Richmond vs Collingwood: Friday Night Forecast

They just couldn’t resist, could they? The AFL’s Friday night scheduling has been a revelation this season, but tonight we’re witnessing a re-match of a big-four showdown that happens to be a dead rubber. The upside? It could be a really, really good game.

That’s a bit of a mixed message I’ll admit, but calling out this particular game as a deviation from HQ’s 2016 scheduling is warranted.

We’ve seen this game already. In Round 2, the Pies hosted the Tigers, in what was one of the more bizarre games of football you’ll ever witness.

Collingwood won on the final play of the game, courtesy of 203-centimetre ruckman Brodie Grundy deciding to play rover and/or forgetting he was the tallest guy on the ground.

On a long kick to the square from the boundary, Grundie stayed at ground level, unlike the five Richmond defenders guarding the goal square, and the ball deftly fell into his lap. He kicked truly, and everyone’s favourite Rioli devotee loved it.

“Is it Grunday? It’s Grundayyyyy!”

Anywho, the point is, we’ve seen this before, just with different teams managing the pre-game entertainment. Why are we seeing it again on a Friday night, at the pointy end of the season, when any number of other teams and other games – eight of them in fact – could have been scheduled? Give me Sydney and Port Adelaide, who always play entertaining games, or the derby, or at a stretch Melbourne-Hawthorn.

Offsetting this scheduling is the fact this game has the potential to be excellent. That requires Richmond to play AFL-standard football, a feat they haven’t pulled off consistently in recent times.

Take their period post-mid-season by as the sample: 2-4, with a percentage of 74, which puts them in 14th on the post-bye ladder. They sit even lower on my Offensive and Defensive Efficiency Ratings, at 15th and 16th, respectively. Their fall from contender to… look, laughing stock is a bit strong… has been swift. I don’t need to tell you about that though.

Richmond’s week has been writ large across the media landscape; there’s online petitions, public meetings of the coterie, and assistant coaches being told they’re no guarantee to be around next season. There’s the ‘is Trent Cotchin a good captain’ discussion, which took longer than usual to materialise, and players coming out to defend everything from their personal position at the club to the coach.

It’s a position the Pies found themselves in not too long ago, albeit the frothiness was less pronounced. Collingwood’s predicament was different to Richmond; at least Nathan Buckley and Co. could point to an injury list long on class, and the relative youthfulness of their side.

But we’re not talking about Collingwood now. That’s because they’ve been winning: since the bye the Pies have a 4-2 record with a handy percentage of 110 – they sit seventh on the post-bye ladder, ahead of current finalists North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs, and in front of the Saints on percentage.

A win tonight would go a long way to Collingwood avoiding the ignominy of going backwards for five straight seasons under Nathan Buckley. The first year of the Buckley era ended with six losses, the second with eight, then 11, then 12 in 2015. They cannot accumulate more than 12 losses with a win this evening.

As to the game at hand, it really comes down to whether the Tigers show up. Both sides have blue chippers across the field, but particularly so in the midfield, although you have to squint a little to consider Taylor Adams an A-grader.

I’d like to see what this game would look like if it were played without much attention paid to defensive play through the midfield. Both sides have midfielders who can set up attacking thrusts with a couple of steps and a flick of the wrist – a task Dustin Martin, who plays his 150th game, has been doing even with the opposition’s attention firmly focussed on him.

Neither side has been able to establish a regular offensive flow this season, although the Pies have found scoring a bit easier of late, with scores of 85, 125, 84 and 91 in their post-bye games. They’re still not stellar – the league’s most prolific team, Adelaide, hasn’t kicked 100 twice over that period, and one of those scores was 97 – but they are much improved on the stodgy five and six handles produced in the middle part of the season.

Richmond, on the other hand, have been far more hot and cold. Their 23-point effort against a rampaging – permanently rampaging – Greater Western Sydney Giants was their lowest score in aeons, but was only 21 points worse than their score from the weekend before. Prior to that, the Tigers had put up triple digits on the lowly Lions, Suns and Dons.

There’s not a heap of analysis to be done here; the Tigers are in with a chance if they show up, and the Pies will rollick to substantial win if they don’t. In either case, the form line screams Collingwood, and I’ll back them in by six goals.

If accompanied with a decent quarter or two, the pressure will remain on the club but it shouldn’t grow stronger.

In this respect, the Tigers should be boldened by this week’s events, and so if anything the risk is skewed towards a more narrow Collingwood victory. A third straight insipid display will make this week’s shenanigans feel like a reasoned conversation compared to the all-out shouty-shout war that will erupt.

That’s my Friday Night Forecast, what’s yours?