Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

Going into a game without Dusty for the first time in ages, I really hoped his absence would make room for others to stand up, in the way Hawthorn without Buddy played with a different and more creative style. But as 2017’s best player and Richmond’s ‘get out of jail free’ card, it was more likely to just bring us back to the pack.

I don’t rate Port. Too many individuals. They added Jack Watts and Steven Motlop in the off season, (which by now should have been nicknamed Wattslop. Footy media letting the side down again.) I thought we had them covered, even away and without Martin.

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Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

Turns out he wouldn’t have even seen the ball for a while, as we were camped in defence from the first bounce.

2018 has been the year of the double fist thump. I don’t know who decided this was better than an almost uncontested mark but it’s happening all over now. Vlastuin executed a DFT in the first minutes and we didn’t get it into attack until 7 minutes later.

Dixon was just rag-dolling Rance at this stage and it looked ominous. Luckily Port fulfilled my lowly opinion and found various ways to stuff up great opportunities. Short was magnificent sweeping up and starting moves from half back. His kicks always found a target but the next phase broke down repeatedly.

This was the slipperiest Sherrin I have ever seen. The handling errors, and players clean bowled by a tumbling ball – have never seen the like. It was tense like all low scoring games but not great viewing. Robbie Gray basketball-dribbled as if just to point out that the ball was fine, these were purely human errors.

The tide turned when Westhoff tried to set up Neade with a ball to run onto. Cotchin wanted it more and it was back in Tiger hands.

Halfway through the first Q Jack took a pack mark and kicked truly and normal football resumed for a while. Sheds got two in just over a minute and we looked like going to the huddle with all the momentum. Then we manufactured another chance, Conca tried to thread it through a crowd at ankle-height, and it swept down the other end where Sam Gray wasted another gettable chance. Tiges by 7 at the break. Short, Riewoldt, Edwards, McIntosh, Broad, Grimes and Grigg all playing well.

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Photo by James Elsby/AFL Media/Getty Images

Jack extended our lead after a remarkable grab leaping over a collapsing pack. Everything now seemed to be travelling nicely. Then 200cm Charlie Dixon sold the dummy to new opponent Astbury and kicked long for Westhoff to kick an easy one. Then it was bang bang bang. We conceded 7 goals to 2 in the quarter, our 5th coming to Ant Miles who looked right at home back in the ones.

Vlastuin was taking important marks and Conca was fearlessly bodylining the ball. Nank exhibited a few brain fades. The umpires shared out the howlers pretty fairly I thought but a hold the ball against Conca here was criminal. As is Jared Polec’s hair, what the hell is going on there.

Power by 23 at half time.

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Turns out we could have wrapped it up there. The sides kicked three goals between them in the second half.

Jack backed into a pack without actually putting his arms up for the incoming ball and got smashed. I didn’t see the point of that, courageous though it was.

He kicked another goal which I recall was the end of a fantastic string of passes, real Barcelona stuff. Did I imagine it? It’s not on the AFL highlights clip. Although they found time in the edit for some schoolyard scuffles between Broad and various dingalings in teal.

Caddy put a beautiful kick to George’s advantage to mark between two bigger defenders, but he sprayed it. Our set shots were generally good all night, we just didn’t get enough of them. Missed a lot of tackles too.

Sheds’ quick hands sent George on his way and he grubbed that one through to keep a spark alive. At 3QT I wrote down ‘Butler Menadue invisible, Caddy Moore nothing up front’.

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Photo by James Elsby/AFL Media/Getty Images

In the last quarter the skills continued to decline. An exception was George’s thrilling pack mark and goal. Otherwise it was a nil-all draw.

So look, I still don’t rate Port. We were pretty bad and half a dozen of our side might as well have gone for a few laps of Pennington Gardens instead. Sam Gray impressed me but he’s a bit greedy. Wines and Powell-Pepper were terrific for them.

Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

Votes
5: Jayden Short – clearly best Tiger afield. Clear thinking and accurate disposal.
4: Jack Riewoldt – still a formidable opponent. Gave everything.
3: Dylan Grimes – never seen him so confident. Surging out of D50 and starting rebounds.
2: Reece Conca – bleeds yellow and black. 9 tackles.
1: Alex Rance – ended up squaring a contest that earlier seemed no contest.

