Richmond’s loss to Sydney the biggest sliding-doors moment of the seasonMark Duffield
West Australian
19 June 2017Round 13: Unlucky for some. Or perhaps luck has little to do with it.
Richmond lost their fourth game for the year by less than 10 points against Sydney at the MCG on Saturday.
If they had won even two of them — the ones Fremantle and Greater Western Sydney snatched from them at the death — they would be equal on points with Adelaide and GWS at the top of the ladder.
This was the round’s sliding-doors moment and perhaps the biggest such moment of the season.
The Tigers, nursing a lead that grew to six goals in the second term, conceded eight of this game’s last nine majors to lose.
That’s a hard thing to do, especially when your primary defender Alex Rance is playing one of the all-time great games on Lance Franklin.
At times in Saturday’s desperate last quarter, Rance looked capable of stopping the tide from coming in.
Winning the football and sending it back the other way was easy by comparison until Sydney skipper Josh Kennedy figured out the way to prevent Rance from intervening in Sydney attacks — he lobbed a 50m bomb over Rance’s head for a momentum-building goal.
Had Richmond won, they would have been primed for a tilt at the top four. Had Sydney lost, they would have been all but eliminated from the race for the finals.
Now you fancy both teams are going to end up fighting for the same spots at the bottom end of the top eight.
The Swans are probably going to have to win seven of their last 10 to have the chance to make it, but home games against Essendon, Gold Coast, Fremantle, St Kilda and Carlton will provide hope that that is achievable.
There is also an away game against Hawthorn.
Richmond have Hawthorn, Gold Coast, Brisbane and Fremantle in their way, but the Dockers clash is in Perth and the Suns match is in Queensland.
An old-fashioned Melbourne blockbuster against improving Carlton on Sunday and two games against St Kilda are likely to shape the Tigers’ finals destiny.
Much has been made of Richmond’s inability to win the close ones this year.
They were unlucky with a couple of umpiring decisions in their five-point loss to the Western Bulldogs, but they didn’t protect the back end of the centre square at the last centre bounce against the Dockers and Lachie Neale stormed out to kick the ball to David Mundy, who converted.
And they didn’t man the mark against GWS at the last critical kick-in from a behind.
When long-kicking Nathan Wilson bombed the ball to the centre circle, the only player over the back of the pack to crumb for the Tigers was lumbering ruckman Toby Nankervis.
It was disorganisation personified.
It must be said that some of Richmond’s players are unlikely to enjoy the post-match review of the loss to Sydney, including some of the lightning-quick runners who helped them establish their decisive first-half break in the first place.
Shai Bolton, who set the game alight with two goals in the first quarter, was virtually invisible after half-time when he had just two disposals.
Daniel Rioli, who had only eight possessions for the match, went to ground a number of times in the tense last quarter when he needed to hold his feet and stay involved in contests.
Jason Castagna missed a couple of precious shots on goal. Dan Butler had four touches for the game. Connor Menadue took on tacklers twice and paid for it. Memo to Menadue: The Swans don’t miss tackles when they are switched on as they were after half-time in this one.
In fairness, all of those players are young and learning.
But the four points on offer in this game were a high price to pay for the football education they got from the Swans.
https://thewest.com.au/sport/afl/richmonds-loss-to-sydney-the-biggest-sliding-doors-moment-of-the-season-ng-b88510754z
