Richo [merged]

[mightytiges]

Sad it took until Richo was 33 before we find out he is a wingman go everywhere man but the big fella is simply a freak. A speccie at one end, a one-handed contested mark at the other, a goal from a set shot on the boundary, etc  .   

He doesn't look like slowing down either in this form. 5 goals, 22 possies, 13 marks. 300 games here we come! He's kicking straighter too since being moved out of the forward line.

[one-eyed]

Only took Mike 15 years to jump on the Richo bandwagon...

----------------------------------------------
Matthew Richardson setting footy alight
Mike Sheahan | May 06, 2008 12:00am

AS bizarre as it sounds, a player in his 34th year and 16th season might be in the richest vein of form of his career. "Buddy" Franklin aside, Matthew Richardson is football's man of the moment.

Of the first seven rounds.

We are in awe of Franklin; we love Richo the package. All of us.

It's not just Richmond supporters who embrace him, but everyone who embraces the game and cherishes qualities such as spirit, loyalty, emotion (the full gamut) and humility.

Even opposition players admire and like Richo. Respect and fondness don't always go together in footy.

Former Carlton captain Anthony Koutoufides is one.

Kouta has huge respect for Richo's talents from personal experience and a genuine appreciation of him as a person.

He has consistently acknowledged him his toughest opponent and saysRicho can win the Brownlow this year, which would make him the oldest winner in history.

"He's flying, Richo," Kouta said last night.

"If Richmond can win enough games (say 10), I believe he can win the Brownlow.

"I always believed he was going to kick 100 goals one year, and it still might happen. By freeing him up and playing him on a wing, his confidence is up and he's probably a more rounded player now.

"It would have been terribly frustrating for him at full-forward with the ball zig-zagging around all the time.

"He's been good for a long time, but he's just playing really good, consistent football all the time now. I love watching him play."

Richardson, who turned 33 in March, has racked up 132 disposals in seven games this year (average 19), has taken 74 marks (average 10) and kicked 24 goals.

That's a nice return from someone who spends considerable time in the midfield and has ventured as deep as the opposition goalsquare many times.

His marking has been brilliant and inspirational. For teammates and supporters alike.

Perhaps his new-found freedom and contentment have eased the pressure when kicking for goal, for he has kicked 24.12, a conversion rate of 66 per cent.

While I am totally happy to sing the praises of the Richo man, it needs to be pointed out (yes, again) that conversion rates don't include shots at goal that end up out of bounds on the full or fall short from a reasonable distance.

That, though, is as negative as I am going to be this time.

He is on track to kick more than 70 goals, an excellent return from a midfielder with licence to roam wherever and whenever.

He kicked 53.40 from 22 games last year, almost exclusively as full-forward.

Richo's amazing ride through football may have reached fresh heights.

He has been unstoppable at times for years, yet he has been erratic, often wasteful and occasionally ill-tempered.

He is thriving in his new role. Playing up the field allows him to use his extraordinary reserves of pace and stamina.

He is, remember, 195cm and 104kg. His father, Alan, was ruck-rover to Mike Patterson for much of Richmond's great days of the late 1960s, and Patterson was 193cm and 95.5kg, according to The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers.

What is even more amazing is that just four players endure from the 131 hopefuls taken by the then 15 clubs in the 1992 national draft.

They are, in order of games played, Dustin Fletcher, Richardson, Scott Burns and Shane Wakelin.

Fletcher and Richo both started in the AFL in 1993, Wakelin '94, Burns '95.

Richardson is a phenomenon of the modern game, and the story isn't finished yet.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,23651754-19742,00.html

[2JD]

How many of us could've written that article for you Mike?
But it was a good read 

[mightytiges]

Richo's kicked 12.3 in the past 3 games Mike. Even if you include the OOTF that's a 75% conversion rate  . Why don't you criticize St Nick's goalkicking who you had at #4 in your top 50  .

[one-eyed]

We all want to be the Richo man
Nathan Brown | May 11, 2008

Richo, Richo Man, I want to be a Richo Man

THIS little tune brings me great joy when the Richmond cheer squad belts it out after the big fella has kicked a goal. It gave me particular joy one day when Adam Pattison sang it in his underwear and ugg boots on an end-of-season get-together. It went to another level again when "the Richo Man" himself joined "Patto" with his own version of the jig.

Matthew Richardson transcends the generations. He started in 1993 and played with the likes of Dale Weightman and Brendon Gale, with whom he remains close, yet still has the ability and personality to hang out with younger Tigers such as Brett Deledio and Richard Tambling.

Which leads me to the question: is Matthew Richardson the most popular man in football?

