Stop! Hammer Time.

This tagline from that game was only ever going to one of two things: ‘Stop! Hammer Time.’ or ‘Stop Hammer Time’ and by the end of the night there was no room left on the Hampervan as he romped limped around the ground and gave us hitouts to advantage of the like not seen since Greg Dear in 1995. When he played last year Hampson was serviceable as ruck but no good in the dreaded forward-ruck role, which shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone seeing that was exactly his lot at Carlton. As the year wore on and Ivan rucked more and more, Hampson’s confidence unsurprisingly went belly up and his around the ground game suffered. He ended up getting thrown overboard after the Sydney loss and the next week we went off on the great nine game streak and the poor bugger has been left to rot in the VFL. Until tonight.

It’s not exactly an easy gig. Firstly, he came from Carlton hot on the heals of Grigg who five years into his stint at Richmond is still far from a fan favourite despite the fact he’s entrenched in our best 22 and playing some amazing footy. Secondly, he’s battling for a spot in the 22 with one of the most popular people on the planet, so if he does manage to get past Maric and into the 22 he is never going to be a favourite with the masses. Not quite to the extent of Adam Gilchrist debuting at Brisbane against Pakistan and getting all kinds of grief from the crowd because he had replaced Ian Healy but you get my drift. Queenslanders are incredibly odd but even they had probably left the angst behind when Gilly tee’d off for 81 runs in his first innings and then sending them to all corners of Bellerieve making 149 and helping us motor down a fourth innings target of 369.

I love Ivvy, you love Ivvy, we all love Ivvy and I’m not trying to say that beating Cameron Wood and Matthew Kruezer is the football equivalent of smacking around a bowling attack made up of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shoaib Akhtar and Saqlain Mushtaq but Hardwick and co. have a few questions to ask about who our best ruckman is, first against St Kilda and for the rest of the year. If Hampson’s knee is good to back up next week, and that’s a big if, he’s got my vote. Which should be comfort to him when he’s stuck playing in the freezing cold at some shithole like Frankston next week while Maric is getting run ragged by Tom Hickey.

What we do know though is that Ivan Soldo is the number one ruckman for the VFL team tomorrow and he has only played about 15 games of the sport in his whole life so god help us if something happens to both of them.

Being Richmond, this three week block of ‘should win’ games was never to going to be enjoyable or easy, but we are two thirds of the way to getting through unscathed. #bigboymonth might be slighly overdoing it but it is the time of year when the eight starts to take shape and with Collingwood and a few others around us leaving points on the table they will be an incredibly important 12 points come the pointy end of the season. Dropping the Melbourne (sigh) and Footscray (little bit of a sigh) games means that we can’t give up anymore gimmes and so far so good.

Earlier in the year when we were playing ordinary we were losing games, at the moment we are playing ordinary and winning ugly. Tonight wasn’t something to build the 2016 membership campaign around but it was four points none the less.

Perhaps I’m giving the selection team too much credit but I’ve found it interesting that Lambert, Newman, Morris and Gordon have got a run in these easier games. Some of those selections were forced through injury but could it be one last roll of the dice to see how they go? I didn’t hate Lambert’s game as sub and his run was important late, but Gordon battled all night and Newman and Morris looked exactly like a couple of small defenders who have been thrown forward out of desperation because we haven’t drafted anyone for that position since Andrew Krakouer in 2000. Carrying those four might work against GWS and Carlton, but we’ll get blown out of the water if we try and pull off such a swindle against Fremantle and Hawthorn in a few weeks. I can potentially be sold on Lambert if he can start kicking goals, but we’d have been better off with Lennon, McBean and Menadue than Newman, Morris and Gordon tonight. Whichever way they go, they definitely can’t carry all four and Gordon has looked OK when surrounded with good players so maybe he’s the one who can hang around.

All in all, I’d love to sit down with Hardwick for 20 minutes and ask him why he’s sticking with Morris and Newman despite all evidence suggesting that he stop doing so and then asking exactly the same question again when he started talking about character, leadership and how good they are around the club. All those things are really good, but it doesn’t count for much when they get nine disposals combined despite both playing a full game. Lambert was on for a quarter and he managed to find it 11 times.

