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Benny Round 4 v Brisbane, Gabba

18/04/2017 By Corbo 2 Comments

It was a strange day at the Gabba. The directives over the loudspeaker, and flashing on the screen to ‘make some noise’ puzzled me. It made as much sense to me, as it would to get a loudhailer at a kids birthday party and yell, in a commercial DJ voice, ‘eat some lollies’. The contrarian in me, meant I took a fairly quiet and subdued approach to supporting my team. Which is unusual.

Votes and notes by Corbo

It was a strange day at the Gabba.

The directives over the loudspeaker, and flashing on the screen to ‘make some noise’ puzzled me.

It made as much sense to me, as it would to get a loudhailer at a kids birthday party and yell, in a commercial DJ voice, ‘eat some lollies’.

The contrarian in me, meant I took a fairly quiet and subdued approach to supporting my team. Which is unusual.

I had a disconcerting trans-supporter experience, where I felt like a Hawthorn supporter in the body of a Richmond supporter

In that, I never had a moment of doubt from the first bounce that we would win, and the umpires gave us an armchair ride.

Watching Richmond, with a complete absence of fear and anger, was an entirely foreign feeling to me.

The 200 decibel Batman Lego Movie half time entertainment, and the crowd prosaically pretending they were driving a car in case they magically appeared on the big screen, and 5,000 odd kids belting each other with little inflatable Brisbane lions hammers, had a similar calming effect on me, as pouring petrol would on a burning man.

But despite my confused state, The Tigers were clinical, quite ruthless and at times, exhilarating.

I am laying myself bare here, but as well as coping with all these new adjectives and emotions, I also secretly grappled with boredom.

Kmac sprinted to contests and pushed blokes over like a playground bully. Whipping boys banded together to entirely dominate the game off half back; Grigg, Bellis, Houli, Astbury, Conca.

Dusty was dropping chest marks and missing bread and butter goals. It was not a conventional Richmond experience

The entire day had a touch of the original George Costanza’s ‘do the opposite’.

Our own George, of course, was consistently electric.

Back in a time when West End still had lot of rats and The Lions were great, I once saw the Brisbane City Council’s squad of fox terriers unleashed down a drain to rid it of vermin. The work of our flotilla of small forwards reminded me of that carnage.

Through the course of the game, Jack suggested he was working his way into form and our Captain led with ferocity and precision.

My only real moment of passion, where i couldn’t help but conform to make some noise, was a a joyful ‘O’ Danny Boy, O’ Danny Boy, I love you so’. It was clear and in key. Which was unusual too.

I’m sure I’ll get used to this. I will adapt to this absence of fear.

And to us being clinical, ferocious and exhilarating.

5 votes – Griggsy
4 votes – Cotchin
3 votes – Conca
2 votes – George
1 vote – Bellis


 

The Benny Leaderboard:
14: Grigg
9: Martin, Cotchin
7: Conca
5: Castagna
4: Nankervis
3: Houli
2: Butler, Vlastuin
1: Prestia, Riewoldt, Rioli, B. Ellis

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award: for players who have joined Richmond from another club
(Eligible 2017: Caddy, Grigg, Hampson, Houli, Hunt, Nankervis, Maric, Miles, Prestia and Townsend.)
14: Grigg
4: Nankervis
1: Prestia

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player: for anyone who was yet to debut before round 1
(Eligible 2017: Shai Bolton, Dan Butler, Ryan Garthwaite, Jack Graham, Ivan Soldo, Tyson Stengle)
2: Butler

Joel Bowden’s Golden Left Boot: for left footers
(Eligible 2017: Batchelor, Chol, Corey Ellis, Grigg, Nankervis  and Houli).
14: Grigg
4: Nankervis


Greg Tivendale Rookie List Medal:
upgraded from the rookie list during the current season
Potentially eligible 2017: Castagna, Chol, Moore, Stengle and Soldo.
5: Castagna


Maurice Rioli Grip of Death Trophy:
The club’s top tackler, across AFL and VFL teams
22: Vlastuin
21: Cotchin
20: Prestia
17: Riewoldt
14: Grimes, Castagna

