Tenacious Giant Matt de Boer is preparing to perform more run-with roles like the one that irritated Richmond superstar Dustin Martin, but don’t compare him to former Fremantle teammate and notorious tagger Ryan Crowley.

Martin had little impact in the 49-point loss to GWS on Saturday, with de Boer hounding him through the game at Giants Stadium.

A frustrated Martin appeared to land an off-the-ball hit on a Giants player and also made a couple of impolite gestures to opponents, actions which could attract the attention of the match review officer.

De Boer said he could see Martin getting annoyed but denied he had deliberately tried to get under his skin.

“He’s a superstar player and it wasn’t intentional,” de Boer said.

“He’s always going to try and lift his team and do what he can to get back into it. I was just trying to stick to the task and do what I could.”

De Boer’s doggedness earned the approbation of his coach and teammates, with words like fantastic and brilliant being bandied around.

While coach Leon Cameron suggested de Boer could be used in other roles, the player himself expected to get other run-with assignments.

“I think it’ll just be putting some time into their best mids at any time,” de Boer said

“Won’t be a pure lock in … like Ryan Crowley used to do. The game has changed a little bit in terms of the rotations and the efficiency there.”

Among de Boer’s fans on Saturday was ruckman Shane Mumford, who was making his first AFL appearance in 19 months.

Mumford may well have been the recipient of one of Martin’s gestures, though he sad he didn’t see anything, but cheerfully admitted to verballing the Tigers ace.

Cameron said Mumford did everything expected of him.

“I think I did OK, there’s definitely a bit of rust in me. I did get off early,” Mumford said.

“I think I was getting beaten at the centre bounce by blokes half my size a bit, so I know I’m going to be jumping into the bag or into the boys a fair bit at centre bounce this week.”

He was relieved to get the first game out of the way.

“There was a bit of nervous energy. The amount of texts and phone calls I got, it was like I was playing my first game all over again,” Mumford said.