RICHMOND defender Dylan Grimes has revealed a controlled mayhem inside the Tigers' rooms at half-time of last year's Grand Final was crucial in the second-half, premiership-securing turnaround against Geelong.
All-Australian Grimes said there was genuine concern in the Richmond camp before coach Damien Hardwick provided a 45-second, second-half directive.
>> WATCH DIMMA'S INSPIRING ADDRESS BELOW
In an expansive interview with AFL.com.au, Grimes also:
- LAUDED Dustin Martin as not merely "undoubtedly the best player I have played with" but also one of the best clubmen with whom he had played;
- GAVE a glimmer of hope for those desperate for an Alex Rance comeback … "I wouldn’t say it was an impossibility … nothing with Rancey is an impossibility,";
- PROVIDED an insight into the determination that has seen him overlooked by all clubs in a national draft to become an All-Australian, in admitting to having "carried a chip on my shoulder for way too long … five or six years" against clubs which had shown interest in him but didn’t draft him.
Of the 2020 Grand Final half-time anxiousness, when the Tigers trailed by 15 points after being down by as many as 22, Grimes said:
"This is interesting, because I haven't seen a half-time break like this in any other game, in my whole career - we got down to the rooms, and the coaches, there was a hive of activity around the white board, every coach that we've got," he said.
"VFL coach, line coach, every coach, was surrounded and they were just back and forth. I was left with the backline, and normally (at this time) there is a meeting with the backs coach.
"… and then you just hear Dimma, 'Right, everyone in'. And the whole club was just around this whiteboard and he just provided, from the 15 minutes of conversation he'd just had with the coaches, a 45-second, succinct discussion about the two or three things that we were going to change.
"And it took all the focus away from the fact we were down and that they were playing really well, and that we had lost Nick Vlastuin, one of our best structural players. And that was when we all thought, well maybe this isn’t as out control as we may have first thought.
"I remember looking across at Dustin and Cotch at half-time, kind-of like, 'Oh, geez, this is a bit hairy, this is a bit full on, this is not how it is supposed to go'. On that night, for that second half, we were just slightly better than what Geelong was, and that was the difference."
