David Cloke's last game

I have a very vague memory of going to this game (just in case you are wondering, I was eight not drunk) so was delighted to stumble across this video online today via Rhett Bartlett who you all should be following on Twitter.

YouTube is the best.



How are some of the names? Knights, Honeybun, Hogg, Mitchell, Banik, Lee, Lambert, Nichols, Weightman, Free, Naish, Pickering, Turner, Gale and KB before he hated us and then started liking us again.

Game stats are here.

Long live beating Carlton.

2013 votes

Transferring these across for posterity before I junk the site.

Final blog votes from 2013:

Leaderboards

The Benny

41 votes: Cotchin

29 votes: Jackson

28 votes: Rance and Deledio

27 votes: Martin

22 votes: Maric

21 votes: Riewoldt

20 votes: Vlastuin

19 votes: Chaplin

17 votes: Houli and Conca

16 votes: Ellis

11 votes: Grigg

9 votes: S Edwards

8 votes: Morris, Newman and A Edwards

7 votes: Vickery

5 votes: Foley

4 votes: King and Petterd

3 votes: Tuck and White

2 votes: Knights

1 vote: Stephenson, Batchelor, and Arnot



Anthony Banik best first year player award

20 votes: Vlastuin

1 vote: Arnot



Blair Hartley Appreciation Award
22 votes: Maric

19 votes: Chaplin

17 votes: Houli

11 votes: Grigg

8 votes: A Edwards

4 votes: Petterd

2 votes: Knights

1 vote: Stephenson



Jurica Medal (now defunct)

29 votes: Jackson

28 votes: Rance

22 votes: Maric

20 votes: Vlastuin

19 votes: Chaplin

17 votes: Houli and Conca

16 votes: Ellis

11 votes: Grigg

9 votes: S Edwards

8 votes: Morris, Newman and A Edwards

7 votes: Vickery

5 votes: Foley

4 votes: King and Petterd

3 votes: Tuck, Newman and White

2 votes: Knights

1 vote: Stephenson, Batchelor and Arnot

U.G.L.Y., we kinda have an alibi.

If the Hawthorn win last year was American Pie Tara Reid beautiful then last night was post public surgery Tara Reid ugly.

Carlton have done magnificently playing defence for us but if the Lions had of continued that third quarter run, not even the third coming of the Jesus over the Easter weekend would have prevented the likes of Damien Barrett and Jon Ralph rifling through Hardwick’s bin on Tuesday morning.

While it wasn’t one for the ages Although the tape should be burned, an ugly win in that situation is a billion times preferable to what might have been a sack-the-coach loss. Even if Dusty wasn't all the worked up about it.

It isn’t that long ago that any Richmond was reason for wild scenes for all involved so underwhelming victories are still something on a novelty, I just hope they’d let Bindy and Bob go home because nobody under the age of 18 should have been exposed to that first quarter.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the game was more George W Bush than Andy Warhol. Brisbane are insanely young and despite our status of failed contenders, we still had nine players last night who’ve played less than 50 games (Arnot, Astbury, Ellis, Gordon, Griffiths, Grimes, Lloyd, Morris and Vlastuin).

On the same day that David King gave us the dreaded Herald Sun ‘Moneyball tag’, man of the people Ricky Petterd and Shaun Hampson were among our very best. Petterd was everywhere when we needed him and, though his kicking is at times questionable, his fearless attack at the contest is exactly what we need with Rance injured and probably still after his return. Hampson’s ruck tap work is amazing and lead directly to at least a few goals from stoppages and it is no given that Maric comes back as number one. Gordon also deserves a shout out as we wrestled back control when his run was introduced and I wish him all the best at Port next year.

It may have had more to do with the opposition but a few things that have been off started to click. Grimes still can’t get anywhere near the ball but has his timing back in the contest, Chaplin didn’t fumble, Grigg worked his way into the contest, Titch found some easy ball, midfielders started to run again and our strategy for going inside 50 no longer resembles the final days of the Soviet Union.

I hope to god they aren’t getting too far ahead of themselves because if they produce tripe like they that against Hawthorn, we’ll likely be beaten by a record margin. But they are our bitches (get that as many times as possible this week) and while our players are kicking their feet up tomorrow, Hawthorn will be yet to even pick their final 22 for what is likely to be a brutal affair on Monday. 

