For Rance, this is personal

ALL-AUSTRALIAN captain Alex Rance took Harry Taylor and Nick Riewoldt’s shutdown of him personally.

The Tigers defender said he learned plenty from the Cat and Saint’s approaches this year, with the attention being a relatively new experience to deal with. And it affected his pride. “That's an interesting question. A little, because I’m proud of my own performance and I always want to perform well,” Rance said.

“Especially in that Geelong game [in Round 21] – if I had won my one-on-ones, we probably would have won. He won in the one-on-ones and they won [by 14 points]. So it’s one of those ones where I did take it quite personally, but you can’t let it really drag you down because otherwise you don’t really improve.”

But Rance said he feels lucky it happened when it did, rather than being forced to contend with such a battle in the upcoming final month.

“I’m glad I found it out then, rather than in finals,” Rance said.

“It was definitely something new which I hadn’t really experienced at that sort of level, because I think in the Port Adelaide game I experienced it a little bit but that was quite a different way to experience it.

“Against Riewoldt and Harry Taylor, they’re probably a bit more experienced so they were knowing where to position themselves.”

After Richmond’s 67-point loss to St Kilda in Round 16, the third-placed Tigers lost just one more game. Rance said the team’s ability to be flexible was a testament to hard work and an ability to learn along the way.

“The adaptation of our side this year has been super,” he said.