What an ugly win…

In 1984, the year I finished high school we kept the Swans to a meagre 28 points, fast forward to Sundays game and we kept them to 26 points. That has to be a positive in an otherwise ugly win from a game of ugly football.

Three goals in the first 10 minutes to the men in Yellow and Black and then only one more goal for the game but… we win.

This week well I thought I’d do a rolling commentary without a quarter by quarter breakdown… only because quarter 2 and 4 would be no comment.

The Tigers again managed to score before most of the support staff had taken their seats. Be it as it may from a free kick, it was the forward pressure that had the umpire calling a deliberate over the goal line and stand in captain Jack Riewoldt nailed it. Next up saw a chain of play from the centre ending up in Dusty’s sure hands, and on cue he plays on and we score our second sausage roll for the quarter. Within minutes another handball chain sees Bolton slot one though on the run from about 50.

Now readers, this is when you can either skip to the votes or read on.

The Sydney coach decided the best form of attack is defence and so he threw Mills down back as an extra man and as luck would have it, it seems every forward foray for the next two quarters ended up with Mills somehow getting involved… only to have Grimes, McIntosh or Baker turn defence into attack from our backline.

Yes it was raining, yes the quarters are shorter, yes it’s strange times indeed but please why bomb into a congested forward line stacked in the Swans favour?E

Let’s look at the positives though. Chol again showed he can be a valuable contributor, he is athletic and can tackle. Balta and Aarts played ok and Eggmolesse-Smith also did OK. Pickett seems uncoordinated at times; that’s just his style, but he finds targets – so in terms of depth, we have got some.

Lynch kicked the only second-half goal, maybe should have got another but he wasn’t Robinson Caruso when it came to missing goals.

In the end we won, we won ugly, we got the four points and we came away without injuries and with game time for some young up and comers. I’m not sure I’ll watch this game again but there were positives.

Oddly enough it seemed Grimes was everywhere but he had single figure touches as opposed to McIntosh, Baker and Broad. Our backline is solid. We had chances and missed up forward but any other day it could have been 10.4 instead of 4.10. Soldo and Chol dominated the ruck… the biggest issue was flooding the backline and we couldn’t work our way around it.

Four points is four points and we are back in the 8.

The Benny Votes

5 Lambert – was a mirror image of last week and was a ball magnet most of the day

4 Baker –played one of his best games in the yellow and black, courage and poise all in one

3 McIntosh –if the quarters went the usual full distance he would have ended up with leather poisoning

2 Caddy – hard to go past his efforts again; he seems to be where the ball is landing and does something with it.

1 Chol – he did well in the ruck, laid some tackles and chased… for someone his size I’ll give that a vote each time.

Leaderboard
10: Lambert
5: Higgins, Vlastuin, Cotchin
4: Soldo, Grimes, Balta, Caddy, Baker
3: Short, Prestia, Houli, McIntosh
1: Lynch, Castagna, Chol

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award: for players who have joined Richmond from another club
(Eligible 2020: Caddy, Grigg, Houli, Lynch, Nankervis and Prestia)

Prestia, Houli 3, Lynch 1

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player:for anyone who was yet to debut before round 1
(Eligible 2020: Collier-Dawkins, Dow, Turner, English, Martyn, Cumberland, Aarts, Ralphsmith, Nyuon, Miller)

No votes yet

Joel Bowden’s Golden Left Boot:for left footers
(Eligible 2020: Chol, Nankervis and Houli)

Houli 3, Chol 1

Greg Tivendale Rookie List Medal:
upgraded from the rookie list during the current season

(Eligible 2020: Aarts, Baker, Chol, Eggmolesse-Smith, Stack and Pickett)

Chol 1

Maurice Rioli Grip of Death Trophy:
For the Tiges top tackler in 2020

Prestia 21
Cotchin 20
Lambert 18
Soldo 17
Edwards, Bolton, Pickett 15

Here we go TTBB fans, my first crack at a match report and the all-important player votes. I offered to do the write up for round 5 as I was shipped off from the heartland of footy in Victoria and into exile in Perth. Richmond were meant to be playing West Coast in the Queensland hub but someone in Melbourne caught this flu thing that’s doing the rounds and our neighbours shut their doors on us Victorians…

As with all things in times of Covid don’t go making too many plans.

The upside for me was my 2 week lockdown finished the day after we were meant to play West Coast and that meant I could venture out and watch the Melbourne game in a pub. So the report notes were taken during Sunday lunch at JB O’Reilly’s Irish “eaten and drinkin emporium” in Leederville.

