How good are Richmond? The way they played, just well enough to fend off a full-on effort by a desperate Essendon team, suggests they are set for a dynasty of several seasons.
This is not surprising when you look through their top-100 list of game-players at the club.
It is extraordinary to realise that Richmond, having fielded 1156 players in their history as one of the original clubs to comprise the VFL 121 years ago, have nine current players on their top-100 games-played list, all of whom are playing well and only two of whom are aged over 30.
With Nick Vlastin only six games away from joining this list, if the team is able to maintain its health and good form, it is reasonable to expect them to continue their domination well into the 2020s.
In Friday night’s game Jack Riewoldt was held to two goals, but he has now snuck to within three goals of the 600-goal milestone. Dustin Martin, the other superstar at the club, made up for this by scoring four goals to take his total to an extraordinary to 216 goals for a midfielder. This took him past Chris Naish and to equal with the legend Paddy Guinane as the 17th greatest goal-kicker in Tigers history.
(Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
The club’s newest recruit, Liam Baker, scored his first goal in his third game for the club, and Josh Caddy continued his excellent form as a crumber and occasional high flyer in the forward line as a back-up to ‘Jack’ with four goals.
Cale Hooker tried manfully and scored three goals for Essendon to take him to within one goal of joining Jason Winderlich, Adam McPhee and Scott Cummings in the hot seat of the Bombers’ top 100. Ruckman Tom Bellchambers continued his recent excellent form and showed that he also may make the list in the next season or two.
All in all it was a matter of too little too late for the Bombers, who would have liked to celebrate Dyson Heppell’s 150th and Connor McKenna’s 50th games respectively for the club with their finals hopes still alive, but with the goal-kicking performances of Jake Stringer (30 goals for the year) and Devon Smith (17 goals), their supporters have much to look forward to for season 2019.
An obviously injured Brendon Goddard played his 333rd AFL game and joined legends Kevin Murray (Fitzroy) and David Cloke (Richmond and Collingwood) on the AFL’s all-time top-100 game-players list in 21st place. His future for 2019 is still unknown, although his form this season suggests we may see him running around on an AFL ground somewhere next season.
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