Richmond’s Liam Baker believes his side’s poor fortune with umpires is a consequence of the way they play.
The reigning premiers are a distant last on the free kick ladder, having been awarded 176 and conceded a league-high 238 so far this season.
Coach Damien Hardwick spoke out against the numbers during and after the Tigers’ Round 10 loss to the Brisbane Lions.
“Six to 21 free kicks mate, it’s pretty hard to win the ball when you’re either second to it or the count isn’t going our way,” Hardwick snapped at half-time on Channel 7.
“We’ve got a young midfield, we understand that, but we need to start getting a bit of little luck I reckon.”
However Baker, a tenacious tackler who has won eight frees and conceded 16 across the season, is unperturbed by the figures.
“It is what it is really,” the Pingaring product shrugged on SEN’s Gilly and Goss.
“That’s the way we play, we go in hard and give a few high tackles away.
“It’s the way we’ve played over the past few years and it’ll probably continue that way.”
A resurgent Essendon, settled in Western Australia ahead of the relocated Dreamtime game at Optus Stadium, stands between Richmond and a rest.
The Tigers are teetering on the edge of the eight at 6-5, but have already cleared meetings with Port Adelaide, Melbourne, the Western Bulldogs, Geelong and Brisbane, and the draw opens up after the bye.
“We had a bit of a rough start, we played some good footy and we played some bad footy, but we also played a lot of the good teams,” Baker explained.
Baker noted the commentary around the Tigers’ season paralleling rocky starts and stretches before storming to back-to-back premierships in 2019 and 2020.
Richmond were 7-6 going into their break in 2019, while they won just one of their opening four games in 2020.
“It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again, (but) we can certainly have a crack at it,” he went on.
“All we need to do is get on a good run over the last eight to ten weeks of the season, and hopefully it starts to turn our way.”
The Tigers take on the Bombers from 7:40pm AEST at Optus Stadium on Saturday.