Thank (deity of your choice) that we snuck a win against the Gold Coast last year because based on what we just saw; it could be a very long time between drinks.
Losing happens, Richmond supporters know that better that most. We also know that first round losses get weighted more despite the fact there is no difference between a round one loss and a round 17. Generally when we crap the bed in round one we only need to get through an extra Friday, Saturday and Sunday but this time around it’s an extra week before possible redemption. Joy.
But, there were more than a few things to be concerned about last night. Despite all the talk about working on the defensive side of our game, we let a bunch of would be university students put two four goals bursts on us in a 22 goal game, thanks for coming. Our forward line looked as if they’d just met for a social match, rather than just completed a four-month pre-season. And a good proportion of our midfield had that ‘it’s getting hard now, I’ll let Cotchin handle things’ look about them in the first half of the last quarter.
We are supposed to be a couple of years ahead of Gold Coast yet, at times, it looked as if they were Blood Sugar Sex Magik and we were Stadium Arcadium. Don’t even try to go the ‘they’ve been handed so many first round picks’ approach, we’ve burned more than our fair share of first round picks over the journey and you can’t dump a team in a non-footy market and have them perform like Frawley era Richmond for the first decade.
In the first quarter we looked miles off it, other than Vlastuin showing why we are all madly in love with him, they wanted it more, got to it quicker and used it smarter. Astbury, who got better as the night went on, put in a couple of contests that were reminiscent of round one Jayden Post before we never saw nor heard of him again.
We managed to steady the contest without really taking control. A couple of chases by big blokes, tackles by Matt Thomas and a bit of tempo footy rather than bombing it to the top of the square meant Jaegar O’Meara couldn’t be sublime whenever he felt like it. But despite more or less controlling the game throughout the second and third quarters, we only kicked three goals to their two.
Their last quarter burst showed that we still have a very, very long way to go. Gaz got going and because he’s a winner and we aren’t, it was all over. Tom Lynch will be a fine player one day but he shouldn’t be doing what he did to Rance and when, given their rotations, we needed someone fresh to run circles around them, Foley showed why we didn’t play him against Carlton in the finals.
After a month of hearing from the club just how dominant Ty Vickery was going to be, he put in a game that Jack Watts would have been ashamed of.
Interestingly, after a rather controlled summer where we’d managed to keep a lid on expectations (thanks North), Hardwick made the extraordinary mistake of publicly putting a measure on Ty’s season. Granted, he should kick 40 goals but you don’t say that. Can you imagine Chris Scott or Alistair Clarkson coming out this week and making such a statement about Hawkins or Gunston just before their round one game?
Vickery’s game stood out the most but he had plenty of mates, Jack, Rance, Chaplin, Ellis and Griffiths all had games that I’m guessing like to hand back.
Leadership groups are all the rage but right now out on field leadership group is a sole proprietor by the name of Cotchin. We need to find blokes within our list who can give him a hand when things aren’t going our way. And I know we are supposed to think that Brett Deledio is the hardest marked man in football but his petulant hoofing the ball away was the reason nobody outside of Punt Road thinks twice about him when compiling ‘best of’ lists, despite how many interviews and podcasts we do in his defence. Lids’ time is now, he should be in the top ten of those lists, and 2014 is very much ‘put up or shut up’.
There were a few good things to come out of it: Hampson’s tap ruck work
They’ve got a week and half to find out what the best way to convert inside 50’s into goals is and Hardwick has a decent track record of successfully making tweaks between games.
We have too good a list now to be writing off performances like that as a ‘bad night’ and Hardwick’s post-match comments suggest he wont publicly be making excuses for losses this year.
Votes
5: Trent Cotchin
4: Shaun Hampson
3: Steven Morris
2: Brett Deledio
1: Matt Thomas
Leaderboards
The Benny
5: Trent Cotchin
4: Shaun Hampson
3: Steven Morris
2: Brett Deledio
1: Matt Thomas
Blair Hartley Appreciation Award
4: Shaun Hampson
1: Matt Thomas
Joel Bowden’s Golden Left Boot
N/A
Greg Tivendale Rookie Medal
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