The Richmond recession: Its underlying causes, and the Tigers’ way outBy Jake Niall
The Age
May 15, 2024The paths of Richmond and Sydney have diverged sharply since the Tigers conjured a round-three upset of the Swans that can be viewed in retrospect as the season’s most mystifying result.
But the Tigers of late March were a decidedly different unit to the team that conceded a staggering 77 forward entries to the Western Bulldogs and were so vertically challenged in defence that Nick Vlastuin, a superb veteran defender but just 187cm, was compelled to spend time on super-talented beanstalk Sam Darcy, conceding 21 centimetres.
The Tigers had regained Noah Balta, but found they couldn’t man Aaron Naughton, Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and Darcy without Josh Gibcus and Tom Lynch. Balta had been deployed forward due to Tom Lynch’s long-term injury.
Yet, defending lanky forwards wasn’t the primary problem; it lay between the arcs, where the Bulldogs, led by Adam Treloar, Ed Richards and Marcus Bontempelli, more or less owned the footy and were subjected to scant pressure as Richmond’s diminished senior group wilted.
It was such a towelling that the question was posed of whether some senior players had thrown it in.
The Richmond recession has three or four underlying causes. In the immediate term, there’s the injury carnage that began in the round-one game against Carlton (when Gibcus went down) and worsened in the Sydney triumph that saw Lynch and Balta suffer hamstring tendon and knee injuries; it has not abated much since, although Balta and Dion Prestia returned for the Saturday night massacre.
Monday’s medical meetings contained few glad tidings. No player of note is likely to return for this weekend’s game at the Gabba and those who are most missed – Lynch and midfielder Tim Taranto – are gone for several more weeks. Jacob Hopper, another important mid, is only an outside chance to resume in the Dreamtime game.
The large number of players used (37) to date and the small proportion who’ve played every game (just six, compared to Sydney’s 17 and Melbourne’s 16) are measures of Richmond’s player availability disaster.
But there are clearly two or three other issues that have beset the Tigers in their rapid descent since 2022, when they were unluckily pipped at the Gabba by the Lions and consigned to an early finals exit in a year when they believed – with justification – they could compete for the premiership.
Before the injury pestilence, Richmond’s playing stocks were ravaged by retirements to the cornerstones of their triple-flag dynasty and, as a club that finished in the finals in all but three seasons since 2013 (2016, 2021, 2023) and four times made the preliminary or grand final, they have had scant access to the top end of the national draft.
The lack of draft capital is greater considering they – rightly – gave up pick No.6 in 2016 for Prestia, and have barely had their other top-10 pick from that 11-year stretch in Gibcus.
More contentious was the trading for Taranto and Hopper that took the Tigers out of the first rounds of the 2022 and 2023 drafts and was seen, even then, as a potential sequel to Hawthorn’s hubristic acquisitions of Jaeger O’Meara and Tom Mitchell.
But the loss of Taranto, in particular, has been significant to the 2024 recession and if the Tigers over-reached by getting Hopper with his Giant teammate – and giving up what turned into a top-10 selection – the converse argument is that they will need a core of senior players around which to build over the coming years.
The alternative is to let senior players leave and redress the lack of draft capital. But this will make Adem Yze’s already-massive task harder, bearing in mind that Liam Baker might leave to join one of the Perth clubs, and that the Tigers should gain a decent pick for him if that transpires.
Even if you accept that the Tigers erred in giving up draft picks in both 2022 and 2023 for Taranto/Hopper, the state of their playing list is more a result of the natural cycles – the system’s innate gravity – than list management blunders.
Yes, the Swans and Geelong have levitated above the pack for longer, compared with Richmond and the cautionary examples of Hawthorn and West Coast. But the Swans did finish in the bottom four in 2019 and 2020, and in the latter post-season, they had a top five pick and a fellow called Errol Gulden arrive, alongside Braeden Campbell, via their academy, plus had Nick Blakey on the books from the academy from 2018.
The other factor that is noteworthy is the exit of Damien Hardwick and the imminent departure of chief executive Brendon Gale, on the heels of Peggy O’Neal’s presidency. As greats such as Trent Cotchin, Jack Riewoldt and Shane Edwards have finished, with Dusty Martin winding down and others either turning or past 30, the Richmond of 2025-26 will contain few of the statues of the glorious 2017-2020 era.
Yze’s wish to implement his game plan – one more reliant on stoppage clearance compared to the previous transition-heavy Hardwick style (which the Tigers felt needed to be rebalanced) – has been compromised by Taranto, Hopper and Prestia’s injuries and the lack of ready-replacements.
Richmond’s regeneration, though, will need continuity of experienced players and off-field staff, who have corporate memories of 2013-2020 and can sustain a culture that has spawned success not only at Richmond, but influenced Collingwood and other clubs.
Gale has made clear that he will not be poaching renowned list boss Blair Hartley to Tassie, nor Tim Livingstone, the football performance chief. Hartley is contracted for 2025, in any case.
The Tigers have lost enough key people, and have gained sufficient fresh faces and new intellectual property. To strip back the playing ranks to near ground zero – and to further denude the football department of wise heads – would be a road to prolonged recession. Richmond people know too well what that looks like.
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/the-richmond-recession-its-underlying-causes-and-the-tigers-way-out-20240513-p5jd3u.html
