Richmond players and coaches lost Darwin game against Port Adelaide, not their marketing department By Gerard Healy
Herald Sun
May 30, 2011 1:00PMThe media reaction to the defeat at TIO Stadium has given the players the biggest alibi of the year. The excuse was that because they didn't wake up in their own bed, they fell to the Power. Port Adelaide, by the way, also slept in a Darwin hotel.
Yes, Port Adelaide have played there before, but a number of their players wouldn't have.
The Tigers were in front at quarter-time so any reference to venue, conditions or experience lacks credibility. Had they dished up the same workrate they produced after quarter-time at the MCG it would have also resulted in a loss.
The excuses made for Richmond also take away from one of the biggest wins in Matthew Primus's coaching career. He managed to turn a team, who have been a very sick and divided outfit over the last month into the cohesive single-minded group we saw on Saturday night.
Did Richmond cost themselves by selling a home game or pay the price for underestimating Port Adelaide? Have your say by leaving a comment below.
Port played for each other and were a far cry from the rabble that have represented the famous club in eight of the previous nine rounds this year. The spirit returned, the workrate returned.
Flying home from Adelaide last week, having watched Fremantle dismantle the Power while playing in second gear themselves, there seemed a very black picture of what was to come. I couldn't see them winning too many more games this year and wondered just how far down the easybeats path Port Adelaide were going to wander.
The Tigers obviously had similar thoughts, having just completed their best win of the year over a depleted Essendon. They fell for the biggest trap developing sides confront and that is not dealing well with your wins.
The hunger on display seven days earlier was obviously satiated by the back-slapping a win on the big stage brings.
To suggest that this loss was simply a function of the away 'home' game misses the point. The Tigers should have won whether they played at the MCG, AAMI Stadium, TIO Stadium or Kevin Sheedy's famous home venue, Mars.
Watch Gerard, Mike Sheahan and Paul Roos tackle Richmond and the big issues on Monday night On The Couch, 8.30pm (EST) on Fox Sports 1HD and Fox Sports 1.
Dealing with inequities in the draw is a fact of life in the AFL. Some sides travel 11 times, some sides travel 10 times, and yes Collingwood travel four. But so what.
Fifty per cent of flags since the inception of the AFL in 1990 have been won by sides outside of Melbourne that travel essentially every second week and have to win the grand final away from home at the MCG.
It's only a negative if you elect it to be a negative and given this game had no home crowd any travel inequity is greatly diminished.
Yes the Tigers gave up an opportunity to play in front of their home crowd, however, that's not a magic solution for winning as the previous decades have shown.
This was an opportunity lost by a side that may make the eight but won't if they continue to be distracted by their own successes along the way, a slippery ball in Darwin or an over-congratulatory press.
Selling home games is part and parcel of football for sides who haven't got the same financial resources as some. There are positives as well as negatives depending on how you view it.
Sheedy embraced the notion of taking the Bombers on tour to any part of the country in an attempt to build the brand of Essendon through the 1980s and 1990s. He saw the opportunity to make Essendon a national team with a national footprint. And not surprisingly their membership base grew exponentially, showing every other club in the competition the way.
He did so in the pre-season but Hawthorn have taken it a step further creating a new home in Tasmania that in part funded their success in 2008 and contributes largely to their burgeoning membership.
Richmond's financial position means that they, by necessity, need to pocket the $500,000 they received by playing in Darwin. It would also be linked to the hefty cheque written by the government to help fund the indigenous centre and club rooms, a major fillip for the football department.
The Darwin money contributes to football department spend that has a positive effect on results. That money contributes to recruiting department spend and medical department spend, that also have a positive effect on results.
So to sit back and read that the Tigers cost themselves four points because they decided to take advantage of an opportunity that Darwin presents lacks the vision that Kevin Sheedy embraced all those years ago and the associated positives that the money provides has on the overall football department that impacts on all games this year.
The Tigers may finish ninth and many in the media and no doubt some of their supporters may look for an excuse that Darwin presents as to why they're not playing finals.
But Damien Hardwick, one of Sheedy's pupils, won't. For he knows that when they do make the eight - whether it be this year or sometime in the future - they'll have developed mentally enough as a group to deal with whatever is thrown at them, including a night in Darwin.
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