Votes and notes this week by Footy Gospel’s Josh Pinn

Standing On The Outside
When I put my hand up to provide the votes for this week’s Richmond game I’m not sure I really knew what I was getting into. I thought “If I wanted to follow a team, albeit only for analytical purpose, that is mercilessly derided for finding new and inventive ways of losing close games, I’d go for North Melbourne*.”

Be that as it may, I have a peculiar admiration for your lot. I wrote about it last time the Tigers were making a mostly unexpected run at the finals in 2014 (insert gratuitous link here). This week I got something of a glimpse into the experience of following Richmond and, I feel, the human condition at large. The frustration, the unknowing, the unconditional love, the inevitable dread, and the overwhelming relief.

While I watched the game from the comfort of my living room I did my best to drown out the commentary. I’m not one to use the mute button because I need at least a little bit of noise, so I did have the misfortune to hear Brian Taylor’s over-excited musings (For what it’s worth, I’ve noticed his sidekick for the day, Hamish McLachlan, describes players as if they were home viewers on Sale of the Century‘s Fame Game board. “Here’s Shai Bolton. He kicked two goals last week, he’s a first year player and one of his hobbies is amateur entomology.”)

I don’t know how many of you know this, but it would seem to me that TV commentators like to make a game sound like it’s on a knife edge regardless of the actual situation. Thus, even when the Tiges led by four goals halfway through the last quarter of a game they had more or less controlled since the first bounce, one of the commentators remarked, “Remember Richmond have lost four games by less than nine points.” Why that was relevant escaped me, but that must be the sort of thing you have to put up with all the time.

As I said, Richmond controlled the game, but that is not to say it was a performance that will be looked back on with a great deal of fondness. The Tiges did what was required but were wasteful in front of goals and perhaps overused the ball the bit, but Carlton have a habit of making teams do that. In the end, the wealth of opportunity the team manufactured was always going to end in a win.

*I do go for North Melbourne.

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The Votes

5 – Shaun Grigg: Played in his usual impressive manner. He’s steadily become one of my favourite Richmond players. Gets plenty of the ball on the wings and flanks and always uses it well. Managed to get the ball to dangerous spots in the forward line.

4 – Bachar Houli: Wasn’t a great start to the game with his high hit on Jed Lamb, for which he may have to sit out a week, but he gathered himself and played one of his best games this year. Repelled many of Carlton’s forays into their forward line and was a valuable link in the chain.

3 – Alex Rance: What more can you say? What I wouldn’t give to have a player of his ability on my team. Occasionally has the entire back half of the ground all to himself, but he may as well be a one man wall stretching from one side of the ground t’other. Nothing gets past him. Showed Liam Jones up the other end the level he should be aiming at.

2 – Dustin Martin: Seemed to start quietly but just didn’t go away and his second half was huge. He even managed to beat the aforementioned Liam Jones in a one on one marking contest, which is a feat to which neither Tom Lynch nor Jonathan Patton can lay claim.

1 – Kane Lambert: Could’ve been best on in the first three quarters. He was in nearly everything and registered one goal from a few opportunities, but was hardly sighted in the last quarter.

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The Predictability Factor

Last time I was handed the keys to TTBB was after the most unlikely of Richmond performances as we peeled off a three quarter time deficit, running rampant in the last quarter against Melbourne. This time is seemingly straight out of the Richmond-Hardwick playbook, and the handback of what most clubs would deem a match winning lead.

Unfortunately a lack of time this week means there won’t be any huge amount of analysis in this post, if you are after that then head over to The Roar for Cam Rose’s article about the Groundhog Day situation we find ourselves in.

What I will say is the sense of inevitability at the G on Sunday was all encompassing. We played some great footy in the first 45 minutes before Sydney worked us out, but once Lloyd turned the footy over and they scored late in the second quarter it seemed like we’d seen this movie before, more than a few times, and knew exactly how it was going to end.

From a glass half full approach, these things used to happen in a 20 minute burst (hello North Melbourne games) but Sydney took three quarters to achieve what we all knew was going to happen. Is that progress?

Sydney worked us out mid-stream and planned accordingly. I’m not the first person to observe forward structure is lacking, Jack is doing too much overtime and we need a second target. That Sydney team is big enough, ugly enough and have been around the traps long enough to adapt and force us to go up the wing, knowing that we didn’t have the get out option.

Things look like they might be a little bit different against Carlton on Sunday if we play Maric Snr, Ivvy isn’t going to be the great circuit breaker of our time but he should structure us up going forward and mean that it isn’t Jack or bust.

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My votes

5: Alex Rance – Sydney is my favourite Rance game of the year because it’s the one time we get to see him go full defensive against Buddy. I love Buddy, I will always love Buddy, but my goodness it was great to see Rance beat him senseless.

4: Trent Cotchin – All the attention is on Dusty but the captain is putting together a fine body of work in 2017 and it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s leading the B&F. He ran himself into the ground in the last quarter to try and push back against the tide, unfortunatley he wasn’t able to overwhelm the Swans midfield on his own.

3: David Astbury – Not all that long ago we used to watch Astbury waiting for the worst and now he has learned from the best. The chatter will keep asking him for go forward but there is no way in my mind you split up that duo.

2: Josh Caddy – I assume when we pitched to Caddy the brief wasn’t ‘come to Richmond and play some kind of quasi CHF role’, other than Jack he was the only one who could hold the ball in a contest.

