Scoreboards start ticking over as premier sets the paceRohan Connolly
The New Daily
2 July 2018It was a weekend that saw some significant results, and when it was all done, some significant movement on the AFL ladder.
Top team Richmond cleared out by a game from its pursuers. Collingwood, which only six weeks ago was outside the eight, now found itself second. Greater Western Sydney climbed from 10th to sixth with a fourth win in a row. And Melbourne, which was third after six victories on end, was now in the eight on percentage only after a third straight loss.
The biggest story, however, wasn’t so much about this team or that, but the fortunes of the game as a whole. Because after being seemingly trapped in the doldrums for much of the 2018 season, round 15 was the weekend football hit back. And it did so spectacularly.
More open, flowing play? Tick. Drama? Tick. Closer contests? Tick. And higher scores? A very big tick.
The stakes were high when the top two teams on the ladder faced off last Thursday night, but Richmond and Sydney were still prepared to risk in order to receive, and to attempt to win more than attempt not to lose.
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But what the weekend action did at least provide was a salient reminder of how good the game can be.
And in a more immediate sense, perhaps it also reminded us that however changeable is the balance of AFL power these days, in 2018 the reigning premier is still nonetheless going to take some toppling.
Richmond’s win over Sydney came in the end by 26 points, but it was the way the Tigers closed out the game and repressed the Swans’ challenge which spoke more than the margin.
The Tigers see off potential danger better than any of their rivals. When Lance Franklin goalled only 45 seconds into the final term, it was just four points the difference, the Swans having kicked their third goal in a row and with all the momentum.
It would be their last score for the game, Richmond re-asserting its authority in 10 minutes of arm-wrestle before settling the matter with the final three goals (3.4 in total) to win going away.
Defeat saw Sydney surrender second position, at least temporarily, to Collingwood, whom the Tigers take on in round 19.
Are the Pies really the second-best team in the competition? You couldn’t say definitively they’re not. But they will want to have improve a fair bit on what they served up to Richmond back in round six, when a 43-point defeat was curiously seen by some observers as some sort of moral Magpie victory.
That round 19 clash will be the start of a run of four MCG games in five for the Tigers leading into the finals, as good a preparation as you can get. Indeed, if Richmond does go back-to-back, it’s almost certainly going to be having played seven of their last eight games on their beloved home turf.
What the ever-diminishing band of naysayers continue to ignore when it comes to Richmond, however, is that its much-vaunted pressure game is only as effective as its ability to capitalise upon that labour in scoreboard terms. And the Tigers do that better than just about anyone, too.
That final finishing touch to the premiership product of 2017 was first applied in the lead-in to last September. Including finals, the Tigers topped 100 points in four of their last five games, after having done it only four times in their first 20.
They did it again eight times in the first 11 games this season, too. That’s a dozen times in 16 games. And given a current AFL scoring average of just over 83 points per team, they are tallies that are going to give you a win every time.
No surprise then that while sitting atop the ladder, the Tigers, in addition to their renowned pressure, tackling and stingy defence, are also second for scoring. And who’s to say they aren’t also a potential explanation for the game opening up?
No opponent has been able to best them defensively. Was this sudden rush of scoring an acknowledgement by the rest of the competition that it has to find another, more offensive way? One thing’s for sure. We’re in for an entertaining second half of the season if that proves the case.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/sport/afl/2018/07/02/afl-round-15-rohan-connolly/
