TIGERS ARE THE AFL’S VILLAINS, AND THAT’S A GOOD THINGOctober 12, 2020
by MAX LAUGHTON AND BEN WATERWORTH
FOX SPORTSJust three years ago, the story was simple.
It wasn’t as if Adelaide was some superpowered villain, yet most neutral observers came out of the 2017 Grand Final happy for Richmond’s win.
Though it wasn’t a glorious underdog story to the extent of the 2016 Bulldogs, it was still a club finally reaching the pinnacle after decades of pain and starvation from success. You could feel happy for the Tiger Army, finally getting to celebrate a flag after 37 years without one.
But as everyone who’s lived through 2020 knows, a year is a long time. So three years is an eternity.
In those three years, the Tigers have won and won and won some more. With two more victories they’ll become a dynasty - just the ninth team in VFL/AFL history to win three premierships in four years.
And the price of becoming a dynasty is becoming hated.
We see it across the sporting world. The New York Yankees of the late ‘90s became a behemoth. The New England Patriots, led by Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, went from a laughing stock to making nine Super Bowls in 19 years.
In perhaps the most recent and apt comparison, the Golden State Warriors went from years of failure, to beloved, to a team almost everyone was happy to see not make the Finals for once.
So it’s natural for most footy fans to be rooting for teams other than Richmond over the next fortnight. A Brisbane flag would be well received. A Port Adelaide flag too. Even most would agree a Geelong flag would give Gary Ablett a fitting ending - though the Cats’ omnipresence at the top of the ladder means they’d still prefer someone else.
But the truly great dynasties have something extra.
With the Yankees, it was spending millions more than anyone else. With the Patriots, it was the infamous ‘Spygate’ cheating scandal (to name just one). With the Warriors, it was adding Kevin Durant to an already star-studded group.
With the Tigers, it’s what they call “playing on the edge”. It’s what others would call “over-aggression” and becoming “really unlikeable”.
The somewhat unfortunate poster boy for Richmond’s aggression is Tom Lynch, who - as we’re reminded every time he does something wrong - is a lovely guy, and relatively quiet off the field.
Lynch fined for knee incidentLynch fined for knee incident1:05
But his knee drop to the neck of Dougal Howard during the semi-final win over St Kilda was his fifth Match Review incident this season.
In fact, it’s worse than that - the misconduct charge was his fifth incident in eight games, following misconduct against Brisbane’s Alex Witherden (Round 10), two striking fines against Gold Coast players (Round 12) and a Tribunal hearing for striking Michael Hurley (Round 13), of which he was cleared.
None of these incidents in a vacuum was worthy of a suspension. As a whole, they suggest a pattern of behaviour that is out of place in today’s game.
“They’re becoming very unlikeable, I’ll say that about Richmond,” Kane Cornes said on SEN’s Crunch Time.
“They wouldn’t care about that because all they care about is winning and they have the respect clearly but this year they’ve become a really unlikeable team.
“I thought what Trent Cotchin did to Zak Jones, that really dangerous, high sling tackle had more of a chance to cause injury than Tom Lynch’s knee on Dougal (Howard).
“They’ve been a really unlikeable team this year, they’ve been hard to watch at times.”
The Cotchin incident mentioned by Cornes was particularly odd. It was rough, and after the whistle, yet it didn’t warrant a free kick - primarily because it came seconds after the Tigers gave away a different free kick. It also wasn’t assessed by Match Review Officer Michael Christian.
So was it a serious, dangerous incident? Or not worth noting by any of the AFL authorities? We don’t have the answer. And perhaps the fact a Richmond player did it made it draw more attention than it otherwise would have.
That’s where the Tigers are now at. Because they’re successful, and because they’re playing on the edge, they’re inching towards pantomime villain status. They just need to twirl their moustaches a bit more.
And in a way, isn’t that a good thing? Any good story needs a bad guy, so it’s better for the viewers, and if the team is smart, it’s good for them too.
Richmond has very clearly embraced their status and taken an us-against-the-world mentality. It’s an added piece of motivation - which can sometimes be a question when you’ve been so good for so long.
Think of it this way, Tigers fans: wouldn’t this flag be extra sweet, because of the way everyone is acting towards your club?
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-finals-2020-semi-finals-analysis-talking-points-reaction-top-stories-richmond-being-hated-bradley-hill-trade-news-brad-crouch/news-story/01939100cbc9684392b8d2e762c56eda
