{"id":99939,"date":"2021-07-14T08:44:05","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T08:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=99939"},"modified":"2021-07-14T10:00:58","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T10:00:58","slug":"hardwick-hits-back-at-rampant-cotchin-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=99939","title":{"rendered":"Hardwick hits back at rampant Cotchin criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richmond coach Damien Hardwick<\/a> has leaped to the defence of club captain Trent Cotchin<\/a> after a run of quiet games in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Cotchin's form has been put under the spotlight with the reigning premiers mired in a four-game losing streak which currently sees them languishing at 12th on the ladder.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old was even urged to consider retiring<\/a> after managing just 13 disposals against Collingwood on Sunday, but Hardwick refused to join in on the pile-on.<\/p>\n

"People don't realise this guy's been a battering ram for 15 years of his career," Hardwick said. "There wouldn't be a harder player in the competition."<\/p>\n

\"Trent<\/p>\n

"People are quick to jump on players – that's the Australian way at various stages. This guy is an incredible player and we're not a stats-orientated football club.<\/p>\n

"We could have Trent having 35 touches going backwards and sideways, but that's not how we play. He plays leading from the front with the way he goes about his actions.<\/p>\n

"People will judge him on his performance on the weekend, that's fine, champions have bad days sometimes.<\/p>\n

"But the reality is he's a very, very good player in a very good side that isn't quite performing to the level it (can) at the moment."<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/em>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><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richmond coach Damien Hardwick has leaped to the defence of club captain Trent Cotchin after a run of quiet games in recent weeks. Cotchin's form […]<\/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\/99939"}],"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=99939"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99941,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99939\/revisions\/99941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}