Q1

As with last weeks game we got a quick goal early thanks to first gamer Aarts being able to dish off a nice pass to Lynch; from then on quarter 1 became a bit of an arm wrestle with both team making some fundamental footy errors and both teams scoring from a running game. Quarter time saw both sides at 3 goals a piece and not much separating the good or bad passages of play. It was good to see Balta, Aarts and Chol getting a run and Rioli back in the line up. Balta took his chance with 20 disposals for the game, Aarts 15 and both Rioli and Chol 8 apiece.

Melb 3.1 Rich 3.2

Q2

Thankfully Richmond decided to play like Richmond in the second and it was the premiership heroes who all scored for the Tigers, as they turned up to kick four goals for the quarter to the Demons zero. Nankervis, Riewoldt, Castagna and Lambert all slotting through majors for the term with first gamer Aarts unlucky to miss on debut… and don’t get me started on the endless score reviews. Houli stood up down back and Cotchin was playing the general’s role as usual.

Melb 3.2 Rich 7.3

Q3

The Richmond side that was there for the second quarter must have eased back into Covid Tiger mode as the third quarter didn’t produce too much in the way of Tigerish play. The exception of course being Lambert’s smother; follow up and goal. On the reverse end of that highlight was Nank’s going down and the turnovers. I was starting to lose interest watching the usually silky-smooth-skills mixed with the play-on-at-all-costs chaos footy Richmond play, slowly unwinding.

Melb 5.2 Rich 9.7

Q4

Another dour arm wrestle with no real highlights, maybe it was the beers with lunch in a Perth suburb instead of being at the MCG that took the wind out of my sails, maybe it was Castagna going down the tunnel, maybe it was seeing Cotchin hobble. Lynch got a couple to keep us at arms length but again a few fundamental turnovers hurt the boys in the Yellow and Black. The highlight for me would be Lambert again, the 100 gamer putting through his third for the match to ice the game and ice his 100^th game cake.

Before I go into the votes I actually looked in to the stats, not something I’d do on a weekly basis…….in fact never do but thought as I am writing for TTBB best I put the extra effort in.

The difference in disposals was 13 our way, we both had the same amount of handballs (155) but we had 13 more kicks (180-167). However TTBB fans we were efficient, we went inside 50, 4 times less than the Demons but our defence did it’s job and the forwards did theirs with 19 scoring shots to 12 for the game.

Richmond by 27 points over the Dee’s.

Yes we’ve got injuries but we had those last year and still managed to win the flag in both AFL and VFL so injuries and family commitments may be seen as a season ending blow; or, a chance for the depth and talent to shine as we saw with Balta and Aarts. Chol also played his part with some fierce tackling and running with Gawn. Don’t be surprised to see him doing the same again next week in the northern hub.

The Benny

 5 votes Lambert in one of his best performances of his 100 games.

4 votes Balta, 20 disposals is a statement right there, I’m here and I want to stay here.

3 votes Prestia he was in everything until being injured

2 votes Caddy, he is a work horse and had plenty of touches

1 vote Houli, another solid performance turning opposition attack into a rebounding Richmond defence.

Leaderboard
5: Higgins, Vlastuin, Cotchin, Lambert
4: Soldo, Grimes, Balta
3: Short, Prestia, Houli
2: Caddy
1: Lynch, Castagna

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award: for players who have joined Richmond from another club
(Eligible 2020: Caddy, Grigg, Houli, Lynch, Nankervis and Prestia)

Houli 3, Lynch 1

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player:for anyone who was yet to debut before round 1
(Eligible 2020: Collier-Dawkins, Dow, Turner, English, Martyn, Cumberland, Aarts, Ralphsmith, Nyuon, Miller)

No votes yet

Joel Bowden’s Golden Left Boot:for left footers
(Eligible 2020: Chol, Nankervis and Houli)

Houli 3

Greg Tivendale Rookie List Medal:
upgraded from the rookie list during the current season

(Eligible 2020: Aarts, Baker, Chol, Eggmolesse-Smith, Stack and Pickett)

Maurice Rioli Grip of Death Trophy:
For the Tiges top tackler in 2020

Prestia 21
Cotchin 20
Edwards, Soldo 15
Bolton 13

Thursday June 11 2020

It had taken me very little time to accept that there would be no footy in 2020.  In the teeth of a global pandemic that would cause our health system to collapse, losing a season of footy seemed a small thing.  And once crowds were out, well footy was out.  I’ve long argued the point that our game, at the top level, is not about the great mark or the long kick. It’s about the crowd.  Take out the crowd and you might have a pretty spectacle but you won’t have any drama.

Consequently, I was a non-believer in round 1.  Just declare the season over, I said, and give the flag to us.  Everyone knew we were going to win again.  It follows from this that I have watched with some dread and misgiving as the AFL pushed and shoved and prodded and poked until its 2020 season came back to life.