1: Shai Bolton – Little bit chuffed I get to give the first TTBB vote to Shai. He set us alight in the first quarter and it won’t be the last time. We got Bolton with the compensation pick for Vickery and in ten minutes he kicked as many goals as Ty has managed all year. Strap yourself in, he is going to be so much fun to watch.

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The night before the calamity last year: a Hobart local with Mr 6yo, who does not feel the cold.

At best, it was three degrees. Despite the novelty and the cold winter air, all about the night was forgettable. And yet Facebook tries to remind me, prompting memories with photographs from a year ago. Un-social media.
All who were in Hobart this time last year have cold memories.

Match reports of last Saturday night’s game are glib with the matter – “North had beaten the Tigers seven times in their previous eight meetings,” wrote Rohan Connolly in the Sunday Age – but sports reporters live behind glass, on upholstered seats. They sit not on damp grass on cold earth, sheathed in a blanket, with ski mitts. They are not fans like us. Our memories rarely forget.

This game last year was a low-point in the lowly history Richmond has against North Melbourne since, well, since when Glenn Archer would beat-up on Richo. All knees and elbows, the little knot of aggression hopped-into our long-limbed thoroughbred like a hungry man might hop-into a bowl of hot soup on a cold night. He monstered Richo. North monstered us.

Sure, we beat them last round of 2015, when their team of interns bruised us, mentally, physically, emotionally. A cruel joke. Cheryl Critchley isn’t yet over it.

North Melbourne, a club with less, down by the old abattoirs, that for two generations has given its fans more. A club that fields teams that manage usually to humiliate us. We’re up by seven goals at half-time? No probs, we’ll let them run over us, and ensure a player once one of ours – Robbie Nahas – kicks the goals to put them in front. Salt. Rub. Wound. Richmond.

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Lucky table Nº 8: fish’n’chips before the game last year with the two boys and my eldest sister, a North fan, as part of her 50th birthday present. She enjoyed the night, I thought it was lousy.

Saturday night, and all was alright, although we never were quite sure, because this is Richmond and recent history says the margin of error is quite large (although for three games this season it was improbably small). We won! Yay! More relief than overblown excitement.

Our team are gelling better than theirs. And for the first time in 18 seasons, we didn’t have to play against ‘Boomer’ Harvey. Phew.
As fans in the stands, in the outer, we see the game differently, from our partial perspective, bringing to a game all our expectations and hopes and life history and who we are. We are not good judges. Nobody is an expert. We all know as much about the game as the next person, and we all want to wrap Dusty up in a bundle of love, make him happy, fulfilled, enriched, our little project, our warrior leader, indefatigable, we might follow him into a pit of fire, howling against the world, against all its social injustices, against inequalities, phonies, fakes, yes-men, hangers-on, fat cats, those who hardly know the value of a dollar and the truth of a hard day’s work.

See, that’s just me, at the football. Of course it’s more than a game.

It’s what we look forward to all week, our emotional release, seeing the beauty and skill of young and fit men in the prime of their lives doing extraordinary feats of bravery and athleticism. Or is that just Dave Astbury and Alex Rance in the back half?

And a cheerio to them, on their camping trip. Hope they’ve caught some fish, packed warm sleeping bags, enjoyed the fire-side. Anyone know where they are? My guess is the Edwards River, an anabranch of the Murray. Just wanted to use that word. Anabranch. So specific.

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The North game last year: staying to the bitter end.

Bad analogy. There’s no place in football for Kiwi fruit.

Fans like me judge Dusty and Cotch and Jack and Alex to higher standards because through inherited gifts and dumb luck and hard work, and dedication, they are simply better players. They ought to appreciate this, if only for the betterment of the team. All are not equal on a football field. It is self-evident some are faster or taller or can kick a ball longer or straighter, or can stand-up in a tackle more often than others. But each must pull the other along, together. It is the essence of the word ‘team’; as in a teamster, a team of draft animals, each of them a beast of burden.

Dusty is our bull, but we need more than that. Where would our club be this season, where would this team be, without Toby Nankervis? He’s our lucky break. He was no long-term plan. We didn’t pick him in the draft, identify him as talent, school him. Maybe midway through last year he came onto the club’s radar, or maybe it was later than that. There is much luck in football. Or is it good judgement? Ivan Maric got us out a pickle. So, too, has Nank. But he needs some support.

Reckon we also need a bona fide centre-half-forward. Todd Elton, we are all with you on this (or at least I am). Get that shoulder right, fans like me have not given up. Keep jumping for the ball, flying for it, at least splitting open packs, getting the ball to spill. It’ll come. The ball will stick. So much of the game is also confidence. Look what Dan Butler and Jason Castagna and Dan Rioli are doing, and what Shai Bolton is threatening to become. When your tails are up, anything can happen.

Beers to tears: Justin Flynn and his merry crew “on the ferry over to Bellerive, before the carnage, with a wind chill of minus 4”.

The votes.

Bachaaaaaar gets my five. Controversial, no. Ramadan, yes. Thirty-one possessions, but who cares about numbers? When he got the ball, he gave us run and carry across the mid-section of the field, he gave us composure, he gave us a get-out and an attacking weapon, he gave us his beautiful, raking left-foot kick. Eighty-nine per cent game time. Only four other players are higher (Rance 100, Riewoldt 93, Astbury 91, Grigg 90), and my guess is none of them covered the territory Houli did. He has been a blessing for our club. I thought his game was marvellous. I would like him to taste my babaganoush.

