‘Dusty versus the world’: Unenviable task facing ‘banged up’ TigersJune 13, 2019
Ben Waterworth
FOX SPORTSRichmond has faced its share of challenges in 2019 — but what confronts Damien Hardwick’s men on Thursday night might be the toughest task yet.
In the midst of an injury crisis — Richmond’s injury list now featured a whopping 17 players — the Tigers fly to South Australia to take on the in-form Adelaide Crows, who are being hyped as a potential top-four team and have just two players — Tom Lynch (calf) and Tom Doedee (knee reconstruction) — unavailable for selection.
Richmond’s entire leadership group — Trent Cotchin (hamstring), Alex Rance (knee) and Jack Riewoldt (knee) — is on the injury list. Shane Edwards — who led the team for a couple of weeks in the absence of the aforementioned trio — is also unavailable for the match due to hamstring awareness.
It means the Tigers will be led by Brownlow Medallist Dustin Martin for the first time in his 212-game career on Thursday night.
Martin will become the fourth Tiger to captain the club this season, equalling the club’s record, which has been done five times previously.
Considering Martin has performed inconsistently — by his lofty standards — so far this season and the team is coming off two poor losses to North Melbourne and Geelong, it seems an unideal time to throw the explosive midfielder the extra responsibility.
“They (the Tigers) are banged up. They’ve had a horror run with injury, all their stars are on the sidelines,” dual premiership Kangaroo David King told Fox Footy’s AFL 360.
“It’s going to be a one-man war (on Thursday) night: Dusty versus the world.”
But the AFL world has quickly learnt not to underestimate Hardwick’s troops.
This was particularly evident in Round 4, when the Tigers upset the highly-fancied Port Adelaide at the Adelaide Oval without ‘the big four’: Cotchin, Rance, Riewoldt and Martin. It again highlighted the strength of Hardwick’s system, which can be successful no matter which personnel are on the field.
It’s why Adelaide coach Don Pyke earlier this week said it would be foolish to write Richmond off as a spent force, noting his fifth-placed side and seventh-placed Tigers have both banked seven wins this season.
“They’re a dangerous team and we know what they’re capable of,” Pyke told reporters on Tuesday.
“They had a good win over here earlier in the year against Port so I’m sure they’re going to be coming over keen to atone for a couple of poor performances.
“And for us, we have won a couple (in a row). But there’s no guarantee.
“We have got to start at zero (points) again on Thursday night and earn our stripes.”
King tipped Adelaide to win by 20 points on Thursday night, but said the competition couldn’t afford to disregard the Tigers come September.
In fact, King labelled Richmond a flag “sleeper”.
“I just think they’re at a stage where they’re going to park themselves and say: ‘Right, let’s just have a look at this. Can we just narrow the focus to a six, seven-week run at winning the title and just make sure we get everyone back for Round 20, Round 21, two or three weeks together’ — whether that includes Rance or not will be the ultimate wildcard. If it does, they may just be the sleeper in the bottom bracket of the eight,” King said.
“They’re 7-5 at the moment, they’ll find a way to win enough games — we’ve got enough trust in them. You wouldn’t want to finish fifth and have a great year and come up against Richmond off a short stint finishing eighth. They’ll make a run.”
King said the Tigers were “a victim of circumstance”.
“There’ll be a no-risk policy,” he said.
“It’s just about the long game now. They’re lot’s they’re lot, just stick with your 50-50 win-loss ratio and then a six or seven-week campaign.”
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2019-the-unenviable-task-facing-dustin-martins-richmond-in-adelaide/news-story/2a11437442259686e360ca769bfe3a8c
