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AFL top 100: Round 3, Richmond versus Hawthorn

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Roar Guru
17th June, 2020
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On paper, this game looks like an easy victory for the Tigers, but as this season has already shown, nothing should be taken for granted.

After two rounds of footy played 84 days apart, Richmond followed up a four-goal victory over the Blues with a nail-biting draw against the Magpies one week ago while the Hawks followed up a good win against 2019 finalist the Brisbane Lions with a dismal showing against Geelong, also a 2019 finalist, in Round 2.

Richmond have won the last four games between the two clubs with Hawthorn’s last win against the Tigers coming in Round 18 in 2016, albeit by a massive margin of 70 points.

Richmond are the only team that Hawthorn hasn’t beaten since 2016 and while Alastair Clarkson, the second most experienced current coach, has a higher overall win percentage (61 per cent) than Damien Hardwick (55 per cent), in head-to-head contests, Hardwick leads 7-5, which includes their one meeting in finals.

Damo Hardwick talks to his troops

(AAP Image/Michael Dodge)

Hawthorn fared slightly better than Richmond at the selection table with Jaeger O’Meara (who will play his 50th game for the Hawks) returning from injury and Shaun Burgoyne escaping a suspension for a dangerous tackle that led to a change in the rules after the hearing of his charge.

This game will be Burgoyne’s 379th, which moves him ahead of Simon Madden and into outright sixth place on the AFL’s all-time top 100 game-players.

Madden – the now 62-year-old – started his career at Essendon in 1974 and finished an absolute champion 19 years later with two premierships, four best and fairest awards, three All Australians and a Norm Smith Medal from the 1985 grand final.

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He captained the Bombers for two years and was the club’s leading goal-kicker three times on his way to 575 goals, which sees him still ranked in the top 40 goal-kickers of all time in the AFL top 100 goal-scorers 28 years after his retirement.

At the selection table, Richmond regained Josh Caddy, who is currently tied with teammate Jason Castagna on the Tigers’ top 100 goal-scorers list. He will be a handy addition as last week (in what was a bad week for all the AFL top 100 goal-scorers) Richmond’s fourth greatest goal-scorer Jack Riewoldt failed to score a goal.

Riewoldt in this game will join current Northern Territory politician Joel Bowden in tenth place on the Tigers’ all-time top 100 game-players list. Bowden was originally from Mildura and joined Richmond as a father-son selection at the end of the 1995 AFL season. Bowden played his first game in 1996 and his last in 2009, winning two best and fairest awards and two All Australian selections along the way.

The loss of Dustin Martin at the selection table robs the Tigers of another regular goal-scorer.

Nick Vlastuin passes the game total of Chris Naish and equals those of Jeff Hogg and Scott Turner at Richmond while at Hawthorn Isaac Smith passes Geoff Ablett and equals Ben Dixon.

In a topsy-turvy season of shortened quarters where the margin at the end of the game has been one goal or less on six occasions already in the first two weeks of competition, and based on the ladder positions they held at the end of 2019 four of last weeks games could be regarded as upsets, it would be a brave tipster who gave the Hawks no chance of winning.

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But Richmond are rightly regarded as short-priced favourites for the flag while Hawthorn are considered outsiders to make the eight, so logic suggests a comfortable win for the Tigers.

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