New Richmond coach Adem Yze has offered an insight into how he wants his Tigers to operate in 2024, revealing his plans to “tinker” with the game style.
Yze was appointed senior coach in September this year, beating out Andrew McQualter for the permanent position as Damien Hardwick’s successor.
He heads now into the 2024 season under little pressure. Optimism around the Tigers’ prospects aren’t high, with former forward Josh Jenkins even tipping Yze’s men to be wooden spoon contenders next year.
But Yze, speaking at a member function on Monday night, suggested the attitude at Punt Road was one desperate to rise back up the ladder.
“What I have noticed is our players train hard. There’s no secret to why this footy club has been strong for a long period of time, they know how to work hard,” Yze said.
“We had a terrific camp down at Inverloch… there’s 90 days until Round 1 but our players can’t wait.
“We’re tinkering with our game plan, we’re going to play a bit different to how we have the last couple of years… it’s been a really strong 82 days (since I took charge).”
Yze heads up an off-season of change, with several movements at both the player and coach level.
“I’ve got the luxury of having two coaches that have coached AFL footy before (David Teague and Ben Rutten), Chris Newman has been captain of the footy club, Jack Ziebell has amazing leadership qualities… I’m blessed with an amazing coaching staff,” he added.
“We’ve got a new game plan but if you walked into our footy club… it’s not me presenting that, it’s our coaches.
“I get out of their way and let them do their thing and they’re amazing at it.”
Yze’s philosophy of letting assistant coaches run training is a similar one preached to that of Craig McRae, Ross Lyon and others in recent years.
But if Richmond is to rise in 2024, as Yze notes, the club will need its full forward and full back at full fitness.
Lynch was ruled out for the season in July due to a right foot injury, managing just four appearances.
The 31-year-old has previously declared he plans to play Round 1 in 2023, with his presence even more important following Jack Riewoldt's retirement. Josh Gibcus finds himself in a similar boat after missing the entirety of the year with a persistent hamstring injury and has travelled overseas in recent months for treatment.
Both are progressing well in their rehab.
“The main thing is he’s ticking each box and hasn’t had any setbacks and that’s the main thing,” Yze said of Lynch.
“We’ve got to be really patient with Tom, he had a horrendous time last year and would have been really frustrating for him, he’s a leader of our footy club, he loves to compete and he wasn’t able to do that last year.
“He’s progressing nicely… and the other one, to be fair, is Josh Gibcus, who went through the same type of adversity.
“To have our full forward and full back available this year will be really important for our footy club.
“Both of them are tracking really nicely which is exciting to see.”
Yze comes to the Tigers having missed out on jobs at Greater Western Sydney and Essendon last year but as a highly respected assistant coach at Melbourne under Simon Goodwin.
The Tigers finished 13th in 2023 on 10 wins.