Astbury, the not-so-Dusty TigerMichael Gleeson
The Age
26 September 2019Astbury ended up in hospital on a drip the night before the game. No one knew.
In the preliminary final both Martin and Astbury played despite what soon became clear were physical limitations. The illness to Astbury was every bit as important in impact as the Martin corkie.
“To be honest, we are still not really sure what it was but it was really debilitating, it was some sort of bacterial infection. It came on me really quickly, after training during the week it presented itself and I thought, 'Oh, this will knock me about for a day.' But then it just hung on,” Astbury recalled.
“It was really tough. I thought, 'What are the chances of this coming on now?' I have been stung by a stingray in the bay and done all sorts of stuff. Luck has typically not been on my side so I just put it down to that.”
Indeed it has not. Astbury played 17 games in his first season then a combined 24 games over the next five years. He despaired and seriously contemplated an offer to move to Brisbane in 2015.
“I was 24 and I wanted to be playing senior footy. I looked into the opportunity of going to Brisbane and I still had a year of a contract to run and there was all sorts of moving parts to the football club at that stage – we had just lost another elimination final and they were looking to get something moving. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as they say,” Astbury said.
“I was thinking if I went I would be doing it for the wrong reasons. I wanted to be good enough and I had to back myself that I would be good enough to do it here.
“It just takes emotional toll on you, being injured. There were different stages when I thought I am not really built to do this but I was just going to hang on for as long as my body could and now I am glad I did because now my body feels great.”
During a season when so many key Richmond players have been injured, Astbury has played most games. He missed a few with a tight hamstring - one week of which meant the Tigers were without nine of their top 13 from last year’s best and fairest. But save for Alex Rance being out, their back line has been consistent.
“I think we have got a really good mix in the back line that will serve us well. They [Greater Western Sydney] have a really challenging front six but I remember when we played Adelaide in 2017, they were considered the best forward line in the AFL," said Astbury, leaving unstated the additional line that Richmond beat them.
"The GWS guys definitely aren’t too far away from that," he said.
Astbury and Dylan Grimes' synergy has been fundamental to Richmond holding their season together and being back in the grand final.
The pair have a strong connection off the field; Astbury is off a farm in western Victoria and has bought a 20-hectare property near there where he runs cattle and Grimes has bought a vineyard at Mount Macedon.
"Grimesy spends more time on the phone with my old man than I do, which is funny. They have a funny relationship - they stir each other up but it doesn't take much of an excuse for them to get on the phone to each other," he said.
The vineyard and Grimes' role as manager has been the source of constant amusement to Tigers players.
"He is really passionate and really forward with the people he gets on-site to work for him. He has had a few disputes and we love them here at the footy club, we have to hear about them,'' Astbury said.
"He understands now he is running a business and he has to be hard on people at times. I thought he might struggle because he is such a nice guy and initially he was like that, but now he goes looking for opportunities to give someone a barrel.
"You will just see him, he throws his AirPods in, which is pretty floggish, and you can see him animated about something and it has clearly got something to do with the winery."
Astbury leads the charge of players needling Grimes about his regular blow-ups but former coach and now Essendon senior coach-in-waiting Ben Rutten still gets involved.
The regular source of amusement for Rutten is to find any funny vision of Grimes - such as his recent staging for a free kick when he flopped to the ground - and turning it into a GIF and putting it on the group chat.
"Anything we want to stir him up with goes straight into the group. He definitely copped it over that, but he reckons it was the best $1000 he ever spent because of the free kick," Astbury said.
"The best thing about him is he is the first person to poke fun at himself. He knows exactly how intense he is being at times in those conversations so it's good to get a rise out of him."
Intense but able to have a laugh at themselves might be the motto of the Richmond back line.
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/astbury-the-not-so-dusty-tiger-20190924-p52uir.html
