Leave Dusty Alone.

Leave Dusty Alone.

I said I wasn’t going to write about Richmond any more this season. The Tigers are not good, profoundly injured, and irrelevant to the story of the 2024 AFL season.

It took all of my self-control not to write an ode to Brendan Gale. Such is my gratitude to the dynasty that we had that I was going to write about an administrator.

I promise to you, dear reader, I won’t write a column about the Tigers in the lead up to the Dreamtime game or again this season, other than when Dustin Martin retires or leaves.

But I’m afraid I can’t help myself this week.

There’s been some talk in media about how Dusty, the greatest big game player in a game defined solely by its big games, is “limping toward 300 games.”

How, given the way he’s playing, Richmond shouldn’t offer him another contract.

Mark Robinson managed to scratch out in his drunken stupor that Dusty should “get a meaningful kick” while he’s at Tigerland.

ESPN even had the gall to write “let’s just hope [2024] isn’t how we remember him.”

It won’t be.

He’s given us over a decade of playing well and a lifetime of memories.

I’m just going to give the media a tip on behalf of every single Richmond fan, and Dusty himself: f**k off.

I know that you people have to talk about someone, but why don’t you talk about someone less accomplished. Give the man the respect that he has earned over 14 years of loyal and accomplished service to football.

I understand that this a cutthroat business yada yada and you have to earn your spot every week.

For football’s proletariat, that’s true. But there should be, and are, different rules for deities.

Let’s focus on the bigger picture of Dustin Martin’s career.

Time and again, when the moment called for a man to define it, up stepped Dustin Martin. He periodically, systematically, reliably reached into opponent’s chests and ripped out their hearts.

He’s footy’s Michael Jordan. He lives for big occasions.

Dusty is going at 1:1 in the Grand Finals: Norm Smith ratio. He’s not far off that for his finals: best on ground ratio.

In 2017 he put together the single best season in the history of the AFL. He averaged 21 rating points per game that season. No player since has gone a full season over 18.7.

Christian Petracca, currently having the best season of his career by rating points, is averaging 17.

He kicked 37 goals and averaged 6.4 clearances per game that year. Isaac Heeney is doing that over the first 9 games of this season and we’re talking about him like he’s the second coming.

Do you know what Dusty did after he proved that he was the single most talented player in the league, capable of putting football on his shoulders and compelling crowds on the back of his undeniable greatness?

He saved himself for the big games or moments.

He didn’t care about every minute of every game.

He was available for and played every game, but he bobbed up when it mattered better than anyone.

Damien Hardwick famously announced to the world that Dustin basically decided where he wanted to play. If he wanted to play midfield, the team would defer. If he felt he was best playing as a forward, someone else made way. He always knew where to best deploy himself and how to protect himself so he could play ever week.

He wasn’t an every minute player, but he was an every moment player.

Then, come finals time, he turned it back on for full games.

Ignoring Grand Finals, which were all Picasso’s, these are my three favourite of his finals performances:

• 20 and 3 against GWS in the 2017 preliminary final.

• 6 against Brisbane in the 2019 qualifying final.

• 21 and 2 (in a shortened game where Richmond only kicked 6) against Port in the 2020 preliminary final.

In his 12 finals since 2017, excluding the Collingwood preliminary final where his thigh was badly corked, Dusty has averaged 22 disposals, 13 contested possessions, 5 clearances, 5 inside 50s, 9 score involvement, 400 metres gained and he kicked 26 goals at a rate of 2.2 per game.

Great man history is usually wrong. You can’t boil down events of genuine historical significance to one man. It’s largely reductive and stupid, with two exceptions: Dustin Martin and Napoleon Bonaporte.

So, what does this have to do with 2024 and Dusty’s average form?

Nothing, you’re right.

Except that this is a player who lives for big games, and he isn’t going to play in any. This is a player who periodically stepped into the breach in big moments, but there are no breaches that need to be filled.

Richmond’s terrible season has taken their biggest fish out of his favourite waterway: consequence.

It’s all small games full of minor moments.

I’ll save my ode to Dustin Martin and what he has meant to me as a Richmond fan, all of the joy that he has given me personally, all the gratitude that I have for him and the dynasty for when he leaves or retires.

But for today, please, leave the best big game player any of us have ever seen alone.

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