Richmond president Peggy O’Neal tributes huge legion of support in helping club’s 2017 turnaround

UNDER pressure 12 months ago, the Tigers are now a united club with eyes focused on a preliminary final. And Richmond bosses are crediting fans with helping turn things around.

Tigers fans celebrates the qualifying final win. Picture: Getty Images

RICHMOND’S army of supporters has played a significant, sizeable role in the club’s 2017 resurgence, according to president Peggy O’Neal.

In the afterglow of the club’s first finals win since 2001, O’Neal said the club’s push into a preliminary final had come off the back of a united club, a determined playing group and a supportive network of members and fans.

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“This is a united club, and that is a very powerful thing,” O’Neal said proudly. “Everybody is going in the same direction.”

“This is just one game, but it is an important game because it gives us the chance to play again (in a preliminary final). It means a lot to everyone. It just confirms to us that what we are working on is actually working.”

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She said Tigers fans deserved every bit of praise for sticking with the club over the years of waiting for a chance at September glory.

“We’ve had seven years of record membership, we are over 74,000 (members) now,” she said. “We have such loyal fans and all this talk about Richmond people being fickle, that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

O’Neal and her board quickly repelled a rebel takeover push from a group known as ‘Focus on Football’ last September, and the club’s united front extended to honouring coach Damien Hardwick’s contract for 2017.

Josh Caddy and the Tigers thank their fans. Picture: Getty Images

That show of faith in the coach, and a restructuring of the football department, has given the Tigers the stability to produce their best season in 16 years — with that elusive 11th premiership potentially only two more wins away.

“The past is the past,” O’Neal said. “This is the future.”

“I was at that final against Carlton as a fan (in 2001). (Winning finals) is what we play football for. The alternative is not being there, and that’s depressing.

“(The players) have got a lot of self belief and they believe in each other, and play as a team.”