World Cup a highlight of the Tigers’ season Patrick Smith
The Australian
June 27, 2014 THE ladder tells the story. Nothing much at all has gone well for Richmond this season. They sit in 16th spot and on 12 points along with Brisbane and St Kilda. If it wasn’t for the Essendon drugs saga and the World Cup it would have been a lot worse. Catastrophic.
The Tigers play St Kilda tomorrow in a match that will help influence which of the three duffer teams finish with the wooden spoon. For the Tigers that is a sorry scenario given they won 15 matches last year and were overawed in their only finals appearance. This season didn’t start well when adolescent Gold Coast Suns were 18 points too good for Richmond in round one. And it has just got more depressing every round since. Except for the World Cup.
That’s been a highlight of the Tigers’ season. Australia’s encouraging form has drawn much interest and plenty of headlines and social media traffic. Better still the Socceroos have taken up space and air time. Precious stuff. Special thanks, of course, to Tim Cahill and that very special goal.
And just when Australia’s campaign was all packed up, along came Luis “Snapper” Suarez to give commentators and spectators alike something to get their teeth into. Even Snapper’s explanation that his fangs had been assaulted by the shoulder of Italian Giorgio Chiellini proved a lovely, if not quaint, distraction. England flopping didn’t hurt either.
The distraction of the World Cup will evaporate in two weeks. Nonetheless, the Tigers’ season just gets better with James Hird’s determination to establish a world record for the number of court actions undertaken by one man. Add Essendon and their love of an injunction and it is a sweet time for Richmond.
It all starts today in the Federal Court. And it is shaping that it might not end for a couple of months. Might even stretch past the end of the home and away rounds. And, of course, former Essendon medicine man Stephen Dank — cue vision of Dank opening and shutting his front gate — has publicly vowed to wrestle from Hird the title of the nation’s most lawyered-up man. There is no end to it really.
All of this will continue to provide the Tigers, St Kilda and the Lions with shelter from dissection by the media. As it is, Richmond coach Damien Hardwick has had a taste of the burning scrutiny that stalks failure. And club president Peggy O’Neal has warned the club — and no doubt her own board — that they must remain wedded to their core plans and values.
Hardwick fronted up for his weekly news conference. As he waited for microphones and cameras to be set up he must have wondered what he could say this week that would be any different to last week. And the week before.
With everybody settled, Hardwick began the news conference. “Fire away,” he said. Without the World Cup and Essendon as cover, Hardwick may well have had to duck following such an inviting comment.
He responded to the same questions he has been required to answer for most of the season. With a twist. Somehow we ended up in the Himalayas. Saying the club had been expecting a slump at some stage, he said: “It’s a bit like climbing Everest. You go up one base camp you come down to the next and you have to go back up again. This (year) is a speed hump. We probably expected one at some stage. We’re disappointed with the extent of it this year,” Hardwick said.
You would have thought climbing the world’s highest mountain was hard enough and slow enough. To put speed humps along the way seems a tad unfair. But it does give new context to the term downhill skiers.
Hardwick singled out his best players and not his much maligned cache of tried players from other clubs for the disastrous season. He said they were role players who had not been supported by the club’s elite footballers.
“The reality is our best players haven’t played to the standard that is required of them,” Hardwick said. “First and foremost that is my responsibility to get the best out of those players and I haven’t been up to the task the last couple of weeks.” That is refreshingly honest for he is admitting he has failed to tease the best players back into form.
Maybe, too, the young players are not developing as expected. St Kilda has had two Rising Star nominations this year — Luke Dunstan and Jack Billings — while the Tigers have none and had only one the year before in Nick Vlastuin.
For all that, Hardwick has not failed Dustin Martin and Martin has not failed the coach. It was Martin’s 23rd birthday yesterday and his 100th game tomorrow. “He’s been terrific. He’s probably been close to our best player, if not (the best),’’ Hardwick said. “He has got areas of improvement in his game. He has got to improve his fitness. He knows that, but from our point of view we are really happy with what he brings to our team. Generally when the ball is in his hands, it’s a good thing, he can play and he can create some wonderful scoring opportunities for us,” Hardwick said.
The news conference ends without incident. That’s what happens when the Socceroos go to Brazil and Essendon goes to court.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/opinion/world-cup-a-highlight-of-the-tigers-season/story-e6frg7uo-1226968205819