Brandon Ellis gets my four. No longer “much maligned”, not this season. He’s straightened-up his game this year, is kicking crunch goals at critical moments, is getting in all the right spots, staying on his feet. He’s become more than dependable. He’s become one of our brightest assets. A gauge for all football fans: the heart rate when certain players have the ball. Dusty gets it and my heart skips a beat (knowing he can hit a target 60 metres upfield with a laser bullet). Jack leads and takes a mark and I can at last breathe, knowing the ball is in good hands. Alex takes the ball out of defence, running with all his pomp and confidence, and my confidence rises, too. Brandon Ellis got the ball on Saturday night and good things happened. The ball changed direction, went our way, went to good places, positions of attack, of our advantage. Well done! Been a great year so far, and he deserves it.

Three votes. Dusty. You cannot keep a good man down. He is a good man. I like the way he spoke after the game. A weight seemed lifted. He seemed easeful. He will stay. He is one of us.

Two votes. Cotch. His partner in crime. Been bloody brilliant this year. All leadership (except giving away that free off-the-ball in the centre of the ground that cost us a goal! Bad Cotch!). Good Cotch is a tireless combatant, slick hands, kicking goals again, run-and-carry, dropping his knees in tackles, is everywhere. Would any player be sorer after a game? He is remarkable. He is ours. We love him, we admire him.

One vote to Dion Prestia. Early in the game he fumbled the ball and my thoughts – uh-ho, here we go again – but slowly and methodically he turned it all around and kept getting involved in the contest, again and again (a game-high 11 possessions in the last, along with Cotch and Houli), kept running, contributing. Thought he was excellent. A rites-of-passage game.

Honourable mentions, in no particular order. Kane Lambert. He’s strung together a series of good games of workmanlike footy, that have started catching the eye. He’s put himself back in the picture, through effort and application. Toby Nankervis, our totem. We owe it mostly to him. Outpointed Goldstein (3 marks to 0), carried the load on his shoulders, long may he stay in one piece. Good stuff, big fella. Enjoy the long and hot baths. Dave Astbury and Alex Rance. They’ve become a two-hander, with the odd cameo from Dylan, a yin and yang, sidekicks to each other, both playing with care and confidence. Each make the other a better player. If one doesn’t get you, the other will.
We are proud of our Tigers, and happy for them they’ve gotten to the bye with their character intact, and now enhanced. A string of heartbreak losses, fatal mistakes, and all could have been derailed. But they’ve turned it around, put it behind them.
That’s what good sides do. And good sides keep finding new ways to win. Long may that be the case for this second long act in the season.

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A balmy six degrees and as seen at game last year (& this man last seen dispensed from casualty ward with frostbite).
Pic supplied by Luke Wentworth.

The Benny Leaderboard:

After a string of near misses, it looked very likely we were in for another. A few poor choices led to some poor calls and you got that feeling the game was to be taken away from us. It certainly felt that way at the time.

It was another Richmond performance of note. Entirely not a game to give the media speculators more ammunition about the tiger fragility. In fact it was quite the opposite. Noteworthy for our attack on the ball and endeavour around the packs. Some of the polish of the first five wins was missing, but there was no questioning the hardness.

The thought during the breaks was that Essendon, if they were to get away from us with the ball, would end up carving us up. They had their little moments in the first quarter with two bursts of three goals. Those sat in the matchday memory when we dominated general play for extended periods. The memories lingered as the game wore on… if they can get away, we are done for.

But as it happened the threat level diminished as the cream of the AFL’s defenders rose to the challenge. Of course Rance was his Rancetastic and imperious self, and the leftenants around him also went up a notch when needed. Astbury, Grimes and Short were huge. Rocks. Launchpads.

For all the resoluteness of our defence, there is a shallowness to the attacking options. Jack toiled as he does, and our small forwards plus Caddy also ground away. Clean we were not, but we do need another tall to stand up in attack. The forwards were also not helped by what appeared to be the number 468 bus from Essendon to Highpoint (via Maribynong) that was parked down there crowding out space.

I also liked Menadue (generally and also for that skinny kid taking down Bull Goddard tackle), Rioli and the big Nankervis, and also Titch who had moments.

And our first home viewing of Bolton was impressive… great chase down. Just try not to do everything at once, son. And Grigg and Bachar. The former should be in the leaders for the Dyer Medal if it were counted today. The latter for a good display through the back and sweeping up forward. Reckon he always plays well against the Bombers (I wonder why).

To the votes

FIVE to Cotch for an awesome display, sometimes of see-ball-get-ball footy, and sometimes where he sat off the back of the pack to be a third or fourth player in the chain out and forward. And always around stoppages and directing the set-up. And the fend off was superb. McDonald-Tipungwuti is a real talent, but he went down swift enough, and even bounced a touch on the deck.

FOUR votes to a reborn BEllis. Lots of stats and touches and more of the creative stuff… its good to have him back to that sort of form.

THREE to Dusty who along with Cotch decided the game needed winning they would see to it that it was us they won it. And the Caro baggers can get stuffed. He was great, but he also is at that level now.

TWO to our other elite who we have come to expect excellence from. Rance, as before was just perfection.

