Born To Run

Remembering back to the glory days of 2013, Richmond played fearless. It was possession based but they played on where there was an opportunity and looked to go direct.

Then to address the (completely fair) criticism over us giving up easy goals the other way, it was tightened, too much. It’s still possession based but less direct and more time consuming. We used to hunt in packs on the run, but now it’s murder by a thousand short passes. If you have players to pull it off it would be a perfectly fine plan, but it’s abundantly clear to everyone, assuming Hardwick’s ‘we can beat anyone’ tirade is a smokescreen, that our list doesn’t have the depth to pull it off.

Despite the loss, I was encouraged to see that plan chucked in favour of run, play on and attack at all costs. In the end it didn’t work, but it should have. For once, we weren’t beaten because we were out coached, we were beaten because Geelong has Selwood and Hawkins who refuse to lose, while we’ve got a playing list that looks as if we’ve forgotten how to win.

Who’s fault is this? God knows. Of the tens of thousands of words written throughout the week only this great piece in The Roar leaves you any wiser. It isn’t just Hardwick or Cotchin, to pinpoint one problem is to do the situation an injustice, as Cam explained in that piece it’s a mix of things: a little bit of list management, development, game-plan, leadership and culture within the club.

One thing that we are just going to have to get used to is this list isn’t winning a grand final. Which is disappointing, but isn’t a surprise given:'

• a) the train wreck Hardwick inherited in 2010; and
• b) the compromised drafts that he’s had to deal within that time.

Given the state we were in when he turned up, it’s criminal that the highest pick he’s ever got his hands on was pick six. From there we’ve had to find value through shallow drafts at the same time expansion teams were handed picks through necessity, Collingwood and the Dogs went and got them through amazing list management and Melbourne gifted them because they’re a joke.

If it goes pear shaped for the rest of the year, and how good that pear shaped now means missing the finals instead of bottom four, changes will need to be made. That’s most likely Dimma, but unless it comes with a reasonable major restructure of the list and recruitment strategies, we’ll continue to tread water in the middle of the ladder.

Which all brings us up to a round five match that was widely billed as a ‘must win’ for Richmond. Thankfully we didn’t buy into that like when Plough would publicly declare games ones we just have to win, and generally just raised questions about what would happen when inevitably didn’t. But Brendan Gale weirdly did say that the media speculation around Dimma was ‘bullshit’ which it is, but that might come back to haunt him and will just be another example of why people in footy never give proper answers. Following quickly on the heels of when Jack agreed that things weren’t going swimmingly and he got chased to the train station by Matt Thompson which is still one the strangest things I’ve ever seen happen in footy and not far behind when he was concussed and tried to crawl up the stairs and sneak on the ground in that night we were robbed of a win against St Kilda when the umpire at the end pinged McGuane for that deliberate behind rule so disastrously that nobody has ever been nabbed on it since. Strange things seem to happen with Jack, that’s why we like him and boring people don’t.

Coming (back) to the actual game…. I don’t think it is as bleak as has been reported, and by reported I mean people going nuts on Twitter. Ideally we’d win, but we don’t really do ideally. Maybe I’ve just become so used to getting owned by Geelong that I’m glad we’ve made them earn it twice in a row. If we’d have had the confidence of a winning team we’d have run over them, but more importantly we torched set shots, especially early on which is becoming a really nasty habit.

What was really strange was that and makes this very hard is that, other than Bachar who was outstanding all day, almost all of our team drifted in and out of the contest. We looked god awful for a half and then all of a sudden the switch was flicked either by the coaches who must have realised we were pushing shit up hill or the playing group who’d decided they’d had enough of kicking sideways. It doesn’t really matter which because I think that everyone was onto our tactic of moving it in really slowly and bombing it to the top of the goal square and this traditionally is particularly disastrous against Harry Taylor.

Moving the ball in a hurry all of a sudden made our forward issues look a lot less daunting (funny that) but we are still a mess down back. Our inability to produce a small forward worth a pinch means that we now can’t develop small defenders to stop them at the other end. Just add that to the list of issues, is there even anyone in the VFL we could bring into do the job? Don’t answer that. For a club that generally plays a low risk style, the lack of defenders and defensively minded midfielders on the list is concerning.