I’ve a suspicion that may have been the last time we’ll see Jackson, Arnot and Thomas in the same lineup for the sake of fluidity. What Thomas lacks in finesse he more than makes up for in tenacity and I’m confident that he can be parked in the VFL without destroying his ego and rolled out if required later in the year. Over the next three weeks we’ll hopefully be able to slot Deledio and Lennon into the 22 which should open up our running options and take some of the pressure off Houli and Grigg who, in short, aren’t good enough to play through the defensive pressure they’ve copped of late.

One of our most bizarre statistic categories continued as Brisbane ‘out bounced’ us 13-1. Our average is now just five a game (Carlton 16, West Coast 15.5 and Port 14.7) coming off a 14.2 average during the grand times of last year.

Too often this year our first option has been to look sideways or stop all together, but during the second half against last night we began to rediscover the magic of the switch rather than just closing our eyes, bombing it 45 metres out of the backline and thinking of England. The former reflects far better on us than the latter.

I was near certain they’d come out all guns blazing towards Cotchin and was almost a little disappointed they didn’t so his fellow midfielders weren’t able to avenge their pathetic abandonment of him last week. It is undoubtedly coming though and I’ll be very keen to learn what both Cotchin and his mates have learned.

Votes

5: Ricky Petterd

4: Trent Cotchin

3: Shaun Hampson

2: Jack Riewoldt

1: Dustin Martin

Leaderboards

The Benny

13: Trent Cotchin

10: David Astbury

9: Ricky Petterd

7: Shaun Hampson and Jack Riewoldt

5: Steven Morris

4: Matt Thomas and Sam Lloyd

3: Ty Vickery and Reece Conca

2: Brett Deledio, Brandon Ellis and Nick Vlastuin

1: Ben Griffiths, Orren Stephenson, Daniel Jackson and Dustin Martin

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award

9: Ricky Petterd

7: Shaun Hampson

4: Matt Thomas

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player

4: Sam Lloyd

Joel Bowden’s Golden Left Boot

N/A

Greg Tivendale Rookie Medal

4: Matt Thomas

1: Orren Stephenson

Championship belt

Incumbent	Winner	Streak	Wins
NA	Cotchin	1	1
Cotchin	Astbury	1	1
Astbury	Riewoldt	1	1
Riewoldt	Astbury	1	2
Astbury	Petterd	1	1

If you are still reading what is wrong with you? But you must really like your footy so it's best you head over to the magnificent Demonblog's account of their win against Carlton.

This is the worst trip I've ever been on

Hello blowtorch, it’s been a while.

The last time was in the final weeks of the tanned one’s reign when we were lucky enough to have a few cracks at it:

• after he screamed at Mitch Morton that he’d ended his career
• when Robbo said he’d been sacked but he hadn’t and Joel Bowden got chased down the street by Hutchy
• then finally when it all came to a screaming halt and it was awkward when none of the players offered to chair him off.

I don’t think Hardwick has lost the players as this isn’t about lack of application, but I’ve a suspicion that Hardwick has lost a grip of where footy is headed. And it’s about to get a lot worse when he finds Mark Stevens hiding in his bin on Monday morning. Everything is going to change now and I hope he’s got as good a friends as Ron and Harry.

We look like a side that spoke about getting better all summer rather than doing it. While everyone else was running the Tan in preparation for the new interchange rule, we were talking about how much we were learning from the final and recruiting mature age battlers.

In short, we’ve become the English cricket team:

England unconvincingly won the winter Ashes 3-0 and, rightly, were pretty chuffed with themselves.

Richmond played our first final since Karl Marx stopped shaving and, rightly, we were pretty chuffed with ourselves.

And that’s where the good times ended for both.

England looked only at the 3-0 scoreline and assumed things would be the same, didn’t look for improvement, thought the wins would keep coming, went through the motions and got the fright of their lives in Brisbane.

Richmond looked only at the fact we finished (a very soft) fifth and assumed things would just keep improving, we spoke about improvement rather than actually doing it, spent the summer reading our own press and now we are 1-3 and no chance of playing finals.