We’ll likely need to find a replacement for Titch for the next month, which is terrible news for a range of reasons. Not the least of which because it will probably spare at least one of those two in the short term.

It truly was a terrible game. At quarter time when I did the inevitable flick over to the cricket Jimmy Anderson was bowling the most wonderful swing bowling and it was amazing to watch. As we all changed back to the footy after quarter time, we went back to being treated to Richmond bombing it inside 50, Carlton cutting it off and rebounding forward until some dud like Tom Bell or Jason Tutt turned it over or Rance treated Henderson as if he wasn’t there and the whole process started all over again. Time after time, we’ve had the ball in the wrong hands going inside fifty over the last couple of weeks. It’s all well and good to play Lids inside 50, but if that means that Gordon and Grigg are hoofing it in (not their fault, that’s their role) and on top of Jack’s head then we need to have another look at things. I suspect that part of the reason Newman is in the team is to fill that role but that is quite obviously not happening as covered above and much more explicitly on Twitter throughout the game. As we got going, Carlton tired and the game opened up in the last quarter we found some space and managed to get the ball in the right hands but too often this year we’ve struggled to win (or worse) games in which we’ve dominated the inside 50 count. And if someone could tell Dusty not to pass from anywhere within 60 metres that would be tops.

The one thing that hopefully everyone can agree on is that is an exceptionally ordinary Carlton team that’s playing above themselves on that mid-season new coach wave that we know so well. Gieschen comes to mind first with a dash of late season Rawlings resurgence after we finally gave Plough the boot. They’ve got some good kids, Cripps especially, but they are set up for a few years of pain and hopefully we can build on this streak of three and really lay down some hurt. I’d like to think that it crossed someone’s mind to make a pledge not to lose to them after that Elimination Final debacle but seeing they spent all summer talking about how they were desperate to get back to the finals before starting the next year 3-10 I suspect even if they did it didn’t mean very much. I’m still not sure I’ll forgive them for letting Nick Duigan kick four goals even if we won the next 150 against them so it’s all a bit of a waste of time thinking about it anyway.

Changes for next week

I’m not buying into the Watson and Stevo campaign to suspend Ty so he’s not listed here. Even though it is interesting that Watson seemed happy to hang Ty on national TV for a block after giving Hird a free-pass for jabbing up his son. I’m also assuming that Griff and C Ellis are at least one more week. It’s also 12.24 on Saturday morning and the VFL team starts playing at 12.12 (what a fantastic start time by the way) this afternoon so it’s probably just best to ignore this all together.

In: Menadue, McBean, Lennon and McDonough

Out: Newman, Morris, Gordon and Edwards

If Hampson can go again, let Maric earn his spot back the old fashioned way. Angry VFL Ivan would be a sight to behold.

The votes

5: Shaun Grigg

4: Brett Deledio

3: Alex Rance

2: Trent Cotchin

1: Shaun Hampson

Unlucky: Ellis, Jack, Vlastuin and Houli

Leaderboards

The Benny:

22: Dustin Martin and Trent Cotchin

17: Jack Riewoldt

16: Shane Edwards, Shaun Grigg and Alex Rance

15: Anthony Miles and Bachar Houli

11: Brandon Ellis

9: Brett Deledio

8: Taylor Hunt, Nick Vlastuin and Dylan Grimes

5: Ivan Maric

3: Troy Chaplin, Kamdyn McIntosh, Chris Newman, Ben Griffiths and Jake Batchelor

2: Sam Lloyd

1: Steven Morris, Ty Vickery and Shaun Hampson

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award:

16: Shaun Grigg

15: Anthony Miles and Bachar Houli

8: Taylor Hunt

5: Ivan Maric

3: Troy Chaplin

1: Shaun Hampson

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player:

3: Kamdyn McIntosh

Joel Bowden's Golden Left Boot:

16: Shaun Grigg

15: Bachar Houli

3: Jake Batchelor and Troy Chaplin

Greg Tivendale Rookie List Medal:

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