Mentioned in dispatches: Broad, Castagna, Cotchin, Miles, Edwards

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This was the most generally anticipated game in footy since Round 1. Our winning streak was 6, theirs was 7.

The trick for Eastern-states Tigers was how to fill all of Sunday until the 4.40pm first bounce. Here we went down to the rivulet with 200 other people and picked up plastic and polystyrene remnants from the flood a week ago, and that passed the time nicely.

I bought a one-week AFL Live Pass for this special occasion blockbuster. 5 bucks entitled me to an appropriately phone sized picture of the sun-drenched action from Optus Stadium, Perth. Throughout the game below the picture were stats from the completed Blues v Demons massacre. I never did work out how to get the right stats. I watched in front of the fireplace, squeezed up with the 16yo on my right, and the mini iPad balanced on a couple of cushions at eye level.

After Caddy opened the scoring (free kick to Cotch, messy pack mark that I considered 40/60 payable) – it was one way traffic for the rest of the quarter. I reassured myself that we came back from a similar terrible start against Carlton, but then again that was Carlton. Our outstanding players early were Riewoldt and Edwards. Jack was in everything but missed an easy set shot (as did Martin and Grigg). Sheds was a twisting, turning link man, distributing the ball at impossible angles to his direction of movement like the great farnarkler Dave Sorenson. Cotchin marked outside 50 and telegraphed that he wanted to dish off. Jayden Short has form for this but the Eagles were dozing – he arrived through the centre square and pounded it through for our much-needed second goal. Either side of Shorty’s goal Jack Darling kicked majors, to go with Cripps, Gaff, Kennedy and Willie Rioli. Ominous signs, down 37 -15 at QT. But Elliot Yeo was off injured and looking downcast, that could be helpful.

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After the break the ship began righting itself. Sheds opened with an amazing goal. Dusty’s pass into 50 was low and hard like an un-returnable forehand winner down the tramlines. His kicking action was entirely in the horizontal plane. Sheds patted it, tamed it, gathered it and nervelessly straightened up and kicked the goal. Note; he did not draw a man and handpass over the top. He did not head for the pocket so he could checkside it on the run. Suddenly we had the momentum. Nank was taking it up to NicNat. He is such a lovely kick, he delivered it perfectly for Jack to crash the pack and mark. He snuck the kick in, we were 9 points down. Today’s Ruck Chuckles were provided by Martin against Lycett and later Broad against Naitanui.

Jack Darling was paid a mark on the boundary 50 metres out that he controlled practically sitting in a Bunnings chair. His confidence up he approached to kick it checkside, hit the Fat Part Of The Ball™ and it fell into Redden’s hands right in front. It was that sort of day. At the other end our Jack went up for Mark Of The Year an hour early and missed the ball by metres, free kick. Oh we don’t wanna penalise THAT do we?? asked a Fox genius. We were killing them at this point, but still down 44-29. Jack buried Cole in a tackle but was unrewarded. Our entries were frequent, chaotic and unrewarded. Sheds’ hands outstanding, Lloyd spinning through the crowd but no scoreboard progress. 19 inside 50s to 3 for the quarter. The pressure is incredible. With misses and a dodgy rushed behind we creep up to 44-32. Somehow none of this is getting the ball through the big sticks, until the ball flips out of a standing pack at the top of square, and Jack soccers it sweetly through with his left. To be able to think his way through this situation is completely just off the charts in terms of football intelligence yeah OK mate I think he just saw it and kicked it, actually.

25 seconds later Jack made another one. Trying to hook it through as tackled, he changed his mind and managed to just toe it one metre to George who goaled from the square. George (sporting a Tom Libba-ish barnet) had collected Conca’s soccer out of the centre bounce, passed and ran on to get on the end. Best thing he did all day. Nank was working himself to exhaustion. With 12 seconds left he found the ball at his feet and just nudged it away gently like it was a possum in his driveway and he was trying to tell if it was alive. Siren. Scores level. First v second. Capacity crowd booing. How good is footy.

At the time I thought – ‘What a great quarter. Anyone’s game. Yeah bad kicking might bite us later but the momentum’s the thing’. How wrong I was. That quarter was our best chance to put a dent in this mob. Their oversize backline were marking only when we kicked it straight to them, and we did that plenty. For some reason our backline was misfiring and and we avoided that problem by ‘playing off a short pitch’, winning it back across the centre. It was really enjoyable to watch if it was divorced from what came before and after.

