Richardson, Tigers' shining light
Jake Niall | March 20, 2008 | The Age
MATTHEW Richardson enters tonight's game in the same position he occupied as a 20-year-old in 1995, and we're not talking about where he stood on the field in his callow youth. For the 14th consecutive season, Richo is the Richmond Football Club's premier player.
Richardson has been the best player at his club for longer than any player in the game's recent history. He's been the standout at his tragic club for longer than any player has been the lone star since Bob Skilton at South Melbourne; for longer than Nathan Buckley was the anchor at Collingwood, for longer than James Hird was the balletic best of the Bombers or Wayne Carey was the Alpha Male at Arden Street.
Leigh Matthews, almost universally recognised as one of the top two or three players in the game's history, was not the principal player at Hawthorn for as many years as Richo has been the misfiring top gun at Tigerland.
Matthews began his career with an ungainly fellow called Peter Hudson, who booted 150 goals in 1971, and ended it alongside Dermott Brereton and other superstars: he was numero uno at Glenferrie "only" from 1972 or '73 until 1983 at the outside — three or four years shy of Richo's reign.
Richardson's status at Tigerland is both a tribute to him and a stunning indictment on his club. While the numbers are outstanding — 743 goals at a tick under three a game — Richo is not in the league of Carey, Matthews, Hird, Buckley or Skilton, who won three Brownlows and nine South best and fairests in his 15 seasons as the lonely Lakeside Oval champion.
Richo is a club great, not an all-time champion of the game, and a flawed superstar, whose extraordinary marking talent has been offset by his famous flaws, such as disposal and his — understandable — tendency to become exasperated on the field.
He once told me he understood the frustrations of Richmond supporters because he's one of them, and, watching the misdirected ball bounce before his feet, one can hardly blame him for losing it.
If a player is his club's best for 14 or 15 years, one would expect him to be among the absolute top shelf in football history. That Richo isn't says more about his club's shortcomings than his own.
Robert Flower, actually, comes closest to matching Richo's dubious record of being the beacon at a hopeless club. Flower debuted in 1973, and was the best of a terrible lot from around 1975 or '76. He remained numero uno at Melbourne until 1985 or '86; by the time the Demons were decent, in his final season, he'd been eclipsed by their next star, Garry Lyon.
Richardson's position as the top player at Richmond over that period is not a statement of fact, but most Richmond supporters — and a sizeable body of past and present insiders — reckon he's been the first picked for those 14 years; indeed, it's arguable that he was the Tigers' best player in 1994, when he booted 56 goals to win the first of his 12 goalkicking titles.
At different stages in Richo's career, Wayne Campbell, Joel Bowden and — all too briefly — Nathan Brown might have been contenders for his unofficial throne.
Campbell won four best and fairests, a reflection of the bias against forwards. Richo did not win the Jack Dyer Medal until 2007, which appeared to some of us like the Academy handing a 76-year-old Henry Fonda his only Oscar for best actor.
Danny Frawley, Richardson's coach from 1999 until 2004, is among those who concurs with the view that the Tasmanian Tiger and son of ex-Richmond premiership player Alan "Bull" Richardson has been the uninterrupted best player at Richmond from 1995 to now.
Frawley thought Richmond had kicked to Richo too often, observing that it seemed that they booted it to him even more than his Saints directed the ball at Tony Lockett. "Richo desperately needed someone to take the pressure off him," said Frawley, noting that only in 2001, when the Tigers last played finals, had Richardson been complemented by another potent tall target, Brad Ottens (46 goals that year).
Hopefully for the sake of Richmond and its tragi-comic prince Richo, Brett Deledio or Nathan Foley — or another unforseen boy wonder — will surge past and grab the baton from Richardson this year.
Otherwise, let's hope Richo plays until he's 40, giving himself a reasonable shot at success and the rest of us the joy of watching his performance art.
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