Grigg beat Selwood senseless for three quarters but there was a sense of inevitably that he’d hit back when it counted, and he did. He and Hawkins have a fourth quarter ‘I don’t like losing beast mode’ that ours don’t. It’s to the point now where we have to do something drastic like offering to make Selwood the highest paid player in the competition and switch clubs, there aren’t many of him but we need one. I like that Rance threw the ball into his face though, that kind of stuff should happen more often.

I’m sure this is over simplifying, but I have questions over our strategy of repeatedly sending out Hardwick or assistant coaches to talk about how underrated and important to our structures Titch is. Because after playing against three teams who’d left him alone, Geelong sure as hell were very aware and addressed the situation. It’s like when you read articles about a city that has a security flaw that could be a potential target for terrorists and you think ummmm can you shut up? Carlton have a lot of issues, but you’d never hear Malthouse come out and say ‘we aren’t much chop but Kade Simpson is really important so if you want to make sure of an easy win lock down on him’. Sure, real clubs understand that, but teams that don’t do research (us) leave him alone game after game and he rips them apart.

One of the good things about playing the same way for the last 18 months is that we’ve got the potential to get teams on the hop if we mix it up. If we run at North as hard as we ran at Geelong in the second half we’ll give them something to think about. When we move the footy quickly Jack stops being confused about where he sits in the game plan and starts simply getting the ball, Corey Ellis found his feet as we did, Dusty and Brandon Ellis got moving forward instead of sideways and all of Grigg, Hunt and McIntosh stopped looking like liability by foot to hard running machines kicking into space. Right now I must sound like I’m writing after a hard fought victory, but I’ll take mini wins where I can after losing to Melbourne.

Lennon really struggled to get into the game, but I’m disappointed that he was the one subbed. Obviously it isn’t ideal to have a guy getting three disposals in a half, but he would have been more suited by the style of play in the second half. He looked like someone who’d got used to the speed of the VFL, but so did Ellis to start with, and I’m not sure what we’ll gain when they inevitably drop him, bring him back in six weeks and repeat the process. Meanwhile the use of Lloyd was baffling, they continue to treat him like a 19 year old who’ll come good. He’s not, he’s 25, and he won’t come good, leave Lennon on next time thanks. Ivan needs some help as well, he battled on as he always will but either Vickery needs to take more centre bounces or we need to play Hampson, which I’m up for just for the laughs.

Changes for next week

I had the luxury of watching the VFL for the first time this year and so for once there is a tiny bit of thought behind this.

In: Grimes

Out: Lloyd

I doubt Griff will come up after one week on a calf injury and as much as I’d like to have Morris out I just don’t see who comes back. Grimes is hardly the future but North will get it forward quickly and often, and I’m scared to think what will happen if we go in one defender short again. And it was super fun watching Astbury go forward because he went alright and we actually NEVER play anyone out of position and I enjoyed it to the extent that I most definitely need to get out of the house a lot more.

The votes:

5: Bachar Houli

4: Shaun Grigg

3: Trent Cotchin

2: Jack Riewoldt

1: Ivan Maric

The Benny:

10: Shane Edwards and Bachar Houli

7: Trent Cotchin

6: Alex Rance and Shaun Grigg

5: Taylor Hunt

4: Brandon Ellis, Dustin Martin and Nick Vlastuin

3: Kamdyn McIntosh, Chris Newman, Ben Griffiths, Anthony Miles and Jack Riewoldt

2: Sam Lloyd and Jake Batchelor

1: Ivan Maric

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award:

10: Bachar Houli

6: Shaun Grigg

5: Taylor Hunt

3: Anthony Miles

1: Ivan Maric

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player:

3: Kamdyn McIntosh

Joel Bowden's Golden Left Boot:

10: Bachar Houli

6: Shaun Grigg

Greg Tivendale Rookie List Medal:

No votes yet.