What I learnt from Round 1

[Cookie Monster]

Richmond fans i'm sure your as optimistic about this season as you have been in the past and there has been good reason for you to be.

But if you hope to be top 4, you can't blame poor performances because of losses of key players, yes, they have big impacts. But to be top 4 you'll have to win 16+ games in a season.

Richmond were lucky to come away with a win against Carlton and there were a couple of stand out performances but not from players you need them from.

Yes, you got 4 points, and it might be lucky and you might be lucky a lot more times the same way during the year.

As a top 4 team you need to have the depth and have players to come in and cover Deledio and Grigg and play the role left by key players.

Cotchin needs to come back next week and whoever you play you need to come out and win comfortably. I have no doubt that you can come back but it's going to take a lot to be top 4.

[Nige]

May I ask the point of this post?

Is it supposed to be a "get real Richmond fans" post? Is it supposed to be a dig at the club's poor effort? Or is tough love or some kind of support from the outside looking in?

Regardless, I don't think this needed a separate thread, but I think you'll find most realistic Richmond fans both fully agree with what you said and that those same fans wouldn't have been calling us a top 4 side.

Edit: Read this back, sounds a bit attacky, sorry about that. More so interested by it than anything else. Just wandered over to the Carlton board and saw you did it there and mentioned something about journalism, that's cool, I respect that.