Another big year kicks off Thursday night

 

Roar Rookie

By Leigh Eustace, 25 Mar 2009 Leigh Eustace is a Roar Rookie

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Two more sleeps. That’s all now. A long summer of getting over cricket and having to spend way too much time with the family pretending to be interested in your brother’s new business venture (or failure, you can’t remember which) is almost over.

The MCG will go off in an unprecedented opening this Thursday evening.

Ticketmaster yesterday confirmed that the Cousins Vs Judd, sorry, my mistake Richmond Vs Carlton (you’d be excused for forgetting that there’s actually 42 other players taken part) is a sell-out, so 95,000 plus will be in attendance for what entails to be one memorable night.

Thursday night sees a battle where the winner can be taken seriously as a top eight, perhaps top four contender. The loser will be criticised all next week for failing to take that next step.

One of those two clubs will be under the pump next week for seemingly wasting a good pre-season as in an annual clichéd ritual as some fans will proclaim that once again they will be tearing up their memberships.

All after only one game of footy.

It’s crazy, but it’s the passion this code strives on, and cannot be seen as a negative. It’s just often in such overflowing proportions that these kinds of scenarios crop up. And all it takes a Richmond – Carlton blockbuster to bring it out in those kinds of proportions.

It’s a monster year for both the Blues and Tigers, so it’s not hard to understand just how much more Thursday night means to their respective fans aside from seeing the former West Coast captains square off.

Terry Wallace is in the final year of his five year contract. The suits at Punt Road will show no mercy to ‘Plough’ after this year – its finals or the door.

He outlined a five year plan at the commencement of his tenure, yet reassessed that outlook recently saying the underlying goal of success may not be reached until some years after his current deal expires.

Knowing the Richmond footy club like we do, whether Terry’s public acknowledgment that his side isn’t yet ready was a subliminal plea for more time (a new contract) or not, this will undeniably be his final year if the side fails to finish above last year’s still-humorous ninth.

The recruitment of Cousins might be seen by the Tigers’ footy department as that hopefully final piece of the finals jigsaw, and Wallace will be hoping that Cousins can be fit and reliable, and somewhere near his best, to achieve that finals goal, receive a new contract, and bludgeon off the naysayers who doubt that recruiting Cousins was anything other than ‘too big of a risk”.

The spotlight will obviously be on Cousins Thursday night. It’d be a safe assumption that at least one Channel Ten cameraman will be entrusted with the task of following Cousins all night and forget covering about the air conveyance completely.

But once the final siren goes, for Cousins, the result will almost be irrelevant, for all he needs to do is get that ‘first game under the belt’ and the succeeding home and away games will feel something more familiar to what he was used to in his days running around in royal blue and yellow.

Thursday night will feel horribly alien to someone who just wants to run around and get a kick. But for someone who has had a camera follow him to American and back over the last eighteen months or so, he might cope better than others might have.

Then, on the flipside, we have the seemingly resurgent Blues.

“They know we’re coming,” reads the Carlton slogan for 2009. Well one would hope, a club as proud as them can’t continue to languish around the bottom again; it’s already been embarrassing enough for the Blue-baggers.

They finished eleventh last year, two spots below their upcoming opponent, yet all the hype is that Carlton are destined for great advances this season – before the ball has even been bounced yet.

The midfield looks dangerous on paper, yet question marks still remain on the forward line and in defence.

The forward 50 seems too reliant on Fevola. Dare he ever go down with an injury, the secondary scoring seems too far and few between.

And pre-season reports are labelling youngster Michael Jamieson as their premier key defender. You just know forward coaches at the other fifteen clubs won’t be losing sleep over potential matchups when playing the Blues if that’s the case.

But you can’t argue that overall the list is tremendously talented. You’d certainly hope so given all the years of mediocrity resulting in so many high draft picks.

Logic suggests eventually that it’ll all come to a head and the potential will become skill and that the Blues will once again become an arrogant force in the league, winning more games than the lose.

“They know we’re coming” … the arrogance is coming back. The results are surely not far behind.

Carlton has been tipped by many pundits as top four material.

Heck, after last year’s grand finalists, Hawthorn and Geelong, the AFL captains, whose cumulative opinions are as respected as they come, predicted Carlton to be the most likely side to finish in the top four.

That’d be some leap for those at Princes Park. But the overwhelming view is that it’s achievable, and ultimately a formality in the next year or so.

There’s so much to play for this year for Carlton or Richmond.

For both, 2009 needs to be a year where they both take that leap from underachieving powerhouses, to becoming powerhouses again. Finals beckon both, or at least both clubs’ fans are hoping.

Because anything less will be another failure, and clubs as proud as these two can’t stand another year missing out on September action.

And it all requires a good start to the season, which all starts with the Round One blockbuster this Thursday. A win will be crucial. To beat one of your biggest rivals to kick off a hopefully positive 2009 home and away season in front of a full MCG, there’s nothing better.

For Thursday’s loser, a long season awaits yet again.