I’m sure many would find it funny at how emotional I, and many Richmond members alike, can get from week to week, but that’s all a part of the Richmond Football Club.
It’s a beautiful thing.
As I predicted last week, after all the hype around the club that was served up by the media only, the loss against Carlton meant that once again journalists could go to town on Richmond in their papers. Nothing sells newspapers like a Richmond issue, so the media were always in a win-win situation when it came to us.
If we had of got up and won the media would have looked like geniuses and would have been able to pump our tyres up further heading into this week. But if we lost, which we did, it was going to be open slather with the Richmond bashing.
I should mention that I’ve got no problem at all with the media hyping us up. That’s the era we live in and with sports media being saturated with AFL coverage there’s no shying away from that. However, what I am displeased with, and the boys on the Talking Tigers podcast stole my thunder a little bit on this one, is that journalists were taking pot shots at the club for building the hype internally when it was actually completely media driven.
It’s amazing what one can do with a couple of sound grabs at his disposal, as any literate person can spin a few out of context quotes into any type of story they wish. The worst part of all is that the average football follower can’t see this, which inevitably leads to the bashing of Richmond in football circles.
But enough about the media, let’s talk about on-field matters.
I consider myself to be a realistic Tigers fan, so going in to last week I would have been very surprised (and obviously pleasantly so) if our boys were able to grab a win. Make no mistake, Carlton are a genuine premiership threat this year so it was always going to be a mighty ask to defeat them.
I was bitterly disappointed with how the players ran out the game, as a one goal deficit in the final term ballooned out to a seven goal margin by the full-time siren which in retrospect flattered our opponents given the nature of the match.
To be honest, I don’t think the boys played anywhere near their best, so to be in the hunt during the final quarter against a top flight side is something to take out of the match. We can only improve.
Other highlights included Trent Cotchin’s scintillating performance through the midfield, as well as ruckman Ivan Maric’s first official game for the football club. Both players battled tirelessly against some highly rated opponents and showed signs of forming a dangerous centre square partnership in the not too distant future.
This week against Collingwood proves to be another huge test for this footy club, but you have to play everyone eventually and all things considered it’s probably not a bad time to play last year’s grand finalists.
Once again, I’d be pleasantly surprised if the match ended in a Tiger win, but I’m more looking forward to seeing which of the boys bounce back this week.
There are places to be won in this side at the moment so if all players have a red hot go who knows what might happen, after all a week is a long time in football.
Go Tiges!blog comments powered by Disqus