Corbo 18/04/2017Filed Under: benny, front

Benny Round 9 v Fremantle at Subiaco

22/05/2016 By Corbo 4 Comments

Votes and notes this week by Corbo, our guest northern beef industry correspondent. Well Tigers, There are three things I need to disclose before I awards The Benny Votes this week, as guest northern beef industry correspondent. 1. I am now a fully blown Hammerphile. Megan is obviously a shrewd judge of livestock.2. Catfish are supposed to be monogomous, but I’m not convinced 3. The steers I keep out in the Clarence River Valley are an uneconomical ruse for me to to get out to my cabin and listen to the tigers on the wireless. and eat catfish.

 

Embed from Getty Images

Votes and notes this week by Corbo, our guest northern beef industry correspondent

Well Tigers, There are three things I need to disclose before I awards The Benny Votes this week, as guest northern beef industry correspondent.

  1. I am now a fully blown Hammerphile.  Megan is obviously a shrewd judge of livestock.
  2. Catfish are supposed to be monogamous, but I’m not convinced
  3. The steers I keep out in the Clarence River Valley are an uneconomical ruse for me to to get out to my cabin and listen to the Tigers on the wireless. And eat catfish.

Things were going well.  The senate was non-hostile when I’d tabled the “I’m going out to the Clarence to check the steers” Bill.  I’d caught a mating pair of catfish for tea.  As well as allegedly monogamous, catfish rival bower birds as the most OCD animal in the kingdom.  A pebble out of place in their neat white ring on the river bed, and they are visibly upset.  They are a little like Alex Rance I suppose.

I’d ‘tuned’ in the wireless.  The Clarence is a broad, deep valley.  Bound by the Great Divide and the Richmond range.  So my wireless coverage of the game was a pulsing mixture of football, and Indonesian radio.  It was thrillingly, almost unlistenable.  It seemed to swing more to the footy spectrum when Tigers surged forward and more to an Indonesian weather report when Freo had the ball.

The moon was full.  And the Red Gums loomed and threatened like Ben Griffiths.  

A dingo howled ‘yellow and black’

I could gather from the broadcast that Indo were in from some nasty weather, and Freo are tanking.  But that’s not to take anything away from the Tigers.

5 Trent Cotchin

4 Dusty

3 Sheds

2 Hammertime

1 Jack

I could apologise to 5 or 6 blokes for leaving them out of the votes, but that would be like apologising to a widowed catfish.

All is well.

– Corbo

The Benny
23: Riewoldt
16: Cotchin
14: Martin
11: Rance, Houli
9: Hampson
8: Miles
6: Lloyd, Deledio
5: Lambert, Castagna, Griffiths
3: Townsend, Short, C. Ellis, Edwards
2: Rioli
1: B. Ellis

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award
11: Houli
9: Hampson
8: Miles
3: Townsend

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player
5: Castagna
3: Short
2: Rioli

Joel Bowden's Golden Left Boot
11: Houli

Greg Tivendale Rookie List Medal
5: Castagna
3: Short


Next week’s votes will be cast by representatives of the ORCS, to be confirmed.

 

Corbo 22/05/2016Filed Under: benny, front

Finding our way home

09/09/2015 By Corbo 5 Comments

 

The image that belongs here has been relocated to avoid triggering feelings of anger, sadness and deja vu in Richmond people. You can see it here but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

puppies-9

Who among us really knew where we were going? And why?

The pessimist said to the optimist “I don’t reckon this can possibly get any worse” and the optimist goes “nah, I reckon it can”.

These blokes have been on our shoulders for decades now.  We know how they work, but we never know who to believe.  We’ve managed them with booze and laughter and dysfunction and dreams of Nathan Brown …. or Harley Bennell.  It’s been a kind of delusional, addictive, glorious, Tiger bipolar.  That’s shaped us all.  

It would be lazy to use a butterfly analogy as a metaphor for the Tigers emergence.  And it wouldn’t sit with blokes like Nick Vlastuin, Kamdyn McIntosh, Jake Batchelor or Dylan Grimes; let alone with Dimma or Dusty.  A butterfly changes from a grub pretty quick.  Plus life in a cocoon is pretty stable.