ONE last vote to give and its a bit of a raffle because so many were so good. But for this week and being part of that 2 goal for a half defensive set-up, it goes to the under appreciated DAstbury.

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I wasn’t expecting much, to be honest. I’d been at Manuka Oval last year, the last time we played this mob – the game where we’d kicked one solitary goal to half time, and scored our lowest score in over a half a century.

I travelled up with the Capital Tigers. We’ve been featured on these pages before and our regular trips to Sydney games have covered the best of times (two hundred point thrashings of GWS before they’d grown up, and that magical evening when we’d won the ninth in a row in 2014) and the worst of times (Round 23 last year). They numbers were slightly down this year, sadly, but it is nonetheless nice to travel to the game with friends and our trip to Sydney in a rented mini-bus was without incident.

The forecast rain never arrived and it was in fact a glorious afternoon, so I tucked into an ice-cream and with no expectations, hoped for the best.

We were up for it. Cotch stormed out of the middle and goaled with the first play of the game. Grigg followed suit soon after. After dominating the first quarter, we went in with a five goal advantage, the only dark spots being late misses from Grigg and Rioli.

After another two quarters, the margin was still the same. We were playing the better footy. We had them on toast. Rance and Astbury were stopping everything. Cotchin, Grigg and Dusty had the midfield covered. The only spot was in the forward line, without a viable second marking target, Jack was often swamped with defenders. But our 31 point lead at three quarter time was fully deserved.

I felt strangely calm as the final quarter commenced. We started it well. But Castagna missed a very gettable shot. Dusty missed an even more gettable one. We missed our chance to bury them…

Then they came hard, and the tranquillity in my heart was quickly replaced by a very familiar anxiety. They got closer and closer, the local crowd louder and louder as they scored each goal.

Yet, unlike the Geelong game last year, we were making them work for it. Yes they were on top, but as we went into each contest, there was a determination that we’d hang on. I kept thinking to myself. “It couldn’t happen again, surely. It couldn’t happen again!”.

De Boer goaled with 24 minutes gone. We groaned. They were within a kick. It was happening again.

A few around were asking “how long to go?”. I didn’t know of course. But there had been a lot of stoppages, and a few goals. “It’ll be a long quarter, probably over 30 minutes”.

Still we fought hard at every contest. The crowd squealed louder and louder with every kick. Nank popped up with some crucial marks. We kept entering our 50 only for GWS to repel the attack. We needed a goal.

Then it happened. 31 Minutes had gone. We were desperately hoping for redemption after such a painful loss. Then suddenly, the ball fell to none other than the debutant, who snaps a brilliant goal, to guide Richmond home. The sizeable contingent of away fans were ecstatic. We had shown the football world it had learned from the debacle of the previous week, and beaten the premiership favourites on their home deck. It was a moment so sweet, too sweet, in fact to be true.

Shai Bolton’s otherwise freakish snap had, unbeknownst to the Richmond players, the umpires and the crowd, had taken the slightest of fingertip touches on its journey through the big sticks. Our players, determined not to allow a repeat of last week’s finish, set up to defend the centre bounce. The tragedy is, we actually set up for it perfectly. The only Tiger forward of the ball was Jack, and aside from our four in the centre square, every other Tiger was either marking a GWS attacker or defending space – a set up which, I have no doubt, would have seen us home last week.

Then the heartbreak. It was announced it had there had been a score review and it was a behind. The ball, in the arms of the umpires in the centre, was quickly transferred back to our goalsquare. Our players scrambled to try to defend the kick in, but we were too far back. You could see it coming. The corridor was only modestly defended; the ball went over the back, Nank, after a heroic game, fumbled. Cameron strolled in, and it had happened again. Our poor hearts were once overcome with the all too familiar pain, a pain only us tigers understand.

The Capital Tigers trudged back to the bus, barely exchanging a word. Then we discovered the battery was flat, and we were stuck. I could just about have cried. It was that kind of night.

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Despite the result, we had plenty of good contributors, most notably for me;

5. Rance – back to his all-Australian form, the best KPD we will ever see in Yellow and Black.
4. Astbury – a most worthy understudy to Rance, lacked his rebounding skills, but his equal this year as a stopper.
3. Cotchin – another solid performance from the skipper, and our only senior play to kick for goal accurately.
2. Grigg – long undervalued, combined well with Cotch and Dusty in the midfield. Would have been further up the list if he kicked straighter.
1. Nankervis – was a warrior in the ruck, a most worthwhile replacement in body and spirit for Ivvy.

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To all our knockers, in the famous words of Tommy Hafey;

Nothin’ more Tigerish than a bloody Tiger, a wounded Tiger.

Beware the wounded Tiger, Essendon!

C’arn the Tiges!

Votes, notes and photo this week from Malcolm McKinnon

My view from the City end. There were NO GOALS scored at this end for the entire second half of the game, EXCEPT FOR THAT BLOODY ONE AFTER THE SIREN.

Lightning strikes twice

David Mundy is an unprepossessing kind of footballer. He’s not very flashy. No visible tatts. No man-bun. But unfortunately for Tiger fans, he’s a champion exponent of the crunch kick at the end of a game. It’s twice now he’s done this to us; once after Bachar Houli snatched defeat from the jaws of victory a couple of years back and now, this time, with a clinical kick after the siren. Our moment of jubilation after Brandon Ellis had pulled a last-minute goal out of his arse was indeed only a moment. And actually, as soon as our boys flooded back into defence after Ellis’s goal I had a nasty premonition: the ball would ping down Fremantle’s end, our players would all get in the way of each other and one of their mob would somehow end up with a shot at goal right on the siren. And, lo, alas, it did come to pass.

