Distracted Tigers, hidden reason (Age)

[one-eyed]

Distracted Tigers, hidden reason

By Peter Ryan
The Age
March 28, 2023

Snap Shot is a weekly column taking a look at the lighter side of football.

Plenty of reasons will be advanced for Richmond’s third quarter fade-out against Adelaide that saw the Crows almost snatch the lead before the Tigers settled to kick the final five goals of the match.

But Snap Shot has a theory that you won’t find in any analysis of the game as to why the Tigers didn’t have their minds on the job during the third quarter on Saturday at the Adelaide Oval.

A group of Tigers players are involved in Melbourne Cup chance Soulcombe which won the group-three Queens Cup during the Cup Carnival.

On Saturday, the gelding was back at Flemington in the Lexus Roy Higgins, trying to win and gain automatic entry into this year’s Melbourne Cup.

Luckily, the race was at 3pm, so the players involved managed to find a place 100 minutes before the first bounce at Adelaide Oval to watch him just fall short after running into new Cup favourite Goldman, a New Zealand stayer on the rise.

That was fine, but there was another runner that Soulcombe owners Liam Baker, Tom Lynch, Jayden Short, Jack Riewoldt, Jack Graham and Nathan Broad were interested in jumping from the barriers that afternoon, and teammates Dion Prestia and Kane Lambert were also on board.

The only problem was this other horse, Pontedera, was racing at Adelaide’s Morphettville Park at 4.32pm, about the same time Richmond opened up a 45-point, second-quarter lead.

With Morphettville Park about 10 kilometres from Adelaide Oval, it’s unlikely the Tigers players heard the roar as he went around the field to win by half a length.

But what we do know is that word filtered back to the Tiger boys midway through the match that Pontedera had won the Benchmark 64 in Adelaide under the guidance of Ben Price.

Exactly how or when we are not sure, but we do know that the Crows came flying like Kiwi during the third quarter only to find they couldn’t stay the distance with Richmond.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/snap-shot-distracted-tigers-hidden-reason-20230327-p5cvpn.html