AFL Oracle: Which team stuck in footy’s ‘no man’s land’ can crack the top eight in 2022?Tim Miller
theRoar.com.au
9 March 2022Richmond“This is the way the world ends; not with a bang, but a whimper.” T.S. Eliot might as well have written those words about Richmond in 2021, the three-time premiers’ reign coming to a sudden, crushing end midway through the season.
After treading water through much of the early rounds, most of us thought the real Tigers, much like the real Slim Shady, would soon stand up. But short of the occasional one-off reminder of their former glory – wins over the Western Bulldogs, West Coast and Brisbane all had hallmarks of the Tigers of old – their chances of a premiership threepeat never got off the launching pad.
Injuries wreaked havoc – Dustin Martin’s brutal kidney injury ruled him out for the final five weeks, Toby Nankervis, Dion Prestia, Nick Vlastuin and Kane Lambert all played roughly half the season, and knee soreness left Tom Lynch a shadow of his best despite more often than not fronting up to play.
The Tigers’ famous hunger, the manic intensity that willed them to three flags in four years, also disappeared. After ranking fourth, third and third for tackles in their premiership years of 2017, 2019 and 2020, that figure dropped all the way down to 13th in 2021. Without that means of turning the ball over, a hallmark to the so-called ‘Richmond way’, their disposals and inside-50 counts both fell to mid-table. The result? A seismic fall from grace.
Injuries are already beginning to bite again to start this season – new co-captain Dylan Grimes has undergone thumb surgery and is in grave doubt for Round 1, while a debilitating hip issue is set to cruel Lambert again. Jack Graham and Lynch are two others who are no certainties to play the early rounds.
The Tigers, though, might prefer that to last year, when the bulk of their blows came throughout the season. In 2019, they endured a nightmarish run of injuries in the early rounds – Alex Rance did a knee in Round 1 and Jack Riewoldt barely played before the bye, to name but a few – only to get virtually all of them back and firing for the second half of the season.
If the Tigers can so much as keep their heads above water in the early rounds, they will be primed to cash in on a favourable draw that sees them leave Melbourne just three times after April. Equally, the so-dubbed ‘three-headed monster’ of Riewoldt, Lynch, and defender-turned-forward Noah Balta in attack will trouble many a quality defence this year, with Balta’s mobility and one-on-one strength a lethal combination.
Most pundits expect the Tigers to return to finals in 2022, and I’m firmly in that boat. But with an ageing list, concerns over some injury-prone key pillars and the inescapable fact that Melbourne have dethroned them as the competition’s premier side, let’s not go too far and expect a return to premiership glory just yet.
Prediction: 7th
https://www.theroar.com.au/2022/03/09/afl-oracle-which-team-stuck-in-footys-no-mans-land-can-crack-the-top-eight-in-2022/
