I got a good note from an editor here at Neds last September.
I tried to submit a Richmond article on September 14, 2023.
Dustin Martin had just confirmed that he was staying at Tigerland, much to Sam McClure’s chagrin, and I felt compelled as a man who documents football to write about that seismic AFL story.
(Has anyone been more wrong more often than McClure in the recent past? Between saying Dusty is leaving every year since 2017 to saying Harley Reid won’t be picked by West Coast, it’s getting embarrassing. If you’re going to keep making things up Sam, start writing novels maybe?)
Anyway, I’m not sure if you guys are football buffs or not, but generally around September there are big things happening in the game.
The editor’s reply email to the piece I submitted in September simply read, in part, “we’re best putting up blogs about teams still in the finals.”
Fair enough.
I’ve taken that advice into this season, writing mostly about teams that are relevant to the finals picture, or doing something interesting.
But in the words of the almighty Taylor Swift “old habits die screaming”, so I’m going to depart from that and write about my beloved Tigers as they head into what will be their last big game for the season on ANZAC Eve against Melbourne.
As I watched Richmond get trounced by West Coast, Port, and Gold Coast and hang in there against Carlton and the Saints, I realised something that I hadn’t fully appreciated about barracking for a bad team.
You tend to focus on the micro, entirely at the expense of the macro.
- Tom Brown’s kicking is good.
- Mykelti Lefau competes hard.
- Shai Bolton is doing more team things than he has in the past.
- Noah Balta looks good as a forward.
- Adem Yze seems like a decent guy.
What was the score? Who’s that speaking here, is somebody speaking?
The result is entirely irrelevant to the Tiger fans’ football experience.
We now take the right-wing grifter approach to watching football.
You seize the part of the narrative that makes your side look good and ignore the rest, like Sky News did after Lehrmann decision.
Yes Sky News, that really is the key takeaway from the case #Lehrmann pic.twitter.com/KAjVBYOj5c
— Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) April 15, 2024
Even in attempting to fashion a sea of optimism for myself that would make the TikTok algorithm jealous, I still have some worries about how the Tigers have gone about their football this season.
In every game this year, Richmond has been mostly outgunned but not out-efforted.
This team is full-hearted and Yze clearly has buy-in.
Shit. I’m doing it again.
My concern isn’t about the talent on the list which, in truth, is hard to evaluate. My Tigers have just been decimated by injuries to virtually all of the experienced players and the kids are getting pushed around.
I would like every single skinny Richmond player to give Aaron Cadman a buzz and ask him how he went from spindly disappointment to mark-clunking Adonis seemingly overnight.
My major concern is about game style.
I question whether Yze’s focus on foot skills works for this list, and even if it does, given the injuries, wouldn’t a focus on coaching to the less skilled and experienced personnel be a smarter way to go about it?
Instead of trying to force his style on personnel where it’s doomed to fail?
I accept that the Hardwick game of hack it forward, high-variance transition football is going out of vogue as teams like GWS, Sydney and Melbourne move the ball in transition with both abandon and clean foot-skills.
Richmond is trying to follow those good teams sitting fifth for metres gained and first for metres per disposal, both are generally pretty good areas to be good at.
The issue is that the Tigers don’t have the kickers to play the passing game that Yze is clearly trying to play, especially now, which is why Richmond averages the fewest disposals per turnover of any team in the AFL (Gold Coast, unsurprisingly given their coach, is second).
Outside of any premiership player, the best ball user among the young brigade is clearly Tom Brown.
To play the style that Yze is trying to play, we need about 10 of him, as Sydney and GWS have.
I know that this is Yze’s first year and it’s not his list, but will he get the time to bring in enough players to play the way he clearly wants to play?
He is not a Clarkson, so I doubt he has the cache to buy himself enough time to overturn a Hardwick list.
Aside from the game style, I have secondary – and significant – concerns about player retention.
I’m at the point where I wish Dustin Martin well if he chooses to go to Gold Coast or retire, he is the single best player I’ve ever seen in my life and the best big game player in history.
His seven-year, $9 million contract is the biggest bargain in recent memory.
Dusty has been among the most underpaid athletes in the world for his whole contract, given the amount of surplus value he’s provided to Richmond and the AFL.
I count myself as grateful for having been able to watch him for as long as I have.
If he wants to go, I won’t be conflicted like I am about Hardwick. I will thank him and wish him well.
It’s not about Dusty.
Richmond has 25 players off contract after this season, the best of whom is Liam Baker.
I s’pose it’s only April, but we’ve got some labour decisions ahead eh.
Some might call it flexibility, but prefer not to take 25 Schoolies attendees in November pic.twitter.com/l5PrMK3DH9— Simon Wallace (@rfcswallace) April 17, 2024
I’m going to give the Tigers a list-building hint: pay the guy whatever he wants.
If he wants to go home, so be it, but you cannot get outbid.
A good club doesn’t get outbid for a player like Baker, who is exactly what you want and at exactly the right age to bridge the two eras alongside Jack Graham, Noah Balta, Hopper and Taranto etc.
If Richmond does it right, those guys should be the old stagers in Richmond’s next finals team.
Do not do a North or Hawthorn and jettison every old player, please.
This is a contact sport, and the bigger bodies can help protect and develop younger players now and for the future, look at us this season with no experience.
Even despite my concerns, I still see a sea of positivity in the project/athlete forward line we’re trying to build, to players like Sonsie, Young and the Riolis. I just can’t quite fully ignore the issues yet.
So, I don’t expect Richmond to win their last big game for the season.
In fact, it will probably be a bloodbath.
Honestly, I don’t see Richmond winning many more games for the 2024 season, but it won’t stop me or any fan from finding the positives in a year that threatens to be extremely bleak.