We are pretty used to this now; the high hopes, the slow start, the injuries, the scapegoats, the excuses, the footy media loving it, the coach in post-match giving away nothing. It’s all standard.
I am suspicious of any special pleading, the claims that Richmond is different. We stick out on some measures because we have a big membership compared to our historic ladder positions. Aside from that we have had a premiership drought (common), a bad run with injuries (common) we have lost some close games (common) and lost a string of finals (common).
This article by Jonathan Horn is one of many you’ll find as a Tiges supporter telling you that you’re amazingly devoted, your passion is unmatched, you are dyed in the wool, great for footy etc. Talk about having smoke blown up your arse.
I have floated the idea before that the fans are the reason for this club’s persistent failure. I don’t know if it’s true but I think it warrants consideration. The mythology is that we eat ’em alive, and while that phrase was coined to describe our team’s attitude to the opposition, it easily transfers to our administration’s attitude to the coach, and our fans attitude to anyone at the club that’s perceived to be underperforming.
And there are certainly savage responses when we lose the games we shouldn’t; but what club doesn’t have that? Maybe the Giants and Suns are too new to have developed that irascible, scarred, one-eyed hard core that loves a club scapegoat, and thrills to the sound of the knives being sharpened outside the coach’s office. But every other club has this.
What I see on field are inexplicable brain fades. Our problems are so often mental. I do not know what our game plan is, but I’m sure the players do. And its probably a good one. I believe hand-on-heart that Hardwick is a good coach. He has out-coached the benchmark, Alistair Clarkson, on several occasions – the bloke can do the job. I just wonder if the mythology of us as some kind of superfans breeds fear and second-guessing in the players. I am certain that in part it is responsible for the “four walls” nonsense. A few microwaves and some chicken shit and someone once spat on Spud Frawley and that’s why we can’t have nice things. It’s often said that our players are the dumbest, and its often a Tiges fan doing the talking. Now – Cotch giving away 50 by collecting Darling around the chops looked dumb. But his leadership had been bagged all week in the papers, radio and on the TV modular lounge suite programs. I understand why he might have done that.
We try to walk the tightrope here at TTBB. There is no point in just writing Go Tiges, You’re All Lovely Boys. Heads Up! Well, there is room on the spectrum for that but we also have to be a voice for the reasonable frustrations of the fans. Again – any club will have this when they are 1-3 after playing regular finals and expecting to do so again.
April is not a time to point the finger at recruitment. Our unit have a good recent track record, and its early days. But I have a lot of selection questions which I will try to couch in positive language
- McBean can play. He can kick straight. His elevation is a perennial obsession with the fans, and hard heads need to make these decisions. But he has had 2 games. It’s time.
- Batchelor was one of our most improved last year. Hasn’t been sighted this year. Our back six were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, an ARIA award and collective King of Moomba last year – why have we mucked around with it?
- Miles, Edwards, Martin, B. Ellis have all started flat. Miles is a very important player for us and I was shocked to see him dropped to the VFL. Could that happen to the other three?
- How far away is Nathan Drummond from playing?
The good thing is that I think we are going to come right. It’s not going to be a J curve but we will win maybe ten or eleven games this year. We are not going to play finals and that’s disappointing; but I think we are going to unearth some guns and the club is not going to fall apart. We all agreed over summer that going out in the first week of finals again would be a killer; well I think we have avoided that. We stay fit, we stick together, we recruit well and go again in 2017 and play serious finals.
I agree 100% with Andy’s piece today; the club is in great shape. We are miserable because we have been moderately successful and so we have moved the goalposts.
We on this side of the fence can do our part.
- Stop feeling sorry for ourselves
- Stop trying to win the “my club is the unluckiest/stupidest” argument with Dees and Dogs fans
- Get off Dimma’s back
- Don’t let anyone blow smoke up your arse.
Fucken A
Yep. We will get there. And I have no love for those of the feeding frenzy media. Back off and let “the story” develop more.
I’m with you on Batchelor. I can’t understand why he isn’t in the team. He doesn’t even seem to be on the radar. He always seems so good at taking defensive marks, or, to use the NFL-borrowed term, ‘intercepts’.
I hadn’t noticed Miles was flat. But, I also don’t notice when he is brilliant.
Come on Shedda!!! 🙂 We need your consistent, steady, unspectacular, proper football.
Dimma is a decent chap and a good coach. Damien Barrett is trying to whip up a storm of pressure on him. He will have to try and try and try hard; the Tiges management (led by Peggy) have shown they don’t get easily flustered .
True words, well chosen. But LOVE the graphic of Dimma. Makes him look, well, post-modern.
Any chance Damien Hardwick and post-modern have ever been used in the same sentence?
Yeah, back in his Essendon days, he took a rare set shot on goal and hit the post. Robert Walls said ‘Damien Hardwick hits the post! Modern football will allow back pockets players shots on goal’
(You see, ive got a rare footy autism, amongst some other conditions)
Sage advise Reesy, Ill do my best to take it. Its now, or never for Jesus (pronounced He-SOOS, like john taturo’s character in The Big Labowski) McBean
You’re a good man Corbo. I was thinking of you and Dugald and Joe as I was writing this and wondering if I would have any Friends in Richmond left at the end of it. I hope I’ll take my own advice as well. Although this evening seeing Hunt and Morris on an extended bench and no Jesús McBean, its not going to be easy.
we are living through difficult times, which I often feel puzzled by. The tigers, for me, act as a tether to a simpler understanding of life. They allow me to see things clearly; Its more than escapism. Its an intuitive and comforting knowledge that the ebbs and flows of my footy team are as good a belief system as any. The old ‘life is a metaphor for footy’ notion.
However, at the moment, my faith is wavering. The reassurance on offer, feeling like a smile from a gold coast realtor. Im confused. I want to blame Demetrios’ expansionist agenda or Blair Hartley. At my lowest, I want to blame individual players.
and in my confusion, I grasp for a moment, that there is no right or wrong. No success or failure. Noone to blame, or nothing to do. I barrack for Richmond.
pretty zen huh? Anyone blows smoke up those bloke arses, it’s just smoke in an arse.
A profound reading of the situation.
Who is our Andy Goodwin in these dark times?
Hmmm. Andy Goodwin was a kind of naive, charismatic, madman, who could paddle and fumble the ball in the most remarkable ‘rebound 50’s, long before the term was ever conceived. It was like cheering a rodeo rider. or an albatross’s landing.
He is, in essence, irreplaceable. Blokes like Danny Southern and him don’t come around too often. Reluctant cult heroes.
Ivan Maric is the nearest approximation we have. But he has way to much skill and influence on games.
No, there is no Andy Goodwin. But in an entirely different way, young Danny Rioli is lighting the way for me right now. He may not be our saviour, but jeez, I’ll keep paying just to watch him grow, at what so far, has been an exponential rate.
And i think he may have a dynastical immunity to our game plan, whatever that may be.
Geez I would love to hear Dennis Cometti (or Basil who is trying out to be the new Dennis) drop that line; “Rioli, gathers on the wing, wrong-foots Fyfe, a bounce, sails through the 50 and ..spare me days on his wrong foot that has gone through post high!! The Tigers first goal since quarter time. Does this lad have .. some kind of dynastical immunity to Hardwick’s game plan?”
Actual LOL