Richo on a goal roll
By Tony Greenberg
Wed 20 August, 2008
Richmond champion Matthew Richardson is poised to move ahead of two of the game’s greatest-ever “scoring machines” – Hawthorn’s Jason Dunstall and St Kilda’s Bill Mohr – on another elite AFL goalkicking list.
Richardson, with 46 goals after Round 20 of the 2008 season, will almost certainly win the Tigers’ Leading Goalkicker award for the 13th time. He’s currently 11 ahead of Nathan Brown on 35 goals and 15 ahead of Mitch Morton, who has 31.
A 13th goalkicking award at Tigerland would mean ‘Richo’ surpasses the 12 won by Dunstall and Mohr at their respective clubs.
Only champion Collingwood spearhead Gordon Coventry has won more Leading Goalkicker awards at the one club. Coventry did it 16 times (in-a-row) with the Magpies from 1922-37.
Tony Lockett achieved the feat 10 times at St Kilda and then a further five times with the Sydney Swans, while Doug Wade did it on 11 occasions at Geelong and then three times with North Melbourne.
Richo, one of the fancies for this year’s Brownlow Medal, following a superb season where he’s played a different role as a floating wingman, also is just 11 goals away from the 800-goal milestone, which only 10 players previously have reached in league football history.
An interesting sidelight to Richardson’s goalkicking exploits in 2008 is the fact that since he started his AFL career in 1993, only three times has Richmond had at least five players kick 20 goals or more in the same season.
Those seasons were:
1995
Nick Daffy: 45
Chris Naish: 42
Brendon Gale: 30
Matthew Richardson: 27
Stuart Edwards: 26
Stephen Jurica: 21
Team finished: 3rd
1996
Matthew Richardson: 91
Brendon Gale: 34
Chris Naish: 34
Nick Daffy: 28
Mark Merenda: 21
Team finished: 9th (with a percentage of 117.4)
2001
Matthew Richardson: 59
Brad Ottens: 46
Matthew Rogers: 30
Joel Bowden: 26
Rory Hilton: 24
Greg Tivendale: 21
Team finished: 3rd
After 20 rounds of the 2008 season:
Matthew Richardson: 46
Nathan Brown: 35
Mitch Morton: 31
Brett Deledio: 22
Jack Riewoldt: 16
Cleve Hughes: 12
Shane Edwards: 12
Troy Simmonds: 12
Richard Tambling: 10
Matthew White: 10
