Small Roos run Tigers ragged
Len Johnson | March 31, 2008
FOR all the talk of the interchange bench, the highest rotation rate early in yesterday's game between Richmond and North Melbourne was achieved by the Tiger defence on Corey Jones.
By quarter-time, Jones had seen four opponents, one for each goal he had scored. He had contributed 26 points.
North led by 27 and would never be in serious scoreboard trouble all day thereafter. At the final siren, he had seven goals and North had won by 39.
Although the Kangaroos boasted two tall forwards in Nathan Thompson and Aaron Edwards, it was the contribution of their more mobile teammates that Richmond was unable to contain.
Sixteen of their 20 goals came from their medium and small forwards — seven to Jones, four to Shannon Grant, three to Matt Campbell and one to Lindsay Thomas. Thompson and Edwards got two apiece to make up the other four, though their looming presence undoubtedly allowed North to enjoy the benefits of a direct approach to goal.
Richmond, too, had two marking targets in Matthew Richardson, who kicked two goals, and Jay Schulz, three. But they played too predictably, too often to them, especially to Richardson.
When consecutive goals to Schulz, Chris Hyde and Cleve Hughes early in the last quarter narrowed the gap to 28 points and opened up at least the possibility of a late surge, the next few attacks foundered as the ball was played in right onto the heads of the two talls.
North was never going to lose this match, but it will have been something of a worry to Dean Laidley following last week's 82-point turnaround to lose to Essendon that his side showed a worrying inability to put away a beaten opponent.
Daniel Wells, whose performance against Essendon was widely criticised, started the game on a wing and set up both Jones' first two goals.
He received a handball from Daniel Harris in traffic, weaved his way clear, had a bounce and then passed to the forward's lead for the first goal, then again took the ball wide to the members' flank before chipping a perfectly weighted pass into Jones' path for the second.
Edwards and Grant soon added further goals as the Roos started to look ominous.
Richmond hung in with three goals straight, the first a free kick to Troy Simmonds, the second to Richardson with the assistance of a 50-metre penalty for an off-the-ball incident, and the third when Nathan Foley, the third Tiger to confront a gift horse of a loose ball at centre half-forward, did the obvious by picking it up and kicking straight.
Jones was not done yet, however. He got his third from a free kick, ran onto a spill for his fourth and then when Adam Simpson snapped another, North led by 27 points and the game was pretty much over.
By this stage, Jones had had Andrew Raines, Jake King, Schulz and Kelvin Moore as opponents and none had been able to lay a hand on him.
Things got no better for the hapless King, the talisman in Richmond's first-round win over Carlton, as he had Grant in the second term when the former Norm Smith medallist kicked three more.
At least King kept buttering up all afternoon, kicking a goal in the third term and running himself ragged all over the ground. Moore, too, was one of the Tigers' better players and had greater success on Jones than anyone.
Richmond made some ground in the second term, during which Edwards had his number taken for an apparent charge into Raines in a marking contest. After North led by 33 points, successive goals to Schulz and Deledio brought the margin back to 19. But Daniel Pratt spun through a Chris Newman tackle in the centre of the ground and his kick was marked by Grant for the North man's third goal of the term and the Kangaroos snuffed out Richmond's run to lead by 24 at half-time. Seven goals to three in the third term, during which Raines limped off with a knee injury, seemed to settle the issue. And, a few anxious moments in the first half of the final term apart, it had.
THE UPSHOT The Kangaroos — with Corey Jones fit — are a better outfit than the one that lost to Essendon last week.
TALKING POINT Where to play Brett Deledio? He started half-forward and saw little of the footy. In the second half he went to a back flank and through the middle and saw a lot of it.
HOT AND COLD Corey Jones had four goals in the first quarter Shanon Grant three in the second. Poor Jake King had both of them on him for many of their goals.
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