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I’ll just go with my notes for the 3rd quarter. The AFL Livepass was starting to struggle along with the Tiges.

Conca goals gets KMac cuddle.

Yeo back from the dead, greatest comeback since Gary Lazarus (Fitzroy 1963-70, 132 games).

James Cripps looks like Once In A Lifetime era David Byrne.

Conca flick to Riewoldt.

Cotch stupid 50, then Edwards. Too far back now.

Short again off a very lucky 50 metre penalty.

Astbury on Kennedy = David & Goliath.

Kelli Underwood – boundary duties only – weird.

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What I didn’t write was we gave up 7 goals to 3 in the premiership term. And just like that we were 28 points in arrears and our old mate momentum was Back In Town. Our Jack was having an incredible game, but their Jack was having his best of his career. Sheds had faded. George wasted opportunities. Butters was invisible and might miss next week for Rioli. I feel for Stengle that Rioli’s return might cost him a chance.

Martin looked to me to have gone back to the 2016 model. Less trust in his mates – which leads to him doing too much. Cotchin was very solid in adversity. Dylan didn’t have a good game but there was a little moment that showed what great spirit he plays the game in. Gave away a free which sparked a melee but gave the Eagle a little tap later – sorry mate.

There’s lots I don’t understand about footy. Example – we concede the ruck to Naitanui. It is 100% guaranteed he is going to tap it to an Eagle midfielder. We don’t even contest therefore we have an extra man. How in heaven’s name did he repeatedly find a man he could tap to, streaming free in the clear?

Seconds before the final siren Butters demonstrated a fault we have shown all year. 35 out right in front, instead of taking the shot he tried to chip it to Jack. Siren. Jack punched it away.

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Votes:
5 Riewoldt for a genuine 4-quarter effort. Showed real leadership all day. His first votes for the year, incredible.
4 Nankervis gave NicNat a great contest. His workload is incredible.
3 Edwards was at his very best in the first half.
2 Cotchin was down early, missed shots, was in our best when the game was running against us. 7 tackles.
1 Conca is not everyone’s cup of tea but I can think of heaps of clubs who’d love to have him.

Unlucky: Short, Caddy, Martin

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I was a few minutes late to the TV and the very first action I saw was George climbing between two Pies to take a ripper of a mark 25 metres out. Then he did something between a Kennedy stutter step and a Running Man and kicked a point. Spectacular, ineffective. This should have been like the Lambert goal in the GWS prelim – an announcement to the effect ‘thanks for coming ladies and gentlemen, this is our game. Please stay and enjoy the minor details’.

Thanks to another magnificent last quarter we did get there in the end. We are outscoring our opposition by 147% in last quarters this year. As @sjross observed it is probably no coincidence we are often up against 21, 20 or 19 fit men at the end. A game against Richmond is no place for the semi-fit, people carrying niggles and under-prepared sides on tight turnarounds. We torched Collingwood in the last term, a team who beat Adelaide a few weeks ago.

A feature of the past week has been everyone with paid positions in the football industry taking turns to agree how terrible footy is now, what can we do to fix it, maybe zones, faster ball-ups, cut teams down to 16. (This is after the previous week when we were handed a night grand final on the basis as far as I could tell that fireworks look pissy in the daytime.) But most Richmond people are basking in the sunshine right now, and the Venn diagram of Tiger Fans / People Who Want To Change Stuff looks like this:

OO

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Cotch was fantastic. For such a pin-up who never even raises a sweat, he has a delightful nasty streak. Dusty was quiet early and worked his way into it. Caddy looked underdone but still ended with 4 goals. Snags Higgins was lively and got two in a minute thanks to cartoon knucklehead Lynden Dunn. Imagine getting Dunn and Mayne across to your team in one summer. Rance looked off his best when Cox was a real marking target in the first half, but he got better. Astbury and Grimes were great all day, Houli and Short terrific and Broad looked settled and confident. Nank was arguably best afield playing against a much-vaunted ruckman. People oughta vaunt Nank a bit more.

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VOTES
5 Nankervis – he had 29 disposals if you don’t mind.
4 Cotchin – he had 29 too, and planted Treloar’s face in the the grass on his way to the bench. Get up son.
3 Grimes – I love him.
2 Houli – I love him too.
1 Short – He will play AFL finals this year in my opinion.
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