Despite the disastrous finish, this was a good game. Both teams had their chances, both looked terrific at different stages of the game and both made about the same amount of errors. And, most pleasingly, both teams largely played an attacking style of footy with plenty of run and carry and lots of long kicking to a contest. Freo had the best two players on the ground – Bradley Hill and Michael Waters – but the Richmond blokes all kept running, especially in the last quarter when all the play seemed to go our way, except for that last, infuriating twenty seconds. Thankfully, the Tigers have moved on from the tedious and ineffectual defensive, over-possessing style of game that we suffered so much of last year. And, amazingly, even a team coached by Ross Lyon seems to have done the same. Hill and Waters and co. were constantly running into space and, in the third quarter especially, we couldn’t seem to lay a hand on them. The ball kept shuttling from end to end. Unfortunately for the Tigers, until the last quarter it mainly kept bouncing back outside of our forward 50 as quickly as it came in. Kicking only five goals in three-quarters of football is a worry, and I reckon that something might have to give at the selection table next week.

Many will disagree, I know, but I’m lamenting the loss of big Tyrone. There were reasons he was such a popular whipping boy, but he could also take a grab and kick a goal. And in the absence of any other effective tall target to support Riewoldt at the moment, I reckon ol’ Ty would be a useful asset.

Fortunately we have Dusty, playing like a man fully convinced that the ball belongs to him and, usually, managing to get it. His work to win a contested ball on the boundary line late in the last quarter and then spear a pin-point pass to Jack was, to me, the highlight of the afternoon. (Jack missed the easy shot but then redeemed himself a minute later by dobbing a much more difficult one.) Dusty’s foot skills are sublime, and he finds time and shows composure where other players don’t.

It was great to see Sheds back on the field. After a long lay-off, he wasn’t quite up to speed but he still moves and handballs in close unlike any other player I know. He’ll get better over coming weeks. Daniel Rioli isn’t a huge ball-winner but he exudes class and is such a pleasure to watch. And Dylan Grimes continues to impress, not least because he’s one of the daggiest looking players in the game. (If there was a Harry-High-Pants award, he’d certainly be the front-runner.)

I’m really enjoying watching our team playing this year. Fortunately, I didn’t see the Adelaide game, but I’ve watched most of the others. Win or lose, we play an exciting style of footy and we always seem to be in with a chance. Our final quarter come-backs, both in this game and in the one against the Dees have been especially heartening. It was just a pity about that Mundy bloke.

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The votes:
5 – Dustin Martin (see comments above)
4 – Alex Rance  Combined defence and attack in his customary manner. Only got his hair all ruffled once.
3 – Daniel Rioli  His hairstyle is a bit too pretty for my taste, but he’s an excitement machine nevertheless.
2 – Trent Cotchin  Not his most effective game, but was strong out of the middle and kicks well when it looks like he’s about to fall over.
1 – Dylan Grimes  I like the cut of his jib. I only wish he’d done a better job at stopping Mundy’s grab at the end.

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Votes and notes this week from hard workin’ shiraz drinkin’ sports coachin’ Joe Crawford of Launceston.

I took a lot of notes while watching the Tiges/Dogs game on Saturday night with the intention of writing a Benny report full of super-accurate reportage based on my Flanagan-like scribbling. The notes were on our kitchen table…and then they weren’t. So, apologies for what follows as it will be a rambling effort based on my dodgy memory, not at all helped by a few glasses of full-bodied McLaren Vale Shiraz and an already too long week of work, u/11 soccer and u/19 hockey.

I walked into work at the start of the week and I’m greeted with ‘So now we see where the Tiges are really at’ and ‘Are they deflated balloons in your pocket?’ The glee with which these lines were delivered surprised me, particularly considering the first came from a Hawthorn supporter – not exactly setting the world alight – and the second from a Footscray supporter, who knows full well I was rapt with their barnstorming run in 2016.

In past seasons I’d have fired up and defended our boys but this season is different; this is the season of hope based on genuine on-field improvement and the slings and arrows from the fools who follow lesser clubs bounce harmlessly off my armour of optimism. I give them nothing.

I watched the Tiges/Scraggers game on TV with my Bulldogs-loving wife and my vaguely-interested-in-the-Tiges-because-dad-is son. It started well for the Tiges; we continued our AFL dominance on the Ivan front with another Ivan pulling on the yellow’n’black and, despite the fact he is a mere sapling, he is a bloody big one. We bolted to a decent early lead and everything seemed to be set up nicely for an upset win. Unfortunately for the Tiges, big Ivan’s game was mirrored by the Tiges’ game; it started well, but experience and class won eventually wore us down.

I’m not at all upset by the loss, despite the fact we put ourselves in a position to win, because the team has a mixture of solidity and potential which I haven’t seen since I returned to Australia in 2000. The kids are alright: Dan Butler looks a ripper and his shoelace pick-up and snap from 35 out was brilliant. Ivan Soldo was super-competitive early and once he develops an AFL engine he will be tremendous. Dan Rioli had a quiet night but we’re all excited to see what he produces as the seasons roll on. Jayden Short’s disposal is first-class. Kane Lambert is the energiser bunny. Oleg Markov has great hands and looks like he has plenty of poise. The future is bright.

