{"id":90841,"date":"2021-06-25T13:19:04","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T13:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=90841"},"modified":"2021-06-25T17:04:27","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T17:04:27","slug":"hardwick-says-tigers-fearing-the-worst-for-balta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=90841","title":{"rendered":"Hardwick says Tigers fearing the worst for Balta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richmond could be without a significant part of its premiership defence for the remainder of the season, with the club fearing an ACL injury for Noah Balta.<\/p>\n

Balta's right knee twisted awkwardly in a tackle during the third quarter and he limped off the ground before being substituted off for Rhyan Mansell.<\/p>\n

MORE:<\/strong> St Kilda holds Richmond to 60-year low in stunning boilover<\/a><\/p>\n

"I don't like to speculate, but it doesn't look great," Richmond coach Damien Hardwick said after his side's 40-point loss to St Kilda<\/a>.<\/p>\n

"It looks disappointing at this stage. It looks that way [ACL], but once we have that confirmed, we'll pass it on."<\/p>\n

\"Noah<\/p>\n

In addition to Balta's injury, the Tigers could also be without triple-premiership defender Nathan Broad, who Hardwick said had suffered a sydnesmosis injury. Nick Vlastuin also suffered a leg injury in the final quarter after an awkward landing.<\/p>\n

"It's a disappointing performance and on the injury front it doesn't get much better," Hardwick said.<\/p>\n

"We've just got to roll with the bumps. You find out a lot about yourself and your organisation and your players at this stage.<\/p>\n

"We've got to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off in six days' time for a game against the Gold Coast we now look forward to."<\/p>\n

\"Richmond<\/p>\n

The loss leaves Richmond's hopes of a third consecutive premiership hanging by a thread, with the Tigers in danger of being passed by both the GWS Giants and Essendon by the end of the round.<\/p>\n

"We've got some work to do, we're well off the pace at the moment," Hardwick said, adding that his side "didn't fire a shot" against the Saints.<\/p>\n

"It was really disappointing from our point of view. It was disappointing for our fans, for our club.<\/p>\n

"All credit to the Saints, they played really, really well, but we were incredibly poor in a lot of areas."<\/p>\n

\"Seb<\/p>\n

After an uncharacteristically sloppy performance from his side, Hardwick admitted that he had seen the warning signs in the lead-up to Friday night's clash.<\/p>\n

"We didn't train probably as well as we would've liked," he said.<\/p>\n

"You can always look in hindsight at these things and find things, but St Kilda were very good and we were very poor. We're of the pace at the moment, there's no doubt about that.<\/p>\n

"We've just got to make sure we play our brand and bring our brand week-in, week-out, because at the moment we're too inconsistent."<\/p>\n

\"Seb<\/p>\n

Richmond's forward line composition was also criticised after the loss, with Brisbane Lions great Jonathan Brown questioning Hardwick's selections.<\/p>\n

"I think they're in a bit of trouble," Brown told Fox Footy.<\/p>\n

"They need to fix things up quick-smart. The imbalance with the talls especially.<\/p>\n

"They've got Rioli and Caddy there, so I think they look better. I just like a quicker Richmond style.<\/p>\n

"That's the Richmond brand of football and that's when it gets chaotic and they overwhelm teams."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richmond could be without a significant part of its premiership defence for the remainder of the season, with the club fearing an ACL injury for […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90841"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90843,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90841\/revisions\/90843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}