Round 6 v Swans at the Gabba, Brisbane

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