Our ‘older’ brigade stood up as well. Jack is growing as a leader and this is exemplified by his outstanding tackle count in 2017. I will admit; several seasons ago I would have traded him for half a pack of barbecue chips. Not now. Grigg is, for mine, our most consistent player. Grimes and Rance are a fantastic pairing at the back. Dusty went a bit OTT early with the ‘don’t argue’ but recovered to put in another excellent performance. Bachar played well without being outstanding. Cotch was quiet but he has had the best start to a season for yonks.

Watching the game I thought, ‘Imagine if we had a fit, motivated Chris Yarran running off half-back.’ A skilled, line-breaking half-back really is one of our key missing ingredients. And then I remembered, ‘Jason Johanissen is up for grabs.’ And I’m serious. Given the number of very young players at Tigerland we surely have room in our salary cap to get him to Punt Road. So this week, as well as handing out Benny votes I’d like feedback on the ‘Get JJ to Tigerland’ bid.

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Here are the votes:

5: Grigg – while our other senior players had highs and lows, Grigg was a model of calm, classy consistency

4: Jack – tried his heart out all game and got us off to a flyer

3: Dusty – as mentioned, a bit predictable early with the don’t argues but smashed it after that

2: Rance – some remarkable efforts in defence and some excellent run from the back

1: Grimes – just about my favourite Tiger – as tenacious as a post-curry dag

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And finally, for my work colleagues:
The Tiges are 5 wins and 2 losses.
We have lost to Adelaide in Adelaide and the reigning Premier.
This will happen to most clubs.
Get stuffed.
Go Tiges.

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Votes and notes by Liahm O’Brien

I look at games in Adelaide with both excitement, nostalgia and fear. It is the city in which I got to see my all time favourite Tiger in Joel Bowden play his 250th game in 2008. It is a memory that I hold in high regard despite the ten goal loss we suffered that day. When I look at Adelaide as a football landmark I see the contrast between the ecstasy and agony involved in our great game. To me, the Adelaide Oval itself is a spectacle of history, beauty and horror. It is a ground that is a homage to the history of the game with its magnificent scoreboard and hill, which are a throwback to the era where Robran and Blight were the faces of South Australian football. It is also the site of some of our absolute worst defeats of this century, namely the 2014 elimination final. The round 6 encounter with the Crows was simply another addition to this ballad of pleasure and pain. Paul Kelly said it best when he sung that “All the King’s horses, all the King’s men, wouldn’t drag me back again”.

Going further than the 5-0 start that we’ve enjoyed in 2017, it was fantastic to see Steve Morris make it back to senior football after suffering an ACL injury in Hobart last year. With many positive vibes going into the game, the final score is somewhat of a bitter pill to swallow. Adelaide’s own success story in Andy Otten set the tone for the game in the first minute, taking a strong contested mark in front of our talisman Alex Rance. He wanted the footy and did everything in his power to get it, a mantra that Don Pyke’s men have followed from the first minute of 2017. Despite this it seemed that we had settled into the euphoria of the first quarter, trading goals with the Crows and out muscling them around the contest. This was no more evident than in the pack mark that Daniel Rioli took at the top of the goal square over the opposition key defenders. It was here that my own optimism grew and many encouraging thoughts raced through my head. In hindsight, there’s only one thought that I wish had come to fruition from the first quarter hysteria. That is, “Blow the fucken siren” as we’d taken a 19-18 point lead. After the second term had started, our hopes of doing football’s unthinkable had been buried in the boulevard of broken dreams that is Adelaide.

A flurry of five minutes by Rory Sloane and Matt Crouch in the second quarter really wrestled the ascendency back for the Crows as they shifted gears for the remainder of the game. This sparked a trend of centre bounce clearances that resulted in continuous scoring passages. Jacobs tapping down to Sloane or Crouch or Douglas. It didn’t matter who. The Crows as a group of 22 had the hunger and the desire to move the ball forward at any cost. When we would bang the ball inside our forward half it was the dynamic brigade of Atkins, Laird and Talia that would move it back the other way at twice the pace that it had previously met them. The result of this was a monumental amount of ball going to the Adelaide forwards with high quality. Walker in particular benefiting from this with a bag of 5 goals. The only real note I was able to make from the second half was that this was essentially a continuation of the tone that had been set by the Crows in the second quarter.

Let it be known that while I am deflated from this result, I think I speak for a majority of Richmond supporters when I say that we are not without hope. 5-0 starts to a Richmond season do not come around often and to see the rejuvenation of a club that looked very lost in 2016 has been great. This is without mention of the fact that that we have done this after trading away one of the best to don the yellow and black in Brett Deledio, a player that had for so long been our barometer. Moreover, I am in awe of the Adelaide Crows. This is a club that has lost a number of key players to free agency, been compromised at drafts and tragically lost a coach… and yet they are fitter, hungrier and more attuned structurally than any other team in the game. Even though we leave with our tails between our legs, we must see next week as an even bigger test for our club. Now our backs are to the wall after what has been an impressive start. The great test comes through how club will respond.

