Younger Riewoldt shows he can live up to name
Chloe Saltau
The Age
May 4, 2008
IF THERE is a player who epitomises Richmond's steady improvement, it could be Jack Riewoldt. The 19-year-old came up against the St Kilda team captained by his older cousin, Nick, for the second time in his fledgling career last night, and the pair came close to each other only twice.
First, Jack crept up behind Nick as he aimed at goal in the third quarter and yelled something in his ear. Whether it was the effect of being crunched into the turf a few seconds earlier or of the familiar voice over his shoulder, Nick missed, then limped off to have his knee packed in ice.
Second, Nick consoled Jack in the middle of the ground after the younger Riewoldt flew above a pack to grab a mark that could have defined the game. But he couldn't roost the ball long enough to clinch a famous, after-the-siren victory for the Tigers.
It was the stuff that boyhood, backyard fantasies are made of, but the kick from outside the 50-metre arc faded and was set upon by St Kilda players, keeping the Saints' unconvincing season alive and condemning Richmond, which came within a couple of goals of the red-hot Hawks a week earlier, to an honourable, three-point loss.
Riewoldt, the Tiger, was shattered, and sank to his knees as teammates came to commiserate. But the Richmond faithful must be encouraged by the emergence of a lively, decent-sized key forward to complement Matthew Richardson, now roaming further afield.
"Richo" was, as ever, the most influential Tiger on the ground against St Kilda, leaping and running and kicking improbable goals to keep the Saints from marching all over them in the final quarter. Still, it is the improvement of players like Riewoldt that will, in time, make Richmond a better team, and though he only influenced the game in patches, his touches were telling.
The junior Riewoldt is, by all accounts, a feisty character who pounded on Terry Wallace's office door until the coach gave him a game last year. Only now, after 12 games, is the confidence beginning to show on the ground. In the first quarter last night, he took a contested mark in the middle of the ground, and slipped past two Saints to deliver the pass that gave Richardson the first of five goals.
In the next term, he put the Tigers in front after running from the bench and floating forward to mark, and dobbing the goal from a tough angle and then created another by curling a kick around his body, with Brendon Goddard on his hammer and the boundary line pressing, to Shane Edwards.
Jack is a centimetre smaller than his older, more famous cousin, and slight by comparison, but he proved a slippery customer for opponents that included Goddard, Raphael Clarke and Matt Maguire.
Before Richmond drafted Riewoldt with its second pick in the 2006 national draft (the first was traded away for Graham Polak) his family used to travel from Tasmania, where his father Chris played 273 games, to watch Nick star for St Kilda, who he described as "a huge influence on me" before being drafted.
Up the other end his cousin, forced to sit out the last term on the bench after the over-zealous tackle, lamented the continuing malfunctioning of a team beefed up by the repatriation of Gehrig from the VFL and with former Eagle Michael Gardiner sharing the ruck with Justin Koschitzke.
Somehow, it fell to the 178-centimetre Stephen Milne to kick a winning score.
Against Richmond, a team determined to make a nuisance of itself, it was perhaps fitting that it took a player who has made a career of it, in Milne, to boot seven goals, shaking St Kilda out of the malaise that threatened to consume its season.