Anyway, back to life it came and back to the ‘G go our boys and the Pies.  One good thing about there being no crowd – there is no agonising on this cold Thursday night about going or not going – the couch or the outer?  That decision was made for us.  So, onto the couch we go.

Before the match all the players take a knee in solidarity with their brothers and sisters of colour and the injustices meted out to them by police and others.  It’s a moving sight and I’m proud of all of them.

In no time though I’m nostalgic for the early days of the pandemic, when tens of thousands of lives were at stake and our civilisation faced possible ruin.  At least we didn’t have football to endure.  And how I have not missed that sick feeling of dread as the Pies take control of the game and our boys look like they don’t know what they’re doing.

The big trouble with Collingwood is that they have an awful lot of very good players.  If truth be told, more skilful players than us.  Grundy, who is forever monstrous for that last-second goal that sank us in round 2 2016 – and which foretold our season quite accurately – is bigger and better than ever.  De Goey is simply terrifying – he’s like Dusty but can take a high mark and possibly kick the ball further.  Luckily, he seems to lack Dusty’s consistency.

Anyway, the Pies get the first goal and the second and then a third.  After 20 minutes I leave the couch and I miss Collingwood’s fourth.  My family are having a GoTo meeting in the wake of my Mum breaking her wrist.  This is a very pleasant diversion.  Mum appears cheerful and is now out of hospital and my brother is with her in Wodonga.  After half an hour or so I get back to the couch and things have improved slightly.  Tom Lynch has kicked three in a quarter but we’re still 14 points down at half time.

Half time score:  Collingwood 5.3.33 to Richmond 3.1.19

The second half is easier to watch than the first quarter but that’s not saying a lot.  We edge closer with a goal and then just before the last break Higgins marks a missed shot for goal.  Everyone assumes it has gone through for a point before he’s marked it but there’s a score review and the result is “no score”, a mark instead to young Jack.  Of course, he goes back and bananas it through for a goal and we’re only two points down.

The last quarter is very old fashioned – like, 1858-old fashioned.  We kick four points and Collingwood kick two.  I actually enjoy it as it’s pretty exciting and the fake crowd noise is amusing.  Then we level the scores right near the end and I think we could sneak another and win it but instead Collingwood bring the ball down-field with much of their usual skill and I cry out, “We’ll take the draw!  We’ll take the draw!”  The ball goes out for a throw-in deep in their forward line with a handful – a Grundy handful you could say – of seconds left.  But the Tigers manage to smother it again and the siren goes and it’s all over and we’ve taken two points off our dreaded enemies.

Wayne Carey says “Nobody likes draws” and I say, “No, nobody likes you Wayne.”  Honestly.  Not one player or coach or club official is heard to say “I’d rather they’d beaten us, I’d feel so much better.”  No, and no supporters say that either.  How could you?  I’d rather die of thirst than have half a glass?  Nobody says that.

But everyone agrees it has been a very strange night.  Footy might be back but it’s a zombie version that we recognise, but barely.  I note with interest that there is no music blaring during the post-match interviews, nor at the breaks.  This proves my long-argued point – the music blares out to drown out the crowd.  If there’s no crowd, there’s no need for the music.

Jack Higgins might not be our best player on the night but he’s the best story.  He says after the game that he came close to very serious brain damage after his two operations.  To be playing footy again is a miracle and something to celebrate.

Full time score:  Collingwood 5.6.36 to Richmond 5.6.36

Editor’s note: There was no round 1 match report or Benny votes because I think all of us at TTBB didn’t feel the season should go ahead, and it was a terribly flat game in the end. But here we are now, footy is happening, and at some point we will duck back and assign some votes to Round 1 as well.

Benny Votes

Higgins 5, Soldo 4, Cotchin 3, Houli 2, Lynch 1

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award: for players who have joined Richmond from another club
(Eligible 2020: Caddy, Grigg, Houli, Lynch, Nankervis and Prestia)

Houli 2, Lynch 1

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player:for anyone who was yet to debut before round 1
(Eligible 2020: Collier-Dawkins, Dow, Turner, English, Martyn, Cumberland, Aarts, Ralphsmith, Nyuon, Miller)
No votes yet

Joel Bowden’s Golden Left Boot:for left footers
(Eligible 2020: Chol, Nankervis and Houli)

Houli 2

Greg Tivendale Rookie List Medal:
upgraded from the rookie list during the current season

(Eligible 2020: Aarts, Baker, Chol, Eggmolesse-Smith, Stack and Pickett)
No votes yet

Maurice Rioli Grip of Death Trophy:
For the Tiges top tackler in 2020

Soldo 12
Prestia 10
Pickett 9
Martin, Bolton 8