Nah, I reckon an eel.  Yeah, a shortfin eel.  Swimming in Boomerang Creek. Then she slithers though cow shit, over busted stubbies and through inorganic, industrial waste. She navigates her way, on instinct, past greasy gravelly truck stops and through inner city, resort style lives.  She’s drawn downstream, overland, and upcurrent.  She gets dry and dusty and salty.  Bitten, lost and scared.  She’s seen it all, without ever understanding why.

Then she finds herself a thousand nautical miles away, in shallow tropical waters.  Kind of a fish out of water in an osmotic reverse.  She looks back, gives birth, and dies.

The little fingerling, smaller than a grain of rice and an orphan, takes a blind look around and goes “what am I meant to do now?”.  It starts wiggling, without knowing, towards Boomerang Creek.  Which is a pretty nice place.

You see it?  33 years of pain and misery.  The lost footy tipping competitions, the stuffed up drafts, the busted leg, Spud, the countless slabs and bottles paid to smug mates; like charity, the ephemeral threats to call the Department of Child Protection when you buy your newborn a yellow and black jump suit.  The pity, the scorn, the self-loathing, the Carlton loathing, the failed attempts to kick the habit; to get off this cruel, beautiful luge.  We’ve seen and done and felt and heard it all.

Yeah, its been a long (dare I use the overused?) journey.

Who among us really knew where we were going? And why?  How were we gonna get there? What was gonna happen? Were we ever gonna get home?

But deep, deep, deep in our footy DNA.  The tiny bits that make us all Tigers, we knew.  We knew we’d be OK.  and that we’d get home.

And we’re almost there.

Corbo 09/09/2015Filed Under: front, Uncategorized

Clan McIntosh storm the Subiaco Fyfedom

01/06/2015 By Corbo 8 Comments

A wheat-belt Feudal lord, controlling the centre of Subiaco with a seeming indominable power. A young, brave, wild Pinjarra clansman steps forward.

fyfe_mac

“Come in”. Dimma had heard that knock before. A single strike of trepidation and unbridled confidence. If it wasn’t for the trepidation, he would have said “come in jack”, although he wouldn’t have had to.

“Kmac! whats up brother?”

“I want Fyfe.” Young Kamdyn strove to maintain eye contact and keep his lips pursed. He looked at the bridge of his bosses’ nose and his ears, and kept things moving forward.

“Yeah?” Dimma gave nothin’.

“Yep” Kmac tried giving nothing back. He didn’t do bad.

“He had 28 contested possies on Danger on Sunday”. Dimma leant back on two legs of his chair and joined his fingertips in slowly scratching the back of his head.

“So Ive got nothin’ to lose. You saw me shake Daisy’s shoulder out of its socket. I’m your man. I got the size, the strength, the tank.”

Dimma was seriously impressed. He’d already thought of it. Last night, he’d crept out of bed and quickly poured over the numbers.

Fyfe 190/88 KMac 192/89. Fyfe’s first season averages 16 disposals 4.6 marks 3 tackles and point 8 of a goal. Mac’s first 9 games 17 disposals, 4.6 marks, 2.7 tackles and point 6 of a goal. Jeez.

When he’d snuck back into bed, he’d lied about salty puttanesca and thirst.

“You reckon?” suppressing grins was one of Dimma’s strengths. The rare times when one escaped, he could dull his eyes in an instant, to make the grin seem mean.

“I’ve got 8 brothers and sisters. Ive been getting contested possessions since i was 6 months old” Kmac sensed that Dimma had thought the same thing, except from a different angle.

(‘Kmac stops Fyfe, tigers probably win, we go to the bye 6 and 4. I could take the wife and kids to Noosa for the weekend’)

(‘I stop Fyfe in front of half of Pinjarra, They’ll forget who Harley Bennell even is. I’d probably win the rising star and renegotiate $1.5 for 3. I’ll be set’)

Both came to know exactly what the other was thinking. It didn’t get much more symbiotic. One of those things that works whichever way you look at it. The kind of decision a jelly fish can make.

