'We're here to be the best': Tigers test their mantraafl.com.au
24 September 2017RICHMOND has won 318 games since it lost the 1982 Grand Final to Carlton.
But none of those wins come close to matching the importance of its stunning victory on Saturday over Greater Western Sydney in the preliminary final.
It means Richmond is in the 2017 Grand Final, a thought that only 12 months ago seemed more outlandish than Donald Trump being in the White House.
The Tigers deserve to be there, having lost just three games since they recorded their third loss in succession when they failed to defend a 25-point three-quarter time lead against the Giants in round nine.
Once such anguish caused ongoing nightmares and capitulation, but this is a different mob, a resilient team that now gives its long-suffering coach Damien Hardwick a sense of calm and a reason to smile when he looks at the names in the line-up.
"I look at those blokes and the influence they can have and makes me feel at ease straight away," Hardwick said.
Blokes such as tattooed champion Dustin Martin, an influential player by any measure, who returned to the rooms a winner and raised his fists in triumph at the coach, who responded in kind.
Men such as skipper Trent Cotchin, who went into the series as a finals failure and has been close to best on ground in both the qualifying and preliminary finals.
The clean-cut captain hugged Martin, who will soon, surely, sit alongside him as a Brownlow medallist.
Add an All Australian captain Alex Rance, a Coleman Medallist in Jack Riewoldt, a Rioli named Daniel and a bunch of worker bees in support.
However, many more people than just those unlikely allies revelled in the victory.
CEO Brendon Gale, a Tigers' man through and through after 244 games and two losing preliminary finals with Richmond, stood proud, wearing a Tigers' tracksuit top underneath his suit coat.
In 2011, he had launched a Fighting Tiger Fund to eliminate debt with this dream in mind, summing up his intent that night with the prophetic words: "We're not here just to compete; we're here to be the best."
Now, with the club in a Grand Final, the long-haired CEO deferred to the players as he has since taking on the top job in 2010.
"At the end of the day it takes a club to get to a Grand Final, but those most directly responsible are the players and the coaches and I am so proud of them," Gale told AFL.com.au.
One of those players, the ginger-bearded Tigers defender Nick Vlastuin, who was player No.213659 when picked with selection No.9 in the 2012 NAB AFL Draft, sat on a plastic chair against a wall, the song sung, the greatest moments of his football career both behind and ahead of him.
"I want to celebrate but then we have got a job next week," Vlastuin told AFL.com.au.
"Who would have thought last year? It's a credit to Cotch [skipper Trent Cotchin] and the coaches. They made us believe that we could be this good, so now we are just running on confidence."
After losses of 70, 88 and 113 points in three of the final six games of last season, no-one believed except those Tigers inside Punt Road – and even some of them would admit they weren't convinced that a Grand Final berth was likely.
Now, the mindset had changed so much that a quiet confidence accompanied the preliminary final build-up, with Vlaustin refusing to panic when the as yet unfulfilled hopes of the Tiger army dawned on him as he wandered around Richmond on Saturday in search of sushi.
"I went down Swan Street to get some lunch. That was pretty silly," Vlaustin said.
"Every pub was overflowing, cars had flags on them, every second house had Richmond stuff on it."
Vlastuin just went back to Hardwick's words to "trust the process, embrace it and have fun" and didn't let the mayhem affect him.
He played his usual solid role in defence without fanfare as the Tigers drove into the Grand Final with a win that good teams manage, breaking away from the Giants with six goals to one in the premiership quarter to run out 36-point winners.
The rooms buzzed like a party in full swing, the crowd inside as raucous as a Punt Road pub.
The Tigers were in the Grand Final, having endured 12,782 days of waiting.
Not just there to compete, but to be the best.
Now only one opponent stands between Richmond and its 11th premiership.
Can the Tigers beat Adelaide?
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2017-09-24/were-here-to-be-the-best-tigers-test-their-mantra
