ALEX Rance\u2019s post-match interview after rupturing his ACL in the first round of 2019 gave as good an insight as any into a premiership-winning culture.<\/p>\n
Instead of lamenting a season-ending injury, Rance adjusted the ACL acronym to read \u2018always celebrate and laugh\u2019; providing a glimpse into Richmond\u2019s emphasis on not only embracing adversity, but doing it with a smile.<\/p>\n
Gone are the days of ruthless aggression being the sole tool used to motivate a group of young men ahead of a big game of footy.<\/p>\n
Despite mounting pressure and a club\u2019s longing to lift senior football silverware for the first time in two decades, the Ararat Rats\u2019 approach to Sunday\u2019s preliminary final with Stawell is one built around \u201cleaning into\u201d the excitement, rather than worrying about the outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spoke about how exciting this finals series is, regardless of the results,\u201d Rats defender Liam Cavanagh said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinals only make up around one per cent of your career when all\u2019s said and done, so you need to enjoy every bit of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what I saw in our first final is some of the younger guys go into their shell a bit and perhaps shy away from any risk and that\u2019s not the way we play. Sometimes you need to lose a final before you can win one and I think there are some good lessons there.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can be overwhelmed by it, or you can stimulated and driven by it and we lean into the fact that there\u2019s pressure and that there\u2019s no guarantees and how exciting the opportunity we have is in front of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those opportunities is breaking a premiership drought spanning two decades on the year the club celebrates its 150th<\/sup> anniversary.<\/p>\n The ledger stands at one win each between Ararat and Stawell this season, with the Rats opening their season with a 49-point win over their rivals before Stawell got their redemption with a five point win in round ten.<\/p>\n The Rats are expected to field a full-strength team for Sunday\u2019s final at Warracknabeal, with Cavanagh anticipating a tight midfield battle.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the midfield battle is going to dictate a lot of what happens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think both teams\u2019 tall players tend to balance each other out. We know we can beat them because we did it round one but in saying that we know Stawell will put on a really good show and they\u2019ve had a great season, so they\u2019ll be hungry and we\u2019ll need to maintain that belief.\u201d<\/p>\n Cavanagh, who lives and works in Melbourne, has played every game this season upon his return to the club, where he leads a tight Rats backline.<\/p>\n \u201cThe season\u2019s gone really quickly and it\u2019s been great to get back to where it all began and see the evolution of the club,\u201d Cavanagh said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m there now playing with guys whose names I knew but never really had a conversation with, so it\u2019s been great to come back and get to know these guys. The club culture is as good as it\u2019s ever been, but we\u2019re not getting too sentimental because we\u2019ve got another week or two of footy to go.\u201d<\/p>\n A Semi-Final defeat to Minyip-Murtoa last week means the Rats will have to overcome arch-rivals Stawell to qualify for the Grand Final.<\/p>\n The club’s reserves team will also gearing up for a preliminary final this weekend.<\/p>\n Like the seniors, the reserves went down in their semi-final last week and meet the Horsham Demons in the penultimate match of the season on Sunday.<\/p>\n The winner will face Minyip-Murtoa in the Grand Final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ALEX Rance\u2019s post-match interview after rupturing his ACL in the first round of 2019 gave as good an insight as any into a premiership-winning culture. Instead of lamenting a season-ending injury, Rance adjusted the ACL acronym to read \u2018always celebrate and laugh\u2019; providing a glimpse into Richmond\u2019s emphasis on not only embracing adversity, but doing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[38],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/liam-cavanagh-vs-nhill-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1696&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-oB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}