A NEW book detailing Richmond's rags-to-riches premiership rise shines a light on Damien Hardwick's coaching transformation.
Journalist Konrad Marshall, a Tigers diehard, spent the first half of last year entrenched at Punt Road working on what was to become Yellow & Black – A season with Richmond.
But the Tigers' horror 2016 campaign, where they finished 13th, fortuitously led to the project being postponed until this year.
That time last season, rather than being wasted, enabled Marshall to provide contrast in Hardwick's style, built around the club's 33-point round five defeat to Melbourne.
The behind-the-scenes book reveals how Hardwick tried to motivate his side before the clash last year, and his "venomous" post-match player appraisal that targeted his biggest stars.
"We spoke about what that jumper would say (about us when we took it off). Well, I'm going to give you the answer: We are as weak as piss as a football side," Hardwick is quoted as saying.
"We sit there and pledge allegiance to the thing you wear, and the Melbourne Football Club steamrolls our blokes. Our blokes! No hiding from it – weak, f---ing weak!"
Hardwick questioned Brandon Ellis' and Bachar Houli's hardness, and told Brownlow medallist Dustin Martin he performed like "a schoolboy" and lambasted Alex Rance for playing like "an idiot".
Marshall illustrates how differently the coach approached the same Anzac Day eve game this year, with a "playful" defensive metaphor based on the board game Connect Four. Richmond overran the Demons that night to win by 13 points.
"The man is buoyant, a disposition not based on results but on process," Marshall wrote of Hardwick.
"He more than anyone made the decision to change Richmond into a defensive-yet-unshackled team, and now he delights in the plan's application."
Hardwick told AFL.com.au in a pre-season interview that he had looked closely at who he was as a coach in the aftermath of the Tigers' disappointing 2016.
"There were some areas in my make-up that I had to get better," Hardwick said at the time.
"I had to go out and iron out (those things) that probably weren't allowing me to be the best coach I could be.
"I was probably a little bit too strict on them at stages last year and didn't allow them to play with that freedom."
Yellow & Black – A season with Richmond will be on sale from November
