2009-2013
Dimma starts magnificently building year on year to first finals.
2014-2016
Panicks after '13 EF loss and implements shitty defensive overbearing game plan.
Admits it at the end of '16 and famously vows to "let the boys play again".
2017-2020
Richmond win Three flags.
2021-2023
Richmond become irrelevant again. Dimma resigns.
Coincidence?
I agree Dimma is no genius and needs good support around him, and McRae and Leppa were important.
But McRae stole Richmonds game plan, he didn't invent it.
Dimma had already signaled the shift back to the pre '14 attacking game plan before they arrived.
Well said. I think too many people outside of the footy club forget our gameplans over the 2013-2016 period.
2013 we were purring along nicely, very similar gameplan to what we won the premiership with in 2017 but a much weaker group outside of our core group. Got pantsed by an emphatic Chris Judd in the elimination final.
2014 - Dimma worries he's gone too attacking, so tries to slow the game plan down and over corrects. We lose 10 of the 1st 14, then go on a 9 match winning streak only to fall again at the elimination final, part due to burn out, part due to the wrong call at the coin toss and part due to getting blitzed in a quarter.
2015 - Again Dimma tries to slow the game down a touch from where we finished 2014. Worried that we were too open after the 1st quarter flogging in the elimination final. Again we lose 4 of the first 6. Handbrake released again in the 2nd half of the year, but again we scrape into finals and then lose in another elimination final.
2016 - Dimma completely over corrects. Most Tigers remember this year, we moved the ball so slowly trying to be too protective on the defensive counter that we completely stymied our attacking game. Finish 13th. Dimma is laughed at by everyone in football when he claims after we lost by over 100 points on the final day of the season at Sydney.
2017 - Its been well documented that Dimma went away and thought through what to do, and this is where the mindset changed, Stop thinking about what the boys can't do so well, and focus on what they can do more and allow them to express that more. Premiership 1 of 3 over the next 4 years.
People constantly claim that this was MacRae or Leppa or Caracellas gameplan but it really originates back to 2012 to 2013. There could be arguments that Leppa was a driver of this gameplan (he was there in 2013 and returned at the end of 2016) so its possible that he was a part in this gameplan, but ultimately it was Dimma (probably with some support from Leppa). The thought pattern that Carracella or MacRae were the drivers of the gameplan is incorrect.