describe his team’s turnaround in the second half.

“Sometimes there’s a little bit of ‘puck luck’,” he said.

“The ball will bounce their way, the ball will bounce your way. I thought we didn’t have much ‘puck luck’ in the first half but got a little bit better in the second.”

Shai Bolton was again one of Richmond’s best players and Hardwick hoped the star midfielder would re-sign with the Tigers despite putting contract talks on hold.

“Shai’s an important player to us and he knows the fact that our players realise that they can get paid more somewhere else, there’s no doubt about that and they sacrifice to stay, but that’s what Richmond men do,” he said.

Tom Lynch bagged three majors in the third quarter to help inspire a famous Richmond comeback. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)Source:Getty Images

Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge lamented the fact that too many of his players were below their best.

“They just had too many individuals who were more productive than our group, we had too many down to be there at the end,” he said.

“You can’t have too many just out of sorts against a team like Richmond who are playing to get their season right on track.

“If it’s tight and we just get rolled then it’s still difficult to swallow, but you can accept it a little bit more than going down like we did in the end.”

Beveridge refused to use the upheaval to his side, with nine changes made in the past two weeks, as an excuse for their first loss of the season and staunchly defended his backline after appearing to be overwhelmed in the second half by the Tigers’ forward pressure and inside-50 dominance.

“We kept them to 77 points and (the Bulldogs defenders) had to defend a lot of threatening balls,” he said.

“They battled manfully … we need to defend well together and part of that is helping those key defenders.

“(Richmond) kept us to 14 inside 50s in the second half. You can’t win a game like that.”

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