Votes:
5 – Trent Cotchin: Our skipper proved why he is the man to lead the club. No matter how many clearances the Crows seemed to win, he was battling hard to try and stop the dam walls from bursting. His team highs in disposals (26), pressure acts (33) and tackles (11) are proof that Cotch will do whatever it takes to see his club improve and will do so when he is faced with all kinds of adversity.
4 – Shaun Grigg: One of the more underrated players in the competition, Shaun Grigg had to be an everywhere man and wore the burden of being the tall midfielder. Often having to go up against Sam Jacobs in ruck duels around the ground, Grigga showed just how big his heart is. I’d even go out on a limb and say he is probably our best club man. Week in and week out, he takes on whichever task is put in front of him.
3 – Kane Lambert: Taking a break from his newfound tagging niche, Lambert got involved in both attack and defence, following the lead set by his skipper. His 8 tackles and 17 pressure acts were complimented nicely by his 8 score involvements and late third quarter goal. He really took it up to the Adelaide midfielders and can hold his head high.
2 – Alex Rance: The score line does not reflect the way in which this man played. No matter how many times the ball went inside Adelaide’s forward 50, there was ‘Tross’ to spoil and halve the contest. His 11 intercept possessions were a testament to the way in which he tried to stop all comers from scoring.
1 – Dylan Grimes: In a similar fashion to his backline partner Rance, Dylan Grimes’ performance flew under the radar. Given the tough job of defending Eddie Betts at the Adelaide Oval, he played a dour and ugly brand of football to keep the forward pocket marvel to just one goal and one behind for the game. This was a very encouraging sign in an otherwise torrid affair.

Votes and notes by Sean Ross, founder of The Benny
It’s impossible to write about last night without mentioning the wonderful occasion the fixture has become. 85,000 isn’t just a crowd, it’s a bloody big crowd, and from my brief AFL Tables research this morning it’s the biggest home and away crowd Melbourne have played in front of since 1962.

Though the evolution of Anzac Day into Anzac round sits uncomfortably and our role in it seems more than a little like an attempt to cash in, you can’t ignore that kind of attendance on a rainy Melbourne night. It isn’t like it’s going anywhere and I may as well embrace it. The fact it seems to annoy Eddie is just an added bonus.

You can’t fault the time and effort that has been put into the pre-match ceremony and the points of difference that are made available in a night time fixture. There is something magic about that many people sitting in the dark in silence during the Last Post with only their thoughts and reflections for company. Deafening silence is a weird concept but that’s the best way to describe it. That the same 85,000 people spent the next two hours screaming deliberate whenever the ball went near the boundary only adds to the importance of the silence before it.

The game itself and, more importantly for this blog post, Richmond, finally lived up to the stage. For whatever reason we had stunk up games against Melbourne for the three years before, the first following Tom Hafey’s passing and then the two first chapters of this fixture. In three games we hit the fixture out of form, Melbourne hit the ball far harder and the scoreboard told the rest of the story. With an average margin of less than five goals, the collective scoreboards flattered us because we had never really got close to them.

In an era where players and teams are judged and analysed through efficiency, tackle counts and pressure acts the role of ‘bogey teams’ is under appreciated and if we dropped this one we were quickly headed to that area with Melbourne. Try and tell me Carlton weren’t in our heads for the first 4 years of this decade.

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So with all that water under the bridge, at three quarter time I sat in the Olympic Stand wondering why I’d put my hand up to do the TTBB votes against Melbourne of all teams. A team we hadn’t beaten for three years while they weren’t any good, and now that they’re OK it looked like we may never beat them again.

During the last break it was hard to see how we’d manage to roll over them. We needed to find four goals and stop them from scoring, to that point we’d managed only seven in 90 minutes and they’d had little trouble finding one in transition whenever we pressed up on them. Chatting to a mate I optimistically put the chances of us running over them at around the 10% mark, I figured something was up with Spencer given Watts had been rucking but I didn’t know Melbourne were two rotations down otherwise I would have bumped it up to around 25%.

What I hadn’t, nor had most Richmond folk on Twitter (by a reflective look at my Twitter timeline), factored in was that Melbourne, so incredibly chirpy until then, would shut up shop as soon we made a run at them.

How it progressed from there shows that sport is quite often not fair.

The (far) worse team for the first hour and half got a roll on and pinched it. Given the number of times we’ve been on the receiving end of that it shouldn’t have felt so good, but my goodness it did. When Jack kicked his last to put us in front and the heads of the Melbourne players dropped in unison there was an air of invincibility, that glorious feeling that you’ve just hit the lead and the other mob aren’t willing or able to grab it back. How many times have we been on the less fun end of that feeling?

I’m generally a pretty awful person when it comes to following sport. In most other aspects of life I’m perfectly nice, but the sight of thousands of MCC members heading for the car park after Caddy kicked the sealer provided enough warmth and joy to get me through a Siberian winter. Package up the video of that mass evacuation and put it on the club site and I’ll watch it more times than Dusty leaving Ted Richards sprawled on the turf at Homebush and flying into an open goal. Sit down and stick it out you pillocks, there was only two minutes left.

They’re an interesting team Melbourne. They have a lot of really good young players but more than a few stinkers still hanging around, while we have less really good players but mostly our players are OK enough to get you through. What they are stacked to the gills with though is front runners, Jones and Viney are everything you want when things are going right: chippy, confident, fierce at the ball, ruthless and effective. They terrorised us at the clearances for three quarters (to the point where I can’t have been the only person wondering why we didn’t pick Miles. But they must both have either ran out of puff from not shutting up all night or headed off early to get a jump on the MCC members because I can’t remember seeing either in the last quarter, and to think our skipper is the one who cops grief. What they do have though is a couple of young midfielders coming through who are eye wateringly good. If they can keep Oliver and Petracca fit and developing they’ve got a platform to really cause some chaos in the years ahead, so even though the tables have turned for now I don’t expect this one to be a Brisbane like winning streak.

