One-Eyed Richmond Forum
Football => Richmond Rant => Topic started by: one-eyed on March 29, 2015, 02:21:30 AM
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Why the game needs the Tigers roaring
Jake Niall
The Age
March 29, 2015
The game didn't particularly need Richmond to succeed in 1987, 1997, or 2007. It grew, regardless of Tiger ineptitude. Alternating combinations of Collingwood, Essendon, Carlton and later Hawthorn kept the turnstiles clicking in Melbourne, while the non-Victorian teams expanded the footy franchise.
Richmond winning was a rare bonus – and, if you were an AFL executive, the Tigers might deliver you one, if they ever saw September. Whatever their myriad failures, the Tiges never failed to engage and entertain. Never the lead part, they were always an intriguing character. In 2015, as the Pies, Blues and Bombers shape as either mediocre or are standing on a slippery peptide peel, Richmond has become Victoria's great white hope, not to win the premiership – that's Hawthorn's job description – but to electrify the competition. Depending on how well/bad those other box-office sides fare, the Tigers might be the AFL's defibrillator.
Gillon McLachlan is trying all manner of measures to win back disgruntled heartland fans. Fixturing and ticketing are under repair, and the price of unhealthy food has been slashed at the MCG and Etihad, as Gill seeks to salve the wounds. But the reality of footy is that the surest method for boosting attendances and ratings, to have the mouses clicking in concert with turnstiles, is to have the big-drawing, popular teams a) playing one another in attractive time slots and b) winning at least half the time.
Richmond, with seven Friday night games and return matches against Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon, will influence the crowds more than the price of fish (and chips) in bay 13.
If this is hardly a stunning revelation, Richmond's fortunes last year serve as reminder of the difference between a winning Richmond and the more familiar losing version. In 2013, when the Tigers won 15 games and were embarrassed by the Blues in that magnificent elimination final, they averaged 56,000 to their home and away games at the MCG. Last year, that average fell to 48,000, despite the Tigers making their charge to the finals, because they were 3-10 and many fans stayed away until late in the season.
The Richmond-Carlton season opener drew nearly 82,000 in 2013, but the match attracted just 62,000 last year when it was played in round two, by which stage the Tigers had been eclipsed by the Suns on the Gold Coast. As round one beckons, the Tigers have already passed 65,000 members, a staggering number for a club that has seen barely five minutes of on-field sunshine. They have had an unusually quiet off-season, helped by the retirement of Jake King and Dustin Martin's decision to travel to the States with Dane Swan. Martin and Trent Cotchin have re-signed without fuss, and only Alex Rance's free-agent status threatens to become a story.
Collingwood and Carlton insiders will disagree, but both clubs are viewed as longish odds to make the eight. And though the Bombers have the personnel – especially down the spine – to play finals and progress further if all went swimmingly, this involves plenty of "ifs", starting with Tuesday's verdict.
While the Hawks can be relied upon to win games and influence premierships, their success, like Geelong's, has become de rigueur for those who don't follow them. Further success will please only their own, and it will not energise the competition. St Kilda, Melbourne and the Bulldogs, meanwhile, aren't expected to figure in finals and their playing lists still resemble building sites, with much scaffolding required before the fit-out (the Dogs, though, are half-way built).
North, which is fancied and a probable finalist, is another small market team, without the romance attached to the aforementioned Cinderellas.
Richmond is a rarity among the heavily supported clubs, in the sense that there is SOME romantic yearning for a yellow and black revival among neutral supporters. Their theatrical fans are themselves part of the show, too, in a similar vein to Collingwood's, without evoking the same hostility. Traditionally, the Tiger army has been characterised as mad as hell, ready to flood the airwaves or microwave the plastic membership card when the team fails. In reality, the club has been stable – probably more so than most Victorian teams – for several years, and fans have largely bought in to the patient Brendon Gale-Damien Hardwick program.
Richmond, in addition to its impressive membership and crowd numbers, has been ranked No.1 for most of the past two years for consumption of video on club websites. This column can vouch, too, for the interest that the Tigers generate, which isn't confined to Punt Road people, on the internet and in print.
