High priceBy Ashley Browne
1:47 PM Mon 30 May, 2011RICHMOND’S announcement last year that it would play a home game at Darwin’s TIO Stadium was drew little fanfare and less fuss.
Taking the AFL game to a developing market while helping the club's all-important bottom line? Who could argue with that?
Fast forward to the game itself. Never mind the power failure that caused the floodlights to dim just before the game and that nearly caused the game’s postponement, the most damage on the night was caused to Richmond, which lost to Port Adelaide by 15 points.
Had the Richmond home game been played at the MCG, it is hard to imagine the Tigers dropping the points. The Tigers have been good at their ‘true’ home ground for much of the season and with 40,000 fans in full voice, they would have rammed that advantage home against an opponent down on form and confidence, and without a win at the MCG since round 4, 2009.
Now they’re out of the eight and in the midst of what will become a logjam for positions in the lower half of the finals race, along with Fremantle, Sydney, Melbourne, the Western Bulldogs and the suddenly resurgent St Kilda.
If the Tigers fall short at the end of the season, be it for a home final in the opening week of the finals (not so likely) or the finals themselves (a bit more likely), moving a home game to Darwin, and then losing, will be offered up as a key reason why.
It has happened before. Melbourne ‘sold’ a home game to the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba every year between 2001 and 2007, and the effect it had on both clubs in some of those years was quite dramatic.
2001: The Brisbane Lions beat Melbourne by 49 points. The Lions finished second that year, earning a home qualifying final against Port Adelaide, which they won. Had the clash with Melbourne been at the MCG and the Demons had won, then Port would have hosted that first final and the Lions might not have won, making their path to the Grand Final all the more difficult. The Demons, with one more win to their name, would have been right in the mix for a finals berth.
2004: The Lions enjoyed a comfortable 40-point win over Melbourne at the Gabba in round 10. But the Demons were 7-2 at the time and flying. They would nearly have won it at the MCG. The net effect was that the Demons finished a game out of fourth (and the double chance) and were bundled out of the finals in the opening week by Essendon amid cries of protest towards the club’s administration by Melbourne supporters.
But the biggest loser out of the switch that year might have been St Kilda, which finished third - equal on points with the Lions but 10 percentage points behind. The Saints were belted by the Lions at the Gabba in the qualifying final. But had they the luxury of a home game in week one, they may have won through to a home preliminary final, where the odds of making the Grand Final, in what was a very even season, would have been greatly enhanced.
Granted, there are lots of ifs, buts and maybes in any discussion about what the results of games might have been had the venues not been switched. But while Port Adelaide hasn’t been overly successful at TIO Stadium (with three wins from seven encounters) it is familiar with the venue and the tropical environment and this gave it a tremendous advantage against the Tigers, who were visiting for the first time.
Take away the black shorts and it was an away game for the Tigers in every other respect and as we know, developing teams struggle to win on the road.
Heaven help the Tiger administration if they drop their other transplanted home game, against Gold Coast in Cairns in round 17.
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