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There’s a certain melancholy that comes with watching Richmond this year.
Predicting my AFL ladder before the season opened, I had the Tigers finishing fourth. I thought they were a good, unlucky side in 2022 that plugged their most gaping hole by adding Jacob Hopper and Tim Taranto into the midfield.
I thought that Richmond was just Collingwood inverted, and that their fortunes would basically switch this season. That went well.
I started off the season disappointed at how disjointed we looked against Carlton and Collingwood, but happy with the match-winning burst against the Crows in Adelaide in between. I thought we were right in it against the Western Bulldogs, but were just on the wrong end of a generational player in Marcus Bontempelli doing some incredible stuff.
It was against Sydney that the melancholy started. Before that game, I thought back to the game against Port Adelaide in Adelaide in 2019. The Tigers were massively outgunned in that game, missing Dustin Martin, Jack Riewoldt, Trent Cotchin, Alex Rance and Bachar Houli. Despite the odds being stacked against the Tigers on that night, they won a famous game on the back of six goals in the wet from Tom Lynch, 25 touches from Jack Ross on debut and a cavalcade of relatively unheralded players playing well.
I would be lying if I didn’t think that maybe, just maybe, we could do it again at the same venue for Gather Round, with guys like Noah Cumberland, Judson Clarke and Maurice Rioli stepping into the void left by all the Tigers outs on that day, which included Lynch and Toby Nankervis.
But it didn’t happen.
It was relatively close the whole game, but the Tigers missed two shots to start the fourth term and once they were missed the air came out of the balloon as Tom Papley ripped the game away. The bigger issue, though, was that without Lynch it felt like a miracle every time we generated a shot at goal.
Miracles are not a recipe for consistent winning footy.
Losses to Melbourne and Gold Coast have followed a similar path, with Richmond relatively close but unable to win the game. The Sun loss especially had me feeling down. Not because they lost, but how they lost. Despite having 40 more disposals, the Suns laid 18 more tackles and took 40 more marks.
Gold Coast took 128 uncontested marks. Richmond took 96 total marks for the game. The game felt bruise-free as well.
Richmond showed no interest in tackling or pressuring the ball carrier, and the once ferocious time in forward half and forward half turnover numbers are no longer formidable – Gold Coast waltzed the ball out of their back 50 with ease.
I can’t tell if this is a personnel issue or an effort issue, but I do note that Richmond had numerous immobile players on the field that provide nothing in terms of pressure. Richmond’s talls on Sunday – 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 – aren’t exactly a murderer’s row.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
In 2017 the Tigers zigged while the rest of the competition was zagging, and created a blueprint for how to play footy. In 2017 Richmond’s second ruckman was Shaun Grigg, the only tall forward was a prime Jack Riewoldt.
That team had four genuine talls in Riewoldt, Nankervis, Rance and David Astbury. The 2023 Tigers are intent on playing six, most of whom have not shown themselves to be winning players yet.
Why?
This time, it seems that Damien Hardwick is trying to be a step ahead of the competition again, this time going taller as game goes smaller and faster. It might be a good idea, especially when you see how Geelong is playing with their pillars forward of centre and their heft all over the field.
But the Cats have better players. It’s that simple. When tall players are not good, they add nothing. At least a smaller, more rapid player can pressure and harass, even if he is not clean with ball in hand.
This is not a good Richmond side, and it’s exemplified by the performance of their guns. There was a moment in the Gold Coast game when Shai Bolton elevated, early in the fourth quarter, and took a good mark about 45 out on a slight angle. He had to kick it for the Tigers to be any chance whatsoever.
You knew he was going to miss as he started walking back. He was laconic and slow when Richmond needed him to be deliberate and fast. He pulled it.
Air out of the balloon. Tigers lose.
What’s making me sadder still is the fall from grace of the legends. They have a moment here, a big play there. They move in the same way, have the same face. But it’s just not the same guy.
Trent Cotchin looks done and was consistently beaten to the ball against the Suns – though in a lost season I would certainly get him to 300 games. He deserves that honour.
Jack Riewoldt kicked eight goals in two weeks prior to hardly getting near it against the Suns; he continues to hold his game together with spit and duct tape, but he can’t do it on a weekly basis anymore. He’s always kicked goals, but his intellect and selflessness consistently brought others into the game and elevated the play of those around them.
Jack is no longer that player.
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The list goes on. Dylan Grimes is getting beaten more often than ever before, and is not the rapid athlete that he once was. Even Dustin Martin, the man responsible for more of my personal happiness than almost anyone else in my life, just can’t inject himself into games like he used to. He doesn’t look disinterested, but rather unable. His hands are still clean below his knees and he’s still extremely strong, but his kicking has come and gone this season and his goalkicking has just gone. He’s simply not the same player he was.
(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
All of the legends that I mentioned above are players whom I adore, and should be playing weekly just for competitiveness’ sake. Beyond that, Richmond’s middle class of Bolton, Hopper, Taranto, Nick Vlastuin and others also simply are not the players that the legends were in their pomp.
Liam Baker is almost the only player who combines the toughness inside and cleanliness outside that made the Richmond premiership midfields so formidable, and I hope that he is the next captain.
More than anything, it’s sad to see those greats like this. Still battling, still trying to will the Tigers on to victory. Mentally they are still there, but they have nobody with them.
I truly am grateful for the premierships and the joy that the Tigers have claimed in their incredible dynasty. I’m grateful to have watched Cotchin run like his shoelaces are tied together, grateful to have borne witness to Grimes’ desperation time and again, grateful for Riewoldt morphing himself into the most selfless player in the game.
And I am grateful for, well, everything that Dusty has given me. I’m grateful for all of it.
But I am sad that all that is officially in the past.
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