Tigers test fans' loyalty, character
Tim Lane | May 14, 2007
The Age
THE airport check-in man was friendly and welcoming, but winced as he realised I was headed for Adelaide. He's a Tiger and was still raw from the previous week. Told me his young son had been a mascot for the day; the day Richmond suffered the worst defeat in its history.
The best I could offer by way of solace was to suggest it might be character building. He said his son had already endured enough character construction to last a lifetime. Port Adelaide would be certain to test it again.
Another weekend and more history: a seventh straight defeat. Richmond is off to its worst start to a season. This is lightning striking twice. In their 100th year in the competition, the Tigers are at their lowest ebb.
Players made sacrifices to try to atone for last week's disgrace. Kane Johnson took responsibility in front of the media. Richard Tambling insisted on training with a badly injured shoulder. Jay Schulz iced his thigh injury right through Sunday night so that he might recover in time to play.
But without Troy Simmonds in the ruck it was always going to be mission impossible. Brendon Lade and Dean Brogan are as powerful a big man duo as there is in modern football. The Power controlled play from the outset. At face value, a 40-point defeat was a par score for Richmond.
It flattered the Tigers though. The game was dead as a contest by half-time. On the trend of the second quarter, another 100-point hiding wasn't out of the question. Terry Wallace lamented that the quarter yielded seven behinds, but only one came from a set shot inside 50. None of the others could be regarded as a genuinely bad miss. The Tigers were being overwhelmed and having to grab at half chances.
Worse still, when they kicked behinds Port prospered. In this era of emphasis on forward pressure, Richmond's ability to restrict its opponent's freedom from the kick-in was non-existent. A team that was supposedly manning up, somehow allowed its opposition to run amok.
One of Port's six goals for the quarter came from Daniel Motlop on the end of what looked like a half-pace, length-of-the-ground, training drill. Wallace can't have been happy, and had it been training Mark Williams mightn't have been either. Witches' hats apply more pressure.
The Tigers won the second half and could derive some pride from that. In a game that only ever looked capable of providing one result, it was an achievement of sorts. It was hard to gauge from Williams' response whether the Power had eased off.
When asked about it on television, Port's coach had a gentle shot at commentators who make such judgements. When asked by the assembled media later, he acknowledged a degree of disappointment.
Williams can be a little contrary, but there's a lot to admire in his leadership. He's robust, colourful and has defied the critics in his reinvention of the Power since the 2004 flag. He's fortunate in that he still has 11 premiership players on his list and half a dozen of them are in the top bracket. What Wallace would give for a Tredrea, a couple of Burgoynes, a pair of Cornes and a Lade.
The Tigers' list lacks such stars and there's no immediate sign of the gloom lifting. One well-credentialled, Melbourne-based observer said over the weekend he doubted they'd win a game for the year. That hasn't happened since 1964, so history suggests a turn of the wheel at some stage.
For the sake of the check-in man and his son, I hope it comes sooner than expected. He gave me a good seat, for which I was grateful. You'd like to be able to say more than keep the faith.
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