Dustin Martin delivers on-field menace to take Richmond into contention Craig Little
The Guardian
3 July 2017Do the 2016 Western Bulldogs help sell the possibility of 2017 Richmond? In last year’s corresponding round, the Bulldogs beat the Swans in Sydney and the fairytale didn’t seem like such a fiction. And after an imposing second half from Dustin Martin that led to a win away against Port Adelaide jolted Richmond into the top four, the question is at the very least worth entertaining.
Which is more than can be said of the first quarter of Saturday night’s game, which was so bleak it seemed to come from another time. Hardly the stuff that September dreams are built on. As the game wound on to time-on in the third quarter, Robbie Gray extended the Power’s lead to 16-points and it appeared the game would dissolve into a predictable Port Adelaide win. But Richmond, who have made a sport of squandering the type of lead the Power enjoyed, this time played with a will to win, as opposed to a hope-in-hell-we-don’t-lose-this panic. And it was led by the singular hell-bentness of Dustin Martin.
From time to time in Dustin Martin’s eight-year career, he has had one or two indiscretions, be it sleeping pills or chopsticks. Football has its myths, and the myth surrounding the heavily tattooed Martin has long been tinged with menace. This myth, and the acid gossip that surrounds it, was in focus towards the end of 2013 when Martin less than discretely tested the market and couldn’t find a buyer despite finishing second in the Tigers’ best-and-fairest. This year Martin will explore his free agency options and the multi-million dollar offers that come his way will be harder to fend off than the hapless Port Adelaide defenders who were on the end of his AFL-record eight broken tackles on Saturday night. Put simply, Martin could simply not have been beaten, even if Sam Powell-Pepper was handed a baseball bat. Despite the pre-game chorus, Martin simply tore them apart.
Outside of Martin, Richmond’s win was impressive for his supporting cast. With quiet nights by Alex Rance, Trent Cotchin and Jack Riewoldt, it was Toby Nankervis, Brandon Ellis and Dan Butler who stood up. The latter may have only had five kicks, but two of them were important last quarter goals that maintained the Tigers’ momentum.
With just eight weeks of an unpredictable season remaining, momentum is as crucial as it is hard to find. But the Sydney Swans have found it. After staring the year 0-6, the Swans have won seven of their last eight, a feat unmatched by any of the competition’s other 17 clubs. But few of those wins were as impressive as Friday night’s 35-point win over Melbourne.
As imposing as the Swans were, again lead by the consistent Josh Kennedy who now owns the league record for consecutive games of 20 or more possessions, the game’s defining act occurred little more than four minutes in when Callum Mills got his clock cleaned by Tomus Bugg.
Bugg is the present day footballer that perhaps best represents the 21st century vogue for self-expression. He peacocks after scoring goals, playfully taunts opponents on Instagram and has been the subject of graffiti art in Melbourne’s Hosier Lane. But this week he’ll be the subject of a tribunal hearing on his behind the play, left-handed jab to Mills’ jaw – a blunt disavowal of his own charm that was eloquently described by Swan Luke Parker as a “dog act”.
Bugg admitted to the Seven Network after the game that he had seen the footage and “it really does look bad”. That Mills missed the remainder of the game with concussion and a jaw the colour of bad weather suggests it was a little more than poor optics, and a dark stain on what was otherwise another remarkable round in a season where logic has stepped inside a poorly cooped barrel and pitched itself off Niagara Falls.
On Sunday, a young, skipper-less Brisbane side kicked six of the last seven goals to come from 27-points down, away from home, to beat Essendon by eight points. Dane Zorko resumed normal transmission with 30 possessions and two goals after a quiet game last week, but it was the future of the Lions that was also on show to give Lions fans cause for enthusiasm. Alex Witherden looked like the pure concentrate of class with 29 possessions, while Rising Star nominee Eric Hipwood kicked four goals.
“We’ll probably milk it for all it’s worth this week,” said Lions coach Chris Fagan. “But then we get on to the fact we face Geelong on Saturday night. The game sobers you up pretty quickly.”
And it was another sobering loss for Essendon, who, in a season where you can’t be assured of your position from one week to the next, have fallen from eighth to 11th in the past two weeks. Just one win and one place above Essendon are the reigning premiers who also lost at Etihad Stadium to a skipper-less team from interstate. And while coach Luke Beveridge is reluctant to question his players’ hunger, their last month has resembled a team going through the motions like a washed up rock band reprising their greatest hits at a half-empty basketball stadium.
While the Bulldogs’ chances of repeating their premiership are slim, you’d be dumb as a box of sand to write anything off in a season such as this.
And this week delivered yet again. We haven’t even got to Hawthorn calling time on Collingwood’s finals hopes, and the first draw since 2015 – between two of this year’s premiership threats no less. And then there’s St Kilda’s win in the west despite six goals from Fremantle’s Michael Walters in one of the all-time great games by a small forward, and Gary Ablett Junior’s 37 possessions in his 300th, although Ablett’s brilliance is something of which we all know. No need to waste words. Particularly when so much of the script for the 2017 season remains unwritten.
Round 15 was yet another reminder of the chaos and noise from which the season’s elusive plot will evolve. It may just be the one year where Richmond winning the whole thing, after not being able to win a final for 16 years, makes any sort of sense.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jul/03/dustin-martin-delivers-on-field-menace-to-take-richmond-into-contention
