Watching the Tigers This Year Doesn't Make Me Angry. It Makes Me Sad.

There’s a certain melancholy that comes with watching Richmond this year.

In a ladder bet before the season opened, I had the Tigers finishing fourth. I thought that Richmond was a good, unlucky side last year that plugged their most gaping hole by adding Hopper and Taranto.

I thought that Richmond was just Collingwood inverted and that their fortunes would basically switch this season.

That went well.

I started off the season kind of angry at how disjointed we looked against Carlton and Collingwood, but happy with the match-winning burst against Adelaide in Adelaide. I thought that we were right there against the Bulldogs, but we were just on the wrong end of a generational player doing some generational shit.

It was against Sydney that the melancholy started. Before that game, I thought back to the game against Port Adelaide in Adelaide in 2019. The Tigers were massively outgunned in that game missing Dustin Martin, Jack Riewoldt, Trent Cotchin, Alex Rance and Bachar Houli. Despite the odds being stacked against the Tigers on that night, they won a famous game on the back of 6 goals in the wet from Tom Lynch, 25 touches from Jack Ross on debut and a cavalcade of relatively unheralded players playing well.

I would be lying if I didn’t think that maybe, just maybe, we could do it again at the SCG with guys like Noah Cumberland, Judson Clarke and Maurice Rioli stepping into the void left by all the Tigers’ outs on that day.

But it didn’t happen.

It was relatively close the whole game, but the Tigers missed two shots to start the fourth term and once they were missed the air came out of the balloon as Tom Papley ripped the game away from Richmond. The bigger issue, though, was that without Tom Lynch it felt like a miracle every time we generated a shot on goal.

Miracles are not a recipe for consistent winning footy, unless your jumper has black and white stripes.

Losses to Melbourne and Gold Coast have followed a similar path, with Richmond relatively close but unable to win the game.

The Gold Coast loss especially had me feeling down. Not because they lost, but how they lost. Despite Gold Coast having 40 more disposals total, the Suns laid 18 more tackles and took 40 more marks. Gold Coast took 128 uncontested marks. Richmond took 96 total marks for the game.

The game felt bruise free as well. Richmond showed no interest in tackling or pressuring the ball carrier and the once ferocious time in forward half and forward half turnover numbers are no longer formidable as Gold Coast waltzed the ball out of their back 50 with ease.

I can’t tell if this is a personnel issue or an effort issue, but I do note that Richmond had numerous immobile players on the field that provide nothing in terms of pressure. Richmond’s tall players on Sunday were as follows: Samson Ryan, Ben Miller, Noah Balta, Jack Riewoldt, Ivan Soldo and Tylar Young with Dylan Grimes, Noah Cumberland and Nathan Broad playing essentially hybrid tall/small roles.

It’s not exactly a murderer’s row.

In 2017 the Tigers zigged while the competition was zagging and created a blueprint for how to play footy that everyone is following now. In 2017 Richmond’s second ruckman was Shaun Grigg, the only tall forward was an in his prime Jack Riewoldt. The tall players in that team were Alex Rance, Dave Astbury, Toby Nankervis and Riewoldt with Grimes and Broad again playing hybrid roles. Jacob Townsend was basically the Noah Cumberland type forward of centre as the B2 to Jack’s A1.

That team had 4 genuine tall players, the 2023 Tigers are intent on playing 6, most of whom have not shown themselves to be winning players yet.

Why?

This time it seems that Hardwick is trying to be a step ahead of the competition again, this time going taller as game goes smaller and faster. It might be a good idea, especially when you see how Geelong is playing with their pillars forward of centre and their heft all over the field. But Geelong has better players. It’s that simple. When tall players are not good, they add nothing. At least a smaller, more rapid player can pressure and harass and harry even if he is not clean with ball in hand.

But really, none of that is the point of this article. This is not a good Richmond side and it’s exemplified by their guns. There was a moment in the Gold Coast game where Shai Bolton elevated early in the fourth quarter and took a good mark about 45 out on a slight angle. He had to kick it for the Tigers to be any chance whatsoever.

You knew he was going to miss as he started walking back. He was laconic and slow when Richmond needed him to be deliberate and fast.

He pulled it.

Air out of the balloon.

Tigers lose.

But really, what’s making me sad is the slippage of the legends. Every game that they play looks like Manny Pacquaio vs Ugas. They have a moment here, a moment there. They move in the same way. Have the same face. But it’s just not the same guy.

Trent Cotchin looks done and was consistently beaten to the ball against the Suns, though in a lost season I would certainly get him to 300. He deserves that honour.

Jack Riewoldt kicked 8 goals in 2 games prior to Gold Coast and he continues to put his game together with spit and duct tape, but he can’t do it week in and week out anymore. From 2017-2021, Jack and Tom Hawkins were the two most additive key forwards in the competition in my estimation. They kicked goals but it was their intellect and selflessness consistently brought others into the game and elevated the play of those around them. Jack is no longer that player simply because he can’t impact games as consistently as he did, even if he is kicking goals.

Dylan Grimes is getting beaten more often than ever before and is not the rapid athlete that he once was.

Even Dustin Martin, the man responsible for more of my personal happiness than almost anyone in my life, just can’t inject himself into games like he used to. He does not, to my eye, look uninterested but rather he looks unable. His hands are still clean below his knees and he’s still extremely strong, but his kicking has come and gone this season and his goal kicking has just gone. He’s simply not the same player he was.

All of the legends that I mentioned above are players whom I adore and should be playing weekly just for competitiveness’ sake. Beyond that, Richmond’s middle class of Bolton, Hopper, Taranto, Vlastuin etc. also simply are not the players that the legends were in their pomp. Liam Baker is almost the only player who combines the toughness inside and cleanliness outside that made the Richmond premiership midfields so formidable and I hope that he is the next captain.

More than anything, it’s sad to see them like this. Still battling, still trying to will the side to victory. Mentally they are still there but they have nobody with them.

This Tigers season doesn’t have me angry. I truly am grateful for the premierships and the joy that they have brought me. I’m grateful to have watched Cotchin run like his shoelaces are tied together, grateful to have borne witness to Grimes’ desperation time and again, grateful for Jack morphing himself into the most selfless player in the game, and I am grateful for, well, everything that Dusty has given me. I’m grateful for all of it.

But I am sad that soon enough all the vestiges of the run will be in the past tense.