Road to nowhere

If Newspoll ran figures on coaching approval ratings I imagine Dimma’s numbers would be somewhere around those of Vladamir Putin's outside of Russia.

After North went on a tear and ended the context, exactly as they did last year. Hardwick trotted out the tried and true ‘20 minute lapses’ line, he trots it out that often that if in fact he was a politician you’d swear they must have internal polling that it’s what the people want to hear. If I hear anything remotely like ‘stop the goals’ then I’m taking to Punt Road with a flamethrower.

There is a different way to flip the lapses argument. Given they happen with more regularity than someone on a diet of Metamucil and prunes, is it fair if good teams only need to turn it on for 20 minutes to beat us? Someone should put that up for that god awful weekly video where he uses selected stats from two years ago to try and make himself us feel better about the fact that the ship is sailing along the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe and completely oblivious that the Victoria Falls are just around the corner.

While it is true that this time last year we were all bemoaning how awful everything was before they dramatically turned it around, but as unlikely as that seemed last year, it seems ten times as unlikely this year.

To be fair to Dimma and whoever else from our coaching staff is yet to leave for Brisbane without being replaced, they can’t exactly go out there and kick it for them. From Ivvy missing from dead in front and (insert player)’s fascination with hoofing it into the middle of the ground and into the waiting arms of Goldstein, Hansen or Tarrant you’d swear that they had it in for him.

The third quarter was about as bleak as I can remember. They were rudderless, leaderless, directionless and you may as well head here to cut out the middle-man.

Blow by blow, here are the things they managed to jack up in that quarter. These are only the ones that happened on camera, so who knows what kind of shenanigans were going on behind the play.

Sorted by time remaining.

19:45 - Ellis waits before kicking to Riewoldt, changing a one-on-one to a two-on-one.

19:28 - Maric completely outbodied by Goldstein in a ball up.

19:05 - Dusty overruns the ball and North clear from our forward line.

18:56 - Bachar gets caught ball watching and Boomer clears the ball up the wing to a free North midfielder.

18:43 - Cotchin scuffs a kick going forward, North clear defence easily.

18:33 - Tarrant breaks a Gordon tackle, and finds a loose man with a handball

17:57 - Ellis misses a relatively easy set shot.

17:46 - McIntosh over-commits in a two-on-one marking contest on our half forward flank, Wood clears easily for North.

17:32 - Cotchin fails to hit Gordon on the full from 25 metres, he recovers but more pressure on play than should have been.

17:28 - Gordon gets it back to Cotchin, who then fails to hit a completely free Riewoldt.

17:22 - Ball spills free from Cotchin’s missed pass to Riewoldt, Cotchin then tackles Thompson high and gives away a free kick.

16:47: Bachar misses a tackle on Ben Jacobs who kicks North inside 50.

16:43: Vlastuin tackles Lindsay Thomas high, Thomas goals from exactly same part of the ground that Ellis missed from. Thomas then gets stuck into Vlastuin, Miles is the only Richmond player who cares enough to fly the flag.

15:14 - Lachie Hansen somehow finds himself completely free 50 metres out from a Boomer kick in.

14:32 - Jack gets stuck behind Thompson and is out-marked in a one-on-one.

13:30 - Gordon bungles an inside 50, Tarrant marks uncontested.

13:10 - Bachar fails to effectively tackle Higgins on our 50, North clear.

12:52 - Morris marks uncontested in the middle of the ground, handballs to Vlastuin who is standing still and is tackled by Ben Brown. Luckily the ball spills to Chaplin.

11:52 - Maric wins centre bounce but palms ball straight to Ziebell.

11:22 - Grimes wins a free but turns over a 45 metre pass straight to Goldstein, North stream forward, ball ends up with Petrie who kicks a goal.

10:33 - Higgins marks unopposed 53 metres out, Rance gives away a stupid 50 metre penalty, Higgins goals.

10:10 - Deledio gives an (admittedly very hard) handball to Rance’s feet, Rance swamped by North players, Richmond clear from desperation but kick straight to Hansen.

9:12 - Martin floats a kick across the ground transitioning off half back, Goldstein spoils, ball ends up with Thomas who goals.

8:19 - Miles gets a free kick from the centre bounce, tries an impossibly hard 15 metre short pass and North gain possession.

7:58 - Houli tackles Thomas high.

7:44 - Thomas floats a pass into the pocket, Waite marks uncontested amongst three Richmond defenders, goals.

6:42 - Morris leaves a tough set shot from 50 just short and North rush a behind.

5:40 - Dusty gives away holding free kick against Boomer just outside 50.

