This Tigers tale will have a happy ending ... if onlyHerald-Sun
March 24, 2016LAST September, in Richmond’s elimination final, umpire Brett Rosebury did not award a final quarter free kick against North’s Ben Cunnington. Rosebury missed the obvious: any Tigers fan could see that Cunnington’s was the biggest drop since Hiroshima.
North Melbourne was besting Richmond by that late stage, but the Tigers had bustled back to within five points. After the umpire’s oversight, a certain goal for Richmond instead became a quick goal to North Melbourne.
Here was the “if only” moment. Modern Richmond fans don’t celebrate premierships and highlight reels. We get by on “if onlys”. Two seasons ago, Richmond fended off Sydney in the final round of the season. It was a ninth win in a row and launched an unexpected finals berth.
This writer, alongside club chief executive Brendon Gale in the stand, shared an exchange of grunts and odd callisthenics moves in those dying seconds. The victory was supposed to undo decades of hurt — if only we had resisted the merry charge of Port Adelaide the following week.
Richmond training at Punt Road. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin
Nineteen seasons ago, again in the final round, Richmond marauded against Carlton. The paddock rocked with bandages, bumps and blood. Record books show a 42-point deficit being unpicked. The win meant little to Richmond, but cost Carlton a finals place, which then (as now) probably warranted its own trophy. If only the Tigers had not tripped their finals hopes with inexplicable loss in the weeks before.
Richmond has had many superior spurts since its last Grand Final appearance in 1982. None count in the greater AFL historical ledger. They are asides to a bigger narrative as with war, sports pages are dictated by the victor.
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Richmond has not won a flag since 1980, when this fan was a tad older than his own son now. One of this fan’s closest friends, who barracks for Hawthorn, has won nine times during the same period.
Richmond fans are generally cursed with mates, such as that Hawk fan, who speak of the Richmond sickness. They scoff at a Tiger tendency for extreme optimism that they say heightens the masochism.
Richmond is a badge of endurance, an annual marathon in lost patience and midfield finishes. So many of its fans have not buzzed with Grand Final nerves, not since childhood anyway, when winning was common and losing was overcome with a few games of table tennis. Since then, we have been routinely reduced to the status of displaced observers. We are the footballing farmers who never yield a bumper crop. We sow our seeds before each winter, hoping for the best and expecting another year of famine. We may not believe in Easter bunnies or Grand Final appearances any more, but we are hardened to a few truths, among them the absolute need to beat Carlton every time.
There have been shifts in recent years. Richmond won 15 of 22 matches last year, including a stout win over Hawthorn (which would count for little). “Fourthorn, you mean?” a Hawthorn fan replied this week to an inquiry about his team’s upcoming season.
Richmond faces its own four-in-a-row this year. The club has not won a finals game since 2001 — happily, against Carlton. For the past three years, we have been dispatched from the finals in the first week. We have played as though we did not belong.
Richmond coach Damien Hardwick. Picture: Wayne Ludbey
Yet suffering is relative. Richmond used to contrive to finish ninth. These “if only” years steered attitudes to other aspects of life. Plane upgrades, say, and the “knowledge” that they went only to other people. Quadrellas that missed by a bob of the head.
Luck was for others.
In the doldrums of late last millennium, Richmond was often confused with some backyard do-it-yourself project. People took turns knocking it down and starting over. But there is solidity today. It helps that coach Damien Hardwick forgets that football people are not supposed to smile.
Not long ago, the closest Grand Final seemed as close — or far — as a time machine. To an era before many Tiger fans were born, and on-field legends who now tackle seniors cards. Yet most pundits expect the Tigers to make the finals again this year.
Eighth seemed beyond reach only two or three prime ministers ago. Things change. Not nearly as drastically at Punt Rd as Canberra, perhaps, but enough to tilt expectations. The hope grows that this fan’s son will not inherit his father’s shadow, that he can look forward rather than back.
For now, two weeks of finals — or heavens, even three weeks or four — seems almost greedy, but not as silly as it once did.
A decent season, as is now customary. Then an honest September showing.
Hmmm. If only ...
PATRICK CARLYON IS A HERALD SUN COLUMNISThttp://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/this-tigers-tale-will-have-a-happy-ending--if-only/news-story/606e466281faf7095ad881bd7a24a5ee