“Alright son”. Dimma loved having arrived at the age and level of experience that licence you to call broad, tough men ‘son’

“I was gonna ask you if you’de like the job tomorrow” He set a grin free. The kid had confirmed himself as tough and self-assured in one knock and 3 words. That, combined with the rack and the tank, was why he’d drafted him.

“I would of said yeah” Kmac had a sense of humour as alkaline as bauxite tailings.

Corbo 01/06/2015Filed Under: front, guest

Winter, 1976 – South Fremantle Football Club Gym

20/05/2015 By Corbo 2 Comments

76_montage

It smells like sweat, eucalyptus, beer and smoke.  There’s a hungover feeling of hope. The narrow urinal is three deep.

Brian Ciccotosto, a broad little bloke; a club colossas, is upbeat.  He’s had one instant coffee too many.  Some punters can’t get enough of his jittery enthusiasm.  Some can’t get far enough away.

Laurie Flanders is low key.  Tough.

The young Tiwi southpaw looks relaxed.  Supremely fit and with a charisma that needs no words.  Few have any idea the heights this kid is going to scale.

Another young bloke, Alec Leatherday, is clearly a gentleman …. already with the first of two national titles.  Today he’s fighting up a division for the vacant welterweight title of Western Australia.

An old SP bookie near the makeshift bar looks like he stepped out of the 1920’s.  He even has a ticket and a pencil under his hatband.  A whippet thin smoke dangles at that angle from his lips as he does a brisk, anxious trade.

2/3 Leatherday. 7/2 Rioli.  But the South Freo blokes have seen this kids hands work.  The 7/2 is belted and when the bell goes, Maurice is fighting at 68.5 kg and evens.  Alec’s at 63.5, and evens.

The first round is a draw.  Leatherday is a boxer.  Rioli is an Athlete.  But with lightening reflexes.  When the bell goes, blokes argue about who is in front and look to the bar.

When the fighters touch gloves to start the second, someone calls out ‘stop dancin’ and start fightin’ Maurice’.

Someone responds with ‘show him how to box Alec’.

The crowd sing a chorus of rowdy joy.

Half way through the round, Leatherday tries an old trick thats served him well.  He rocks forward, springing his weight onto his left toes.  He drops his left glove almost to his waist, shifts his right shoulder back, and his right glove out.  Just a fraction both ways.  Less than a quarter inch.

In his mind, it goes like this.  His southpaw opponent thinks he is telegraphing a right, and counters with straight right.  Alec anticipates this, brings up his left, and delivers the telegraphed right, dead straight and hard.  Whack!  A double stooge.

But it doesn’t go like that.  How was he to know this kids hands moved like a puwatingini (1), baked on a road?

Maurice falls for the trap. He does thinks Leatherday is telegraphing a right.  Indeed, he is.  So he retaliates first.  Straightening his knees, he pushes up onto his right toes, and delivers a short, straight, right of his own.

The punch is so fast, Leatherday’s left guard is still at his chest, and his right is still a half inch to the East of his chin when Rioli’s jab lands hard like a riled muntamunta (2),  under Alec’s left eye.

Most of the crowd only really see the blur of Maurice’s  left and the right that follow in a whip, and the outcome of the first jab.  A cut on Leatherday’s right cheekbone that looks like it was done with the slash of a cutthroat.  Wide, deep and beautifully neat.  A smile of meat and fat and bone.

The Referee steps in, takes a quick look at Leatherday’s wound and motions to his cut man.

Rioli walks to his corner, where Laurie Flanders quietly offers him a stool and a hand on the shoulder.

Leatherday’s cut man doesn’t even enter the ring.  He just shakes his head with tight lips.

The referee beckons the fighters to the centre of the ring, and holds Maurice’s left glove aloft.

He grins and nods humbly to the crowd, who are mostly already queuing boisterously and heckling, before the bookie by the bar.

Maurice is the Welterweight Champion of Western Australia.  Of course, this is only just the beginning.

  1. Puwatingini – Tiwi, western brown snake (male)
  2. Muntamunta – Tiwi, hornet (female)

Corbo 20/05/2015Filed Under: front, Uncategorized

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