The Tigers will now have to win their final three matches against Hawthorn, Fremantle and Melbourne and hope other results go their way if they are to take part in September action.
The Crows smashed Richmond in today’s first half, leading by 10 goals to one at half time, and by 78 points midway through the third term, before finally running out 63 point winners.
“We’re bitterly disappointed with our performance,” Wallace said. “Obviously it was season-on-the-line stuff, and to come over and not play the game style that we want to play was disappointing.
“And it started virtually from the first kick of the game. We got hold of the first kick and when you want to kick the ball in (long) with the breeze … to kick the ball sideways and backwards was terribly disappointing.
“I don’t know why – we’ll obviously deal with that during the week, but that first half was ridiculously disappointing.
“This was a shocker. With the stakes so high … that’s what’s unpalatable.”
Wallace said his side’s inability to impose its own game structures against good sides or to adjust when it was obviously not working was the next hurdle for Richmond to overcome.
“We still clearly at the moment haven’t been able to get our game, structure and style going against the better sides in the competition – the sides that have played regular finals footy,” Wallace said.
“This was a very similar game to playing Sydney in Sydney earlier in the year for us.
“What you need to be able to do is either stand up and have your game structure stand up or be able to fight out a really dour one-on-one struggle when the conditions are like they were today. We weren’t able to do either.
“We’re a high scoring side who kicked one goal in the first half of an AFL game of footy. That’s not where we need to be, clearly. Either we’ve got to match what they’re doing, or we’ve got to be better at getting the game played on our terms.”
Body strength is another aspect Wallace says the Tigers clearly need to improve.
“We’ve still got a bit of work to do on the body strength of our side. We still are a young team. Running on top of the ground at Telstra Dome we look a different side; the conditions were very heavy out there today (and it was) old fashioned, suburban style heavy weather footy, and we didn’t handle it.
“It was back to basics type of day – I have no doubt they played the basics of the game a heck of a lot better than we did from start to finish. That was clearly the difference between the two sides.”
The Tigers reported no injuries from the match, although Nathan Foley sat out much of the game's second half with a hip knock.
