Maybe, just maybe, this is the Tigers’ season to shine Matt Cunningham
Herald-Sun
August 31, 2014 IT’S fitting that Tom Wills was a drunk.
Wills is the man generally credited with devising Australian Rules Football, a game that has surely driven more people to drink than any other.
Like Wills’s poison, his great game has the ability to deliver the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
Just ask a Richmond supporter.
It’s 12 months this week since Tiger fans trudged away from the MCG on a mild Spring afternoon, nursing the wounds of their latest defeat in a final against Carlton. A loss (against a team that shouldn’t have been in the finals and that came after giving up a 26-point half-time lead) that delivered the kind of feeling one gets the morning after consuming far more than they should.
Today, Tiger fans are waking up to a much different feeling.
A season that seemed like a permanent hangover has somehow transformed into a nine-week bender with no apparent end in sight.
Yesterday’s win against Sydney was surely Richmond’s finest moment since 1995, when three bouncing goals from Matthew Knights led the Tigers to a semi-final win over Essendon.
For neutral observers watching yesterday’s game at ANZ Stadium it was a great, tough contest between the AFL’s two form sides. For Tiger fans it was three hours of emotional torture. The hope created by Buddy Franklin’s late withdrawal. The excitement when the Tigers piled on the first five goals of the game. The frustration when Troy Chaplin tripped over his own feet in the centre of the ground and the Swans went forward and goaled. And that familiar feeling of dread that would have sat in the bottom of every Richmond fan’s stomach at half time when the Swans had pegged our lead back to just 13 points. A dread instilled by thirty years of lost opportunities and defeats stolen from the jaws of victory.
It was the anger of the third quarter as every line-ball decision seemed to go the Swans way. The helplessness as Sydney got on top and the Tigers’ game plan fell apart. The nervousness of an excruciating final quarter that no doubt took years off every Tiger supporter’s life. But another tale of Tiger tragedy this was not to be. Instead it was about the elation of victory as Richmond pulled off a win no-one - except the Tiger faithful - thought possible.
The Tigers are on their longest winning streak since 1980 and will play consecutive finals series for the first time since 1971-1975, when the late, great Tommy Hafey was coach.
For the Richmond faithful, this unlikely success is made only sweeter by the pain that has preceded it.
Last week I wrote about the remarkable resilience of Richmond fans who have kept the faith despite three decades of torment.
People like Peter, a 50-something fanatic who has followed the Tigers since he was in Grade 3 when his teacher - the mother of Tiger Michael Green - signed his whole class up to the cause.
Or Nathan, who at 21 has been alive for just two Richmond finals wins, but still scraps together enough money for his yearly membership, convinced that The Year of the Tiger is just around the corner.
Maybe, just maybe, our moment is now. Or maybe, like Tom Wills, our next hangover is just around the corner. But after last night, I think we all need a drink.
Matt Cunningham is Sunday Herald Sun Deputy Editor and a long-suffering Tigers supporterhttp://www.news.com.au/national/maybe-just-maybe-this-is-the-tigers-season-to-shine/story-e6frfkp9-1227042514493
