Richmond coach Terry Wallace has forecast another overhaul of the Tigers line-up in a bid to recover the energy and enterprise that earned the club popular respect in the early part of this season.
The dropping of veterans Joel Bowden and Kayne Pettifer and the introduction of a crop of youngsters was widely credited with helping to fire-up the Tigers between Rounds 4 and 9 when they pushed Hawthorn, the Bulldogs, St Kilda and Geelong hard and claimed solid wins over Fremantle and Essendon.
Bowden and Pettifer have since returned to the senior line-up, but a dismal team performance against Sydney last week and in the second-half against Adelaide on Saturday has prompted Wallace to rethink his selection strategies.
"Clearly some of those blokes who have come back into the side have done OK, while some of them haven’t been able to do as well as what you've hoped," Wallace told his media conference after the 50-point loss to the Crows.
"What we will be doing is we will be looking at the dynamics of the side and making decisions on where that goes."
"What that means in terms of who and names … I'm not saying anyone's at fault but the dynamics of the team need to change because what we've got in the whole game last week and two quarters this week is not acceptable."
Wallace described the loss to Adelaide as a 'game of two halves' - a wasted one for the Tigers and a fruitful one for the Crows.
He felt the fact that Richmond was coming off a six-day break compared to the Crows' eight-days may have been a factor in the Tigers' lack of run late in the contest.
"We had a lot of opportunities, a lot of the ball, and we were dominant in contested and uncontested possessions and didn’t make the most of our chances," he said.
"Deep into the first quarter it was a scoreline of six (goals) to two (goals) and … to come in six-to-five at quarter-time was a major disappointment because I thought we completely controlled the quarter."
"Even late in the second quarter I thought we had chances to be further in front than what we were and we didn't take our chances."
"After half-time we were murdered out of the middle of the ground - I think the scoreline was three goals to 11 from stoppages for the match - and that's non-competitive."
Wallace praised Nathan Brown and Trent Cotchin for their efforts in the first half in particular, but lamented the overuse of handball.
He said the plan to play Matthew Richardson closer to goal, which was forced upon the Tigers in part by Richardson's ongoing knee problems, worked initially, as the Crows struggled to find an appropriate match-up.
"We've really got to get him through to the bye," Wallace said of Richardson.
"It's not anything that's going to be a major problem, it’s just a niggling concern and we’ve just got to get him through to the week off so we'll use him as we think right."