Opinion
The best scene in The Godfather, in my estimation, is the scene in the garden where Don Vito tells Michael that it will be Barzini who moves against him, and that whoever approaches him for a sit down is the one who betrayed him.
It went exactly as the Don said it would. The old man still had it, if only for a moment. But everybody, himself included, knew that it was slipping away.
Even in that same scene, you could see it slipping. Vito was more vacant, he forgot what he had told Michael about having the phones tapped and said absently that he drinks wine more than he used to. Even when he rekindled a moment of genius, it was clear that it was just a moment and no longer the norm.
It has been similar with Damien Hardwick, since the premierships. There have been moments in recent years where it looks like he might be back. Throwing Dan Rioli to a back flank after Bachar Houli retired was inspired, sending Jayden Short into the middle last season when the Tigers had no midfield depth to speak of was extremely sharp.
But the successful innovation has become rarer. In recent years, Hardwick has done the football equivalent of underestimating Sollozzo far more often than he has outthought Don Fannucci.
(Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)
Hardwick was the man who pioneered a hyper pressurised game style built off of small, quick players running in waves around a single key forward.
He was the same man who trotted out Samson Ryan, Ben Miller, Noah Balta, Jack Riewoldt, Ivan Soldo and Tylar Young with Dylan Grimes, Noah Cumberland and Nathan Broad playing essentially hybrid tall/small roles against Gold Coast this year.
He tried desperately this season to zag against the game that he pioneered by going taller, bigger, stronger, but the instinct was wrong.
The old man just couldn’t see it clearly enough. It was time for him to step away.
He said it himself. He could not find the thousand-and-first way to cook the sausage.
But I don’t want this to be a negative article. I love Damien Hardwick. His weekly press conferences usually, replete with positivity and phraseology like “the reality is”, “the fact of the matter is”, and “a Richmond-type game” have been appointment viewing for me for as long as I can remember.
In fact, he has been my coach for as long as I can, or want to, remember.
But it isn’t just Richmond fans who should be grateful to Dimma. The game should be.
Before Richmond won in 2017, the last five premiers were Sydney, Hawthorn three times, then the Bulldogs. In 2018, before Richmond won in 2019 and 2020, it was West Coast. What do basically all of those teams have in common?
They were boring (except the Bulldogs, but they were mostly incredible for the story).
During the three-peat Hawthorn years they led the competition in kicking efficiency twice. The other year, they were second. They were miserly defensively, and generally sat around the top of the league in most defensive metrics while being good enough in the middle.
They were at or near the top of the league in metres gained but they did it with precision, only going at 14 metres per disposal in 2015, and always at the bottom of the league for clangers.
They were surgical.
Nobody wants to watch surgery.
Dimma’s Tigers were a breath of fresh air. They ran and attacked. As Dimma has said more times than I care to remember, they embraced the imperfections of the game. In 2017, the Tigers were first in clangers, but first in metres gained per disposal going at nearly 15.7 per disposal. The next closest team was half a metre behind.
This season, the Tigers are first again at 17.5 metres per disposal. Five teams this season are going at over 17 metres gained per disposal. Richmond’s league leading, premiership winning, 15.7 metres per disposal of 2017 would rank 13th in footy this season.
Dimma made us love footy again. He turned a game that had been profoundly overthought back into a spectacle.
Even when Richmond defended, you wanted to watch it.
Trent Cotchin celebrates a goal. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Alex Rance in full flight is perhaps the most impressive athlete I have ever seen pull on the Richmond jumper, and Hardwick embraced how weird his game was. He was a key position sized intercept defender who could not really play on anyone but had comparable physical attributes to Wolverine.
He made it work.
He had a generational player who was as damaging an offensive weapon as football has ever seen but has less inclination for defending than Conor McGregor has for sobriety in Dustin Martin.
He made that work too.
He had a captain who was walled off and unapproachable, but who was also struggling mightily with the pressure that he was under. He did not try to make that work. He knew it wouldn’t. He put his arm around that skipper and said, “let’s change together”. They did.
Then they hoisted three premiership cups.
What Hardwick did was take the most profound thing Bill Belichick ever said and apply it to footy. He told his people, his coaching staff “don’t tell me what this player can’t do, tell me what he can do”. He worked with the upside of the game, not the downside. That attitude alone was a breath of fresh air.
So it isn’t just about the flags, it’s what the flags represent. They represent a return to footy being watchable. They represent a return to footy being human, being imperfect.
It isn’t just Richmond fans who should salute Damian Hardwick today, it’s anybody who cares about footy. Anybody who has said that the last couple of years have been the best the game has looked for decades.
Thank you, Dimma. I can’t wait to see you immortalised in bronze outside Punt Rd.
You deserve it.
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