We are the Army, the Tiger Army, we are brittle and we are confused. 

Brendan Gale must sit back the morning after a game like that; grab a coffee and wonder why he isn’t making seven figures in the corporate world. In a reasonable short period of time, he’s given the playing and coaching group everything they could possibly need to succeed, for christ’s sake he made them a song. But playing and coaching wise, we look as far away as we did on Gale’s first day at work.

He might have been keeping his cards close to his chest, but watching Hardwick go through the motions in the press conference was terrifying. Minutes before Buckley spoke freely and deeply about his players, game plan and the opposition. Hardwick spoke in clichés like ‘finding our mojo’ and inviting media criticism because ‘nothing changes in our four walls ‘, Dimma – it’s well beyond finding mojo and plenty needs to change between our four walls. The problem ain’t the players, it’s the game plan.

Where was the run of last year? The willingness to switch? The handball options streaming off half back? And guys taking the first option rather than waiting?

We needed to be up for the fight last night and from the very first bounce our structures and team selection didn’t allow us to. Collingwood aren’t quick by any stretch but they killed us on the spread. We won the clearances but that doesn’t really matter when have no runners to clear it to and you can only hoof it wildly forty metres and hope for the best.

Houli never used to second guess his kicks, Chaplin didn’t fumble, Ellis willed himself to the next contest, Dusty didn’t try to make ludicrious 25 metre passes and Grimes didn’t looked constantly panicked. How many soft goals are we going to continue to leak at forward stoppages? How many times are our blokes going to go to ground? And despite his winding back the clock with some truly wonderful junk time, how much longer can we carry Chris Newman?

We’ve become the only team in the competition who can’t cover the quick kick out of our forward line and I really wouldn’t mind someone explaining that to me.

I like Matt Thomas and it isn’t his fault but if we want to get to where we thought we could get to then he can’t play in the same team as Jackson. Gordon showed a bit last week, but barely fired a shot last night and bizarrely gave Arnot a spray late in the game while there was still a contested ball to win. If we are going to play battlers, they have to be the right side of 21.

If I was in the twos today, I wouldn’t even worry about getting the ball – I’d just ignore the contest and sprint up and down the ground to show everyone how quick I am. We need speed. Sadly, it’s tough to see where it’s coming from. Of the guys on the list who didn’t play last night and aren’t injured: Batchelor, Knights, King, Helbig, McIntosh, McBean, Lennon, McDonough, Stephenson, O’Hanlon, Banfield, Miles, Williams and Derrou, only a handful have wheels.

Say what you want about McCaffer’s tactics, but far more damning was the fact not one Richmond player seemed to want to help our skipper out. I’m not talking cave in the side of his skull, but how about just getting in between them. The number of times Cotchin has dragged us over the line and he doesn’t have one mate willing to chop out a block.....

Amongst the rubble, there were some good things. Astbury’s stocks continue to rise while everyone around him is going to shit, Lloyd’s debut was wonderful and Conca and Vlastuin continue to show they may be able to fill the on-field leadership chasm.

In short, more than once last night we made Luke Ball look quick and Clinton Young look tough and that is a truly awful place to be this early in a season.

Votes

5: David Astbury

4: Sam Lloyd

3: Reece Conca

2: Nick Vlastuin

1: Daniel Jackson

Leaderboards

The Benny

10: David Astbury

9: Trent Cotchin

5: David Astbury, Jack Riewoldt, Steven Morris

4: Shaun Hampson, Ricky Petterd, Matt Thomas, Sam Lloyd

3: Ty Vickery, Reece Conca

2: Brett Deledio, Brandon Ellis, Nick Vlastuin

1: Ben Griffiths, Orren Stephenson, Daniel Jackson

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award

4: Shaun Hampson, Ricky Petterd, Matt Thomas

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player

4: Sam Lloyd

Joel Bowden’s Golden Left Boot

N/A

Greg Tivendale Rookie Medal

4: Matt Thomas

1: Orren Stephenson

Championship belt

Incumbent	Winner	Streak	Wins
NA	Cotchin	1	1
Cotchin	Astbury	1	1
Astbury	Riewoldt	1	1
Riewoldt	Astbury	1	2