Jack Riewoldt has booted five goals to tighten his grip on a third Coleman Medal and lead Richmond to a tense three-point AFL win over the Western Bulldogs at the MCG.
» Click here to read the full match report
Final score
Richmond Tigers 15.8.98
Western Bulldogs 14.11.95
The Richmond Tigers and the Western Bulldogs will play out a match that, while potentially entertaining, is going to have exactly zero impact on this year’s AFL finals.
Join The Roar for live scores from the match in Round 23 of the 2018 AFL season at the MCG on Saturday afternoon, starting from 2:10pm AEST.
Thanks to West Coast copping a loss to the Melbourne Demons last week, with one week to go the Richmond Tigers have a two-win gap at the top of the ladder.
As a result, it’s mathematically impossible for the Tigers to miss out on the minor premiership, so this game is essentially meaningless to their finals position.
Instead what their main focus will be is tuning up as best they can before having a pre-finals bye next weekend, and avoiding any injuries.
The good news for the Tigers is that David Astbury, Trent Cotchin and Dion Prestia are all going to return in this match, giving them the chance to have a solid hitout before finals.
If all three of them get through the match without a problem, then you’d simply have to give the Tigers a thumbs up regardless of the result on the scoreboard.
As for the Bulldogs this match could potentially have a big impact on their draft position as it’s likely to go some of the way to determining whether they or Fremantle finish higher.
Whichever of the Dogs or Dockers finishes higher after this week is likely to get pick 6 in the draft, which will be bumped back to pick 7 if – as expected – Gold Coast accept pick 3 in compensation for the departure of Tom J Lynch.
That’d be kind of a shame for either club because most pundits believe there’s a clear ‘top six’ players available in the open draft, so either the Dogs or Dockers will have to miss out on getting someone from that group.
Still, one would think that if the Bulldogs have the chance to end 2018 on a high by knocking off the reigning premiers and 2018 favourites, that would surely be a notch worth carving.
Join The Roar for live scores from the match between the Richmond Tigers and the Western Bulldogs in Round 23 of the 2018 AFL season at the MCG on Saturday afternoon, starting from 2:10pm AEST.
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