Round one's hill of beansTim Lane
The Age
April 1, 2012
The dejected Richmond team leaves the ground after the 44-point loss to Carlton. Photo: Pat Scala
IF IT'S true for footy fans that hope is what kills you, the opening round of a new season can quickly restore health. It takes only three hours of therapy. Otherwise perfectly sane adults, wooed during the pre-season into a state of wild delusion, are suddenly jolted by defeat to the realisation of their folly. Life, in all its beige normality, quickly resumes.
This weekend, the majority of these tormented souls are wearing yellow and black. The Tigers had the BBQ sizzling so loudly for a couple of weeks that something genuinely succulent was thought to be in the offing. The lingering aroma of feasts past seemed to be wafting from the hotplate. But on the long-awaited night the gas ran out. There was a brief splutter, but very few well-cooked sausages were produced and the fans went home hungry.
Not quite as deflating as the 83-point loss in the Ben Cousins game three years earlier but, with a team now spoken of as ready to play finals, genuinely disappointing. The Tigers had done a rare thing in modern sport by allowing themselves to be talked up. In truth, it made a refreshing change from the now predictable and often ludicrous scramble to be the underdog. But in the aftermath, the reason for such desperate avoidance of overdog status was clear.
The risk in doing as the Tigers had is that you become football's version of those Moomba birdmen who hubristically step out with all sorts of intricate and gaudy wings, only to crash lead-balloon-like into the Yarra on takeoff. And in defence of that lot, none has ever claimed to be Orville Wright.
The Blues have now beaten the Tigers on the last eight occasions they've met, four of Richmond's losses coming in the high-profile opening round match. It's the longest streak either has achieved against the other since Carlton won their first 24 encounters on Richmond's entry to the VFL. Tiger fans might find themselves paraphrasing Humphrey Bogart: of all the blockbusters, against all the rivals, in all the world, why did we walk into this one now?
Of course, trying to explain rationally to dejected fans that it's only one game in one season is never a good idea; but the temptation is strong. The deflation of the Tigers on Thursday night caused me to recall a round-one cameo witnessed in my first full season broadcasting VFL footy.
I'd been assigned the Windy Hill fixture between Essendon and North Melbourne on opening day, 1980. The Ron Barassi-coached Kangaroos had been the benchmark of the previous six seasons, playing in six straight grand finals (including a draw in '77) before slipping to third in 1979. Clearly, though, the Roos remained a heavyweight.
Barry Davis was now in his third season as Essendon's coach, having captained North to its first flag five years earlier. The Baby Bombers, Mark I, had reached the elimination final the previous year. Although they had been soundly thrashed by Fitzroy, the genie of hope was out of the bottle. At the dawn of a new season, a clash with the Kangaroos, at home, was the perfect opportunity for a team with aspirations.
The young Bombers flunked the test. Their more experienced opponent opened a narrow gap early, skipped away in the third quarter, and withstood a challenge in the last. It wasn't a big defeat for the Dons but enough to reveal that young Madden, Van Der Haar, Watson and co still had a way to go.
As I hurried down Brewster Street after the game to head back for ABC-TV's Saturday night footy panel show, I came up behind a mum with her son, who was perhaps just entering his teenage years. He was wearing a black duffle coat with splashes of red - memory suggests with Tim Watson's No. 32 on the back - and the part of the conversation I heard was brief but telltale. The mum's tone was knowing but frustrated, warning her boy: ''It's gonna be the same old story this year as last, and the one before that. We're just not good enough!''
Yep, it was over. And it was. A check of the history book tells me North won by 13 points: 15.10.100 to 12.15.87. Not much in it and the Bombers had more scoring shots, but this mum knew her footy and her Bombers. They fell well short of the finals that year, as she knew full well they would after one game.
The next year, though, things started to change. A bloke named Sheedy arrived at Windy Hill and, after a chequered start, the Bombers strung together 15 straight wins. A new era had begun. No one could have imagined it would last 27 years. I hope the mum and her boy stuck around for it.
Indeed, I'm sure they did: she had fair-dinkum-fan written on her as unmistakably as the ''Watson'' on her son's duffle coat. The Tigers have plenty of those fans too.
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