Jack Riewoldt made his most positive statement of a tumultuous week by kicking a career-best 11 goals for a rejuvenated Richmond on Saturday in a 113-point flogging of Greater Western Sydney.
Riewoldt kicked 11.2 as the Tigers strolled to a 24.10 (154) to 5.11 (41) victory at Spotless Stadium and improved their season record to 3-6.
The Tigers’ spearhead provided the perfect response after coach Damien Hardwick slammed him earlier in the week for saying Richmond had unsuccessfully tried to copy Hawthorn’s game style.
“I was pretty devastated with how it came across. I let the coach down; I let the side down,” Riewoldt said.
“Today I was coming in with the mindset of just trying to pay the faith back in Dimma (Hardwick) and the boys and the footy club.”
Riewoldt, whose previous best haul was 10 against West Coast at the MCG in 2010, kicked four in the first quarter, three in the second, four in the third, before missing his two shots in the last quarter and potentially gave up another goal to skipper Trent Cotchin.
GWS scored little more than half of Riewoldt’s tally as they crashed to a sixth straight loss.
Playing their first game at Spotless Stadium in seven weeks, GWS – who started with the same 2-6 record as Richmond, were on the wrong end of a 100-point plus scoreline for a second straight game.
They again showed alarmingly little fight following a 110-point loss to West Coast in Perth, where Eagles forward Josh Kennedy kicked 10 goals.
Richmond kicked 13 straight goals after the two teams exchanged the first two majors of the match, with GWS not kicking their second six-pointer until the second minute of the third.
Their first 12 scoring shots were goals, as they kicked 8.0 to 1.5 in the first quarter, then doubled their 37-point advantage by halftime after booting 6.2 to 0.1 in the second.
The Giants threatened a revival of sorts when Rhys Palmer and Jeremy Cameron, who started the game down back, kicked successive goals to trim the deficit to 62.
But the Tigers slammed on the next seven goals, four of them to Riewoldt, to swell their buffer to 103 points at the last change.
Even the return of several key players and more than 450 games of AFL experience couldn’t help GWS against a fiercely determined Richmond who revived their season.
With Shaun Hampson dominating the returning Shane Mumford in the ruck and their midfield running riot, Richmond looked more like the side that charged to the finals last year than the insipid outfit of recent weeks.
Richmond dominated despite losing Dan Jackson to an early injury, with substitute Nathan Foley kicking a goal within 30 seconds of coming on to start the second quarter.