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It will be left for others to dissect the first three quarters so please forgive me for solely focussing on the final stanza and a few names jump off the page.

Houli provided clean hands and poise that had been lacking from anyone in a Richmond jumper. Hardly an effective line of possessions was strung together without his involvement. Dusty looked more than a little hobbled for the first three goals but either pushed the pain out of his mind, played through it or got an injection that I want in on and produced some of his finest bollocking when it was needed most. In defence Rance and Grimes owned the back half of the ground, let very little past and only let Hogan hit the scoreboard through intervention from officialdom.

Jack was the difference, and it had to be Jack, following three weeks of double time playing both full forward and centre half forward. It’s very rare that a 22 person team walks off the ground victorious and you can point at one person and say ‘they wouldn’t have won without them’. A few times a year Jack gets into a zone where he can do no wrong and it doesn’t matter who he’s playing on because he knows he is better than them. When Jack is in that zone it doesn’t matter how the ball comes in, he’ll zig and bring the ball to ground or zag and get it on the second grab. Not only would we not have won without Jack, we likely would have lost convincingly, because it would have been a whole lot more than a four goal margin at three quarter time to overcome.

When he’s in that zone he doesn’t miss, and that last set shot was kicked with ice running through his veins. I love him.

We are quite spoiled as Richmond fans to play in front of so many big crowds despite a lack of success that rivals the French military, in just one of the last 11 years have we failed to have a game that has drawn more than 70,000 people. When Richmond kick a goal to the Punt Road end in front of a big crowd it’s like a drug, you want to tap that feeling and never let it go. If it’s that good from the stands I can only imagine what it’s like on the ground and, though I have nothing empirical to base this on, I can’t help but suspect that feeling is why we’ve managed to keep players over the years. You only have to hear Prestia speak to realise it’s a drawcard for those from elsewhere.

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So where does all that leave us now? I think it’s pretty clear that this isn’t a superstar 22 but they’ve committed to a game plan that, after years of schlepping 18 months behind Hawthorn, just might be ahead of the curve. For now we’ve beaten who we should and there isn’t a heap more you can do than beat the five teams you’ve been fixtured against in the first five rounds.

To me, it’s the first time since 2013 we are fun to watch. Winning lots of games in 2014 and 2015 was fun, but how we played wasn’t. Collectively the forward line is attacking the ball like men possessed and the mosquito fleet are mopping up anything that Jack misses. The midfield is a group again instead of just Dusty and Cotchin. The backline, who would have been within their rights to set up a picket line, start singing Solidarity Forever and refuse to go to work last year, are no longer constantly under siege. They have the time and space they need to defend but also attack.

Watch the club highlights from the last quarter, the five goals are the result of build up play up the ground. It may not have seemed it at the time given we were all emotional wrecks but they’re fun goals to watch. In the back half of last year every goal seemed to be a result of something resembling the suffragette movement. We had to beg, borrow, plead and fight for everything.

Now Shaun Grigg is palming off volleyball taps to Dusty as we peel off a four goal deficit in the last quarter in front of 85,000 people. More of that please.

Of the new guys, neither Caddy or Prestia has set the world on fire but their impact is felt across the 22, as they release Dusty forward, Cotchin doesn’t have to be at the bottom of every pack and Caddy in particular has a very happy knack of kicking goals at important times despite Luke Darcy bottling the call.

Big Nank was a cult hero before he played a game because he attacks the ball with a ferocity we’ve lacked. His rucking is a developing art and bigger tests from opposition will come. When he gets touched up by more established players, and he will, it will be important to remember that he is yet to click over 20 games.

These three arrivals combined with the emergence of Butler and Castagna mean there is also something resembling depth at the club. Not so much in the key forward stocks but we have midfielders, half back flankers, half forwards, small forwards, rucks and defenders ready to go if and when called upon. It’s a long season and we’ll need them.

Chances are that Adelaide will get away from us and the ‘who have they beaten?’ chorus will quickly transition to ‘reality check’.

And you know what? You can’t really blame the media. The big four sell papers, deliver traffic and for a good while now we’ve been the only one of the big four you’d walk across the road for if they were playing across the street. It’s better to be talked about than ignored.

We are 5 and 0, and we aren’t going to win the flag but we’ll have some fun trying.

Embrace it, thrive on it, enjoy it.

Go Tigers.

The votes

5: Jack Riewoldt: Could it have been anyone else? Until now he has saved his very worst for Melbourne, but this was his very best.
4: Bachar Houli: A beacon of calmness and poise when everything around him was chaos.
3: Dylan Grimes: Last on the stats sheet but far from last in effectiveness, killed everything that came near him.
2: Alex Rance: He even started doing that thing where he beats forwards senseless and then out marks them for added humiliation, paired up with Astbury to brain Hogan.
1: Toby Nankervis: Wasn’t playing against much but that’s hardly his fault, his tap work in the last quarter was sublime and his silver service to Cotchin helped set up Jack’s sealer.

With thanks to the TTBB crew for letting me dust off the keyboard!

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