Richo’s future in hands of players

ALAN Richardson is confident a player-led review during the week will provoke a strong response from St Kilda against Richmond today.

And the embattled coach reiterated he was not concerned with his future, as the 11th-placed Saints strive to stay in touch with the AFL’s top eight against the strengthened Tigers at Marvel Stadium.

“Anything that fills between my ears is about the team, about the performance and how we can get back on track after last week’s game,” Richardson said before training at Moorabbin yesterday morning.

“I don’t spend any time worrying about me.

“I think we all know as coaches your tenure in the game is based on improvement and performances.”

Richardson continued to express pride in his young leaders.

“Early in the week, the players did take ownership (reviewing last round’s home loss to Brisbane) and that’s incredibly pleasing ... (from) what’s a young leadership group,” he said.

“We came into the year with Jarryn Geary, Dylan Roberton, Dan Hannebery, Tim Membrey and Seb Ross, and for most of the year we’ve only had two of them (playing). And so they’ve had to carry a lot of the load.

“They were strong and challenging during the week and that had to happen and I would expect a Saints-like response.”

The Saints mentor heralds hope of making the finals.

“It’s pretty exciting for this group to still be in the (finals) conversation. We would like to be further advanced, but to still be alive, for all the reasons I’ve explained, they have done a great job.”

While Richmond regain four premiership players, including captain Trent Cotchin, the Saints dropped experienced duo David Armitage and Jack Newnes, who equalled the club record for consecutive games with his 123rd appearance last round.

“The Tigers get a lot of players back and it’s a great opportunity for a lot of our younger players to play against premiership players and that’s going to be a great challenge,” Richardson said, before addressing the absence of Newnes in particular.

“He (Newnes) has been such an outstanding player. His durability and consistency of performance has been outstanding, but he just dropped off a bit from what we want from Newnesy.”