Richmond Tigers in horror loss to Western Bulldogs

Yze, at least publicly, adopted a more conciliatory tone, though he may be more frank behind closed doors at the team review.

“They broke a lot of our tackles, that just becomes an ineffective tackle – that’s why our tackle numbers were low,” Yze said.

“Our attempted tackles were OK, and our method around, they just owned the ball a bit too much – 115 uncontested marks tested our defence. They kept the ball off us when we needed to.”

Tackling is often the barometer of a team’s endeavour, but Yze said he could not fault his team in this area.

“If it was around effort and intent then you would be a little worried, but I can’t doubt that with our players,” Yze said. “I can’t fault that. I can see some frustration with our execution. I just don’t want that to dip our spirit.”

Yze played during a time when sprays from coaches were common. The players of today do not react as well.

Perhaps that explains why Yze opted for the carrot instead of the stick to Shai Bolton, whose first half was close to the worst of his career. All Bolton had to show at half-time on the stats sheet was one effective kick.

Worse still, he gave what appeared to be a blistering bake to young Seth Campbell for turning the ball over attempting to find Bolton, who would have streamed into an open goal.

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It’s hard to tell from the stands exactly what was said, but it was not a good look to have an All Australian and dual premiership player yelling and waving his arms in such a demonstrable manner to a rookie who had just made a blue in his ninth game.

Yze, though, showed Bolton the empathy his star player did not demonstrate to his younger teammate.

“In the end, our players give some feedback out there, they move on,” Yze said. “They spoke about it afterwards. He cares a lot about our footy club. He wants us to improve. He wants us to be better. I can’t deny him showing that love for his footy club with an outburst, with frustration.”

“I’d be more worried if he didn’t try as hard as he did in the second half. He was terrific for us.”

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To Bolton’s credit, he was among Richmond’s better players when the floodgates opened for the Dogs, whose lead blew out to triple figures late in the last term, with 15 possessions and two goals after half-time.

When another rookie Mykelti Lefau sprayed a pass to him out on the full in the third quarter, Bolton put his hand up to acknowledge the error.

A horror night was compounded by injuries to Jack Graham, Sam Banks and Maurice Rioli, the latter occurring the dying minutes of the game when he hurt his ankle in a tackle. They join Tom Lynch, Tim Taranto, Jacob Hopper and Jack Ross on a lengthy injury list.

Graham faces another stint on the sidelines with tightness in the same hamstring he injured on the eve of ANZAC Day.

Banks was knocked out cold in a nasty clash with Tim English, who accidentally tunnelled him after being pushed in a marking contest by Noah Balta. Banks was walking in the rooms, the club said, after being stretchered off but will miss next week under the league’s concussion protocols.

Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge and his team found temporary relief after an emphatic response to their poor performance against Hawthorn, but next week’s assignment against Greater Western Sydney will provide a more accurate gauge.

“Richmond have got some real challenges with their injury toll,” Beveridge said. “We know going up to Sydney will be different.”

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