Richmond and North Melbourne can’t afford to lose, Gerard Whateley writesHerald-Sun
September 12, 2015The referendum is at hand.
Like no other game this weekend, winning is the only thing for Richmond and North Melbourne.
With the double chance in operation in the West and admiration guaranteed both Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs given the paths they’ve travelled, the Sunday eliminator is steeped in judgment.
The Tigers and the Kangaroos are the perfect counter points ensuring an exhaustive examination of policy, rhetoric and performance. Everything from tactics and temperament, progress and trajectory, acquisitions and strategy.
The winner will feel vindication and reassurance. It will be accompanied by an immediate and justifiable surge of optimism and opportunity to cause upheaval in the coming weeks.
The loser will be raked over for fault and frailty as ambition and expectation will not have been met.
Inevitably the introspection and evaluation will see choices faced anew. To stoically hold the line despite the faltering or recalibrate.
While Richmond and North Melbourne intermittedly chased the season, both have had the peculiar sense of marking time for this very moment when the verdict is determined.
In their two elimination finals under Damien Hardwick, the Tigers had one shot to bits while in the other got blown apart.
Despite the protestations of the week both are highly relevant.
The surrender against Carlton was a stunning case of mid-performance stage fright from a flighty, immature team. The destruction at the hands of Port Adelaide spoke of the chasm between participating and contending.
Richmond has substantially bridged that gap after an uncertain start to 2015. It has accumulated prize scalps in hostile environs. It has come to be admired for its grit and steel, a quantum leap in perception.
With its foibles mostly suppressed the entrenched view of an emotional team playing emotional football has receded.
The Tigers have won admirers and tempted believers.
But the historical burden of a club without a finals victory for 14 years is real. It can be disavowed and denied but routinely September offers case studies to the contrary.
No club outruns its past. It must be overcome.
It’s a formidable task and one that will enhance the breakthrough for Hardwick and his men should it come tomorrow.
Conversely it will magnify if a fifth-place finish can’t be parlayed into progression to at least a semi final.
It was just the opening North Melbourne fashioned last year, coming from a losing position to edge Essendon, then outplaying and outlasting a wilting Geelong.
Come the final four though, it found it didn’t belong.
With that lesson heeded Brad Scott sought to strengthen his list. Whether his team is improved is now acutely up for decision.
The comparisons to last year aren’t overly flattering.
Through the regular season North posted one less win. It failed to eradicate the random howler from its repertoire.
And its record against the big boys proved less-than-stellar. The notable and timely exception was last month’s rousing downing of Fremantle.
If North Melbourne loses the elimination final it forfeits any claim to being better placed than a year ago. You could skew the numbers to mount a case for both stagnation and regression.
Should it harness the experience of last year and prosper with its enhanced weaponry, the Kangaroos might again forge a course to the penultimate weekend where assessments could be made like for like.
The added rider for North Melbourne, making it a bigger target, is the risk/reward of last week’s resting of players. The obvious benefits of freshening measured against the disruption to continuity.
A club lives and dies by such decisions. Come the finals you either stick with what you know or court variables. In such matters the victors always write history.
There’s a tetchy dynamic evident between Richmond and North Melbourne, which is set to magnify. Well it should given the looming occasion and what’s at stake.
Come the final siren on Sunday afternoon losing just isn’t an option.
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