5:22 - Astbury spills a mark deep in defence, luckily ball goes through for a behind.

5:00 - Grigg floats a kick out of 50 to the wing, Sam Wright (of all people) marks near uncontested in a pack.

4:56 - Titch gives away just about the stupidest 50 metre penalty possible, Wright goals.

4:22 - Miles floats a handball out of a pack, intercepted by Cunnington.

4:15 - McIntosh scuffs a kick inside 50 straight to Wright, who clears.

3:46 - Deledio scrambles a kick forward from the wing, Wright beats two Richmond players and clears the ball.

3:23 - Dusty completely misses Deledio on an uncontested handball, Lids recovers but in more pressure than he should have been.

3:14 - Deledio then turns ball straight over in the middle of the ground to Gibson.

2:43 - Maric floats ball into middle of the group coming out of inside 50 and straight Wright, who then passes to an uncontested Waite.

1:59 - Vlastuin slips and drops a chest mark from the kick-in, balls ends up with Thomas who goals.

1:45 - Cunnington out bodies two Richmond players at the centre bounce to win a contest ball and send North forward again.

1:22 - Maric wins boundary throw in convincingly to Titch who fumbles the ball under very little pressure, forced to scramble to recover footy to Miles who kicks under pressure to a Riewoldt two-on-one and Hansen marks.

0:19 - Thomas beats two Richmond players to a contested footy, sends North forward.

0:02 - Dusty goes one handed for a mark, spills ball and is saved by siren.

Richmond under Hardwick and Don Draper have more in common than you realise. The best bits have left me sitting agog and wondering how such things can come about, but always sensing it’s not long before I'll be screaming ‘what the f$%k are you doing?’ at the TV and wondering why Steven Morris (not actually out worst on Saturday) is playing up forward or Don is cheating on Megan.

Thought, at the end of the day I still like both of them despite the awful things they have put me through and hold out hope that things will turn for the better. Don only has one episode left, Dimma has two-thirds of a season. Come September, they’ll probably both be out of my lives and I'll be scampering for a replacement and sad about things didn’t work out.

At least Don will have good times with Sylvia to remember when it all started to go wrong, Nick Duigan probably didn’t even buy Dimma a drink after he did the deed.

Changes for next week

Who knows what they’ll end up doing, I’ve given up trying to get a read on it.

Ins: McBean, Vickery, Arnot, Dea, Thomas, Menadue and Lennon

Outs: Griffiths (assuming he’s crook), Newman, Morris, Hunt, Astbury, Gordon and McIntosh (who I like but looks cooked)

The votes

5: Anthony Miles

4: Jack Riewoldt

3: Dustin Martin

2: Nick Vlastuin

1: Jake Batchelor

The Benny:

10: Shane Edwards and Bachar Houli

8: Anthony Miles

7: Trent Cotchin, Jack Riewoldt and Dustin Martin

6: Alex Rance, Shaun Grigg and Nick Vlastuin

5: Taylor Hunt

4: Brandon Ellis

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

2: Sam Lloyd

1: Ivan Maric

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award:

10: Bachar Houli

8: Anthony Miles

6: Shaun Grigg

5: Taylor Hunt

1: Ivan Maric

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player:

3: Kamdyn McIntosh

Joel Bowden's Golden Left Boot:

10: Bachar Houli

6: Shaun Grigg

3: Jake Batchelor

Greg Tivendale Rookie List Medal:

No votes yet.

My baby takes the morning train

The verdict is in, public transport is good for the environment and full forwards.

Riewoldt is second only to Franklin in 'when he's on, he's on' factor and after a week like that, something along those lines was always on the cards.

I've never understood the animosity directed at Jack and Buddy. They are the guys who make footy good, they drag people through the gate, they make people watch neutral games and fill newspaper columns. The AFL doesn't get a billion dollars for their TV deal because of midfielders, they get a billion dollars because of Buddy and Jack.

I suspect there is something seriously wrong out west but you can only beat who you play, and given that we haven't been doing that, yesterday was nice. We've been beaten up on enough in my lifetime, so I'm chuffed for us to fill our boots when and where we can.

As savaging as it was, it doesn't change much for 2014 other than putting us in a bit of form heading into Dreamtime.

For a second week in a row we took on a team financially propped up by the AFL and it went much more to plan. You can say good things about all who played yesterday, during even the glory days of last year I'm not sure we could have said that too many weeks.

