The first few weeks were the hardest.
When star Richmond defender Alex Rance suffered his AFL season-ending knee injury in round one, fellow backman Nick Vlastuin said it took time to adjust.
But one of the keys to Richmond reaching the grand final against GWS is how well their defence has covered Rance’s loss and ultimately blossomed.
Dylan Grimes and Bachar Houli made the All-Australian team and Vlastuin was stiff not to at least make the squad of 40.
“The time we felt him gone the most was probably the first couple of weeks afterwards,” Vlastuin said.
“I’ve played however many games and I reckon only four or five of them would have been without Rancey before this year.
“He’s never really had injuries.
“We were a bit lost out there because we were so used to having him and he’s such a good leader. As the weeks have gone along, everyone has grown into their roles.
Crucially, Vlastuin said Rance was not their only experienced backman.
Once it re-set, one of the AFL’s best defensive units rediscovered its mojo.
“That helps to cover; it’s not all completely new out there,” Vlastuin said.
“We knew we’d get better and better, the more used we were to not having him out there.”
Reaching the grand final was far from guaranteed when Richmond reached the mid-season bye with a 7-6 record and many injuries.
An 11-game winning streak has propelled them to the verge of their second flag in three years.
“Moments of doubt do creep in, but Dimma (coach Damien Hardwick) during that period was just, we have to keep in touch with the top eight, top four and then who knows – we get boys back and anything can happen,” Vlastuin said.
“We were probably pretty lucky that a lot of top-four sides were losing games when we were making our late run and we managed to sneak into third.
“It is a pretty cool feeling. If you asked me six months ago, I probably wouldn’t have been as confident.”
Vlastuin said taming the potent GWS attack would not be easy.
“They’re going to do some freakish things … there are times when they’re going to have all the momentum and it’s going to feel all doom and gloom,” he said.
“But that’s when all the training comes into it and you just have to trust your teammates, trust what we’ve done the whole year.”