Daniel Rioli will have a big role in helping Richmond coach Damien Hardwick win his first final

DAMIEN Hardwick has coached the most AFL games without winning a final in VFL/AFL history and Daniel Rioli could be the key is removing that unwanted record, writes DAVID KING.

Daniel Rioli is a key for the Tigers in the qualifying final against Geelong. Picture: AAP

RICHMOND must confront the elephant in the room and accept that it has failed the test of finals football not once, not twice, but three times in successive seasons.

That must stop on Friday night before it becomes this group’s legacy.

Damien Hardwick has coached the most AFL games (179) without winning a final in VFL/AFL history.

The Tigers must ensure that their coach doesn’t become known as “Home-and-Away Hardwick”.

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As Ross Lyon says, “failure is feedback” and the 2017 Tigers play a far different brand of football, less reliant on talent and more based on system.

The uniqueness of this campaign is that their forward half includes only one tall, Jack Riewoldt.

The common belief that two tall options are required for support, in-game injury risk management and just basic sharing of the workload has been debunked by Richmond’s home-and-away season, but Hardwick must feel sick in the stomach that this issue may come home to roost when it matters most.

The reluctance to select Ben Griffiths as a second tall option will be all the talk post-match if this small forward line fails.

Daniel Rioli defends space better than any other player in the competition. Picture: AAP

Hindsight experts are plentiful and, as always, success has many fathers while failure is an orphan, meaning Hardwick will carry responsibility for this method, if unsuccessful, alone.

His strategy has worked to date but his mosquito forwards must bring the ball to ground tonight as they cannot allow Geelong’s defenders to intercept mark and deny the Tigers their main asset — speed.

That’s speed to obtain possession and speed to subject the Cats’ back six to the AFL’s greatest pressure.

A forward-half pressure cauldron that is brilliant in its fanaticism is led by Daniel Rioli.

Young Daniel defends a space greater than any other player — it’s really a 25-30m radius. That’s a lot of usable grass.

Dan Butler, Jason Castagna and Kane Lambert have pace to burn, but use it predominantly to defend rather than the generally accepted one-way run.

It has become the Tiger trademark and is a sustainable brand of football and, while their ability to lock the ball in their forward half is obvious, it hadn’t been influencing the scoreboard.

That is, not until the last four home-and-away rounds.

Jason Castagna uses his speed to defend. Picture: AAP

Richmond went from averaging 33 points from forward-half intercepts to 43 points — No.1 in the league.

Geelong has played an immediate foldback defence over the past few weeks and has the ability to appear almost Sydney-like in its ability to absorb repeat opposition inside-50m entries.

The Cats concede a goal from a miserly 18.6 per cent of opposition forward-50 entries, second best behind the Swans.

It’s clear that Chris Scott has last year’s finals exit at the hands of the Swans foremost in his mind and it appears he has adopted a very similar methodology to Sydney’s.

The “Slingshot Swans” got them in 2016 but the “Counter-Punch Cats” will be on show tonight and the “Tiger Terriers” must snap at their heels, otherwise Geelong’s finals experience may just shine through.

In many way D. Rioli is Richmond’s most important player.

While he’s no D. Martin, he’s a standard setter others can — and must — follow.