After a week where everyone, including yours truly, were savage on Hardwick he made a few changes to structure that got us moving. Morris forward was genius, despite some of the finest junk time padding Shaw could only find it 13 times and turned it over on five of those. He free'd up the forward 50, it wasn't too often that Riewoldt, Vickery and Griffiths were in the same area and our ball movement was much better for it. He made a change during the game, something he hasn't always been great at, when he shifted McDonough out of the back pocket and into the midfield after he lost a few contests early. And he brought Thomas in, who's tough as teak and wouldn't have let Melbourne have their way with us in the middle last week.

Hampson is one of those players who legally has to be proceeded as 'often maligned' whenever mentioned in the press but yesterday he was outstanding. Not just beating Mumford, but smashing him, and hinting that he doesn't care too much for being subbed at half time.

Yesterday has to be taken with a pinch of salt given the opposition but how good was it watching Foley trust his speed? Two or three times he looked at his closest opponent, knew he had him covered, arched the back and went.

It looks as if we've found some groove which will keep the media off the doorstep for a little bit but yesterday means squat unless they turn up against Essendon and North during the next fortnight.

Lids racing to 200 as the youngest Richmond player is very impressive considering the number of finals a few people before him have racked up. He's as durable as they come, has only missed eight games across ten years and let's hope that the next 150 are peppered with a few more finals.

The Giants ground is a ripping place to watch footy if you are ever thinking about making an interstate trip.

Votes

5: Jack Riewoldt

4: Dustin Martin

3: Shaun Hampson

2: Brett Deledio

1: Steven Morris

Plenty unlucky for the first time in a while: Thomas, Rance, Cotchin, Chaplin and Houli amongst others.

Leaderboards

The Benny

16: Jack Riewoldt

14: David Astbury

13: Trent Cotchin and Shaun Hampson

12: Dustin Martin

10: Daniel Jackson

9: Ricky Petterd

8: Reece Conca

7: Brandon Ellis

6: Steven Morris

4: Matt Thomas, Sam Lloyd, Brett Deledio and Shaun Grigg

3: Ty Vickery and Shane Edwards

2: Nick Vlastuin

1: Ben Griffiths, Orren Stephenson and Ben Lennon

Blair Hartley Appreciation Award

13: Shaun Hampson

9: Ricky Petterd

4: Matt Thomas and Shaun Grigg

Anthony Banik Best First Year Player

4: Sam Lloyd

1: Ben Lennon

Joel Bowden’s Golden Left Boot

4: Shaun Grigg

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
Petterd	Ellis	1	1
Ellis	Conca	1	1
Conca	Martin	1	1
Martin	Riewoldt	1	2

The guys over at TTBB are doing some really cool things on their site and I reckon the Virtual Duffle Coat is my favourite.

Chasing Jack

In an ideal world, Jack wouldn’t have said what he did in such a public forum. In that same ideal world, Hardwick would have halted the press conference after this zinger.

But given that we were supposed to play finals, are now 2-6 and just lost to Melbourne – it’s pretty obvious that Richmond doesn’t exist in an ideal world. Jack did say what he did in a public forum and rather than kill the story with that line, and it was a very good line, Hardwick strung everything out an extra five hours by making an empty threat that he was never going to follow through on.

Disclaimer: Jack is my favourite current Richmond player by a considerable margin. I think he’s our best player and, in 2014 to date, I think he’s been mismanaged by the game plan to the extent that I’d hardly blame him if he wanted out at the end of the year.

He made the classic CJ Cregg mistake of screwing up by telling the truth. Anyone who has watched us closely knows that we’ve tried to replicate borrow from Hawthorn’s game plan and at some time during the last six months everything has gone haywire. But that doesn’t mean that your full forward should air that dirty laundry during an interview.

As I mentioned above, the gaffer could have killed the issue this morning but he didn’t. And in a slow footy news week, it dragged into this evening and onto Melbourne’s public transport network.

What chance does Riewoldt have if his own competition’s media team are willing and able to follow him camera in hand on his way home? If you haven’t seen it, I’m not linking to it on here because that’s pretty much exactly what they want. Would be interesting to hear what the AFLPA thinks about it  but considering they didn't seem to care about anything other than free agency I'm not holding my breath.

I don’t who the comms person (they aren’t journos) was that thought it was a good idea (it was probably Matt Thompson) but Christ on a bike, you’d hope that a media team that represents the league would have even a sceric of professionalism rather than lowering themselves to A Current Affair tactics.

If the footy media wants players to say things, they probably should chase one of the few who does to the train station. Pretty hard to sum it up any better than this.

I get that we under achieving at the moment, we talked a big game before the year and we are absolutely fair game at the moment, but surely there is a line somewhere? And if we can't trust the AFL themselves to keep behind the line, what hope do we have from the Murdoch crew?