"People consume Richmond footy club," said one club official. Once, the Tigers consumed mainly their own. Today, the administration headed by president Peggy O'Neal speaks more like a law firm. We have not seen a coach sacking at Tigerland since 2009, and even then it should be noted that Terry Wallace, like Danny Frawley before him, lasted into a fifth season. Over summer, the Tigers did not make news much, which is un-Richmond like. If they win regularly, though, they will soon be front and centre of the footy universe again, very big news and glad tidings for a battered competition.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/why-the-game-needs-the-tigers-roaring-20150328-1ma068.html
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I liked it better when there were mass sackings and emotively charged decisions.
Now that only appears on this forum like the ghosts of the 80's haunt the site.
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Stuff the afl.
Richmond owes the good of the game nothing. The stuff of the game has been against us for too long with expansion clubs amongst other imbalances.
Any success is for the club and its fans and the rest can GAGF.
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there is SOME romantic yearning for a yellow and black revival among neutral supporters
:facepalm
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Stuff the afl.
Richmond owes the good of the game nothing. The stuff of the game has been against us for too long with expansion clubs amongst other imbalances.
Any success is for the club and its fans and the rest can GAGF.
Exactly everyone laugh and kick us then wind us up when we are down then ride the gravy train when we are up. Fornicators.
Success for yellow and black is for those that bleed yellow and black. Us against them suits me fine.
Never truer words spoken Dooks. :cheers
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Every year this story goes to print.
Every year.
Goes to prove how stupid they think,you all are.
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Fairly contemptuous words for your fellow fans , thanks for the insult :police:
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You really need to work on your comprehension skills Bo....
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You really need to work on your comprehension skills Bo....
Setting yourself on a higher plane and labeling everyone else stupid is contemptuous partner in every way shape and form
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You really need to work on your comprehension skills Bo....
Setting yourself on a higher plane and labeling everyone else stupid is contemptuous partner in every way shape and form
Except Oxx was saying it was the media who think we're stupid, not him....although he probably does too....but again, that's not actually what he said on this occassion.
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His choice of 'you all are' as opposed to 'we all are' was what BO is referring to, and it did come off as arrogant. Nothing out of the ordinary for Ox though.
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Ty for understanding,
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You really need to work on your comprehension skills Bo....
Setting yourself on a higher plane and labeling everyone else stupid is contemptuous partner in every way shape and form
No higher plane.
Your interpretation.
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You really need to work on your comprehension skills Bo....
Setting yourself on a higher plane and labeling everyone else stupid is contemptuous partner in every way shape and form
Except Oxx was saying it was the media who think we're stupid, not him....although he probably does too....but again, that's not actually what he said on this occassion.
How could I think u were stupid.
I'm here too.
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these puff pieces worked back in the 90's when the term sleeping giant was bandied around and we used to get firm reading it, now we see it for what it is, just BS reverse trolling - they're having a laff
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You really need to work on your comprehension skills Bo....
Setting yourself on a higher plane and labeling everyone else stupid is contemptuous partner in every way shape and form
No higher plane.
Your interpretation.
As long as you re one of us then , we re all in it together :shh
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Richmond sells papers, attracts eyeballs to the TV screen and drags people through the gate. Nothing new there. A winning Tiger side just magnifies all these things to levels other clubs can't generate. I remember Craig Cameron saying at a fan forum a couple of years ago that the AFL saw the RFC as having the greatest growth potential. Not only as a club (members etc) but also in terms of the sport itself of any of the existing non-expansion clubs.
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Richmond are doing a great job at propping up the AFL's expansion teams until they succeed.
I really hope we manage to pinch one in the next year or so, because it's going to get a lot harder for our footy club to win one with the AFLs invested interest elsewhere. :-\
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You really need to work on your comprehension skills Bo....
Setting yourself on a higher plane and labeling everyone else stupid is contemptuous partner in every way shape and form
Except Oxx was saying it was the media who think we're stupid, not him....although he probably does too....but again, that's not actually what he said on this occassion.
How could I think u were stupid.
I'm here too.
:rollin
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I'd rather everybody stuffing hated us again.
Romantic yearning from neutral supporters means we are the biggest b!tches of the AFL basically.
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I'd rather everybody stuffing hated us again.
Romantic yearning from neutral supporters means we are the biggest b!tches of the AFL basically.
x 21000
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there is SOME romantic yearning for a yellow and black revival among neutral supporters
:facepalm
Yeah and pigs fly.
Every club will be hunting us this year like we've won two grannys like the poo and wee.