For many years, Richo has polarised public opinion — absolute champion to unfulfilled talent and everything in between.

But recently, opinion at last seems to be united: Matthew Richardson is one of the true champions of AFL football.

He has long been a favourite of opposition players, most acknowledging that he is a great bloke. And the regard he is held in at Richmond is second to none. Now, the media and other so-called experts are jumping on the Richo bandwagon, and what a good wagon it is to be on when the Richo show gets going.

I spend a lot of time with Matthew. We are occasionally referred to as Batman and Robin, following a cover of Inside Football magazine, where we were superimposed on the bodies of the dynamic duo.

For obvious reasons, Matthew gets to be Batman, but every superhero needs a sidekick and considering the form the big fella is in, I'm happy to be a support act.

Richo lives just down the road and the morning coffee I deliver to him sometimes makes me think we are starring in the movie Good Will Hunting. And if there is one thing Richo would love to be besides a footballer, it's a rock star or a movie star. He loves his celebrities.

On a recent trip to Los Angeles, he was spotting celebrities everywhere and most of them I had never heard of. Last week, we had lunch at Galleon in St Kilda and he said: "Look, there's the girl out of Frente."

Now there may be quite a few readers for whom Frente means very little. The group shot to fame back in 1992 with a song called Accidentally Kelly Street. That was 16 years ago, but Richo sure can pick a celebrity face.

He loves his rock stars, the heavier the better — Tex Perkins, Tim Rogers, Layne Stayley (Alice in Chains) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) to name a few of his favourites. With his big frame, even bigger lips and flowing messy hair, he wouldn't look out of place in a rock band.

Away from football, you might be surprised to know that Matthew is a neat freak and would challenge the prime minister's diary for organisation. Needing to borrow some shorts for a Sunday session in his spa a few years back, I was amazed to discover that everything in his cupboard was folded to perfection and, on closer inspection, was astounded to find that everything was colour co-ordinated.

On the footy field this year, Richo has had no peer; he has been the exception to the rule that players slow down after 30. He is clearly getting better. He ran a staggering 18.3 kilometres off a wing in 30-degree heat at Subiaco in round four, and still kicked four goals.

A player with his impressive career stats would be forgiven for being a little miffed when asked to leave centre half-forward, where he has dominated for 15 years, aged 33, to play on a wing. I'm sure he was in private, but for the team he met the challenge head-on, without saying a word and is playing the best football of his career to kickstart a Richmond resurgence.

For a long time, he has been chastised for blowing his fuse and losing his cool with teammates by throwing his arms around and delivering a spray when the ball goes into the forward line poorly. But in the past few years, he has been fantastic in this area, showing that an old dog can learn new tricks.

Wayne Campbell tells one of my favourite Richo stories, from before I got to the club. Robert Walls was the coach and whenever he got stuck into Matthew in the review meeting up in the Graeme Richmond Room, Richo would be staring out the window looking at the Nylex clock to see how warm it was outside.

Richo is a player of rare ability and character. Young players listen and follow his example. He holds court like no other when playing the fool in front of the boys, which is a hard thing to get right at a footy club. He plays with a raw passion rarely seen today and is one of the most watchable players of our time.

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/we-all-want-to-be-the-richo-man/2008/05/10/1210131331499.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

[one-eyed]

AFL's 'freaks' reach new heights
Lyall Johnson | May 11, 2008

LAST week, Dream Team assistant coach Neale Daniher made an interesting observation about the future of football where "freaks" dominated the AFL landscape.

In winding up Big V assistant Kevin Sheedy about how difficult it would be to man-up on his players, the Reverend mused that the Dream Team might start Matthew Pavlich, Lance Franklin and Matthew Richardson in the goal square, then switch them to the midfield, with Buddy and Richo on a wing and big Pav in the centre.

Of the three, Pavlich is the smallest at 192 centimetres and no doubt the slowest. "That's modern-day footy isn't it, that's looking ahead in 20 years time where you have got six-foot-five blokes, six-foot-six blokes playing on the wing and Pavlich in the middle," the former Melbourne coach said.

They are the ones, like Richardson, Franklin, Nick Riewoldt, Adam Goodes and only a handful of others blessed with the tantalising combination of towering height, incredible speed, prodigious natural athleticism and, just as importantly, skill.

The attraction is obvious, says AFL national talent manager Kevin Sheehan. "There are many, many good tall players in the competition, solid contributors and at times maybe more consistent players, but then there are the ones who can do those special things because they've got something absolutely rare about them in the athletic and the football sense," he said.

"They're the ones everyone is seeking because they can swing forward or back. When the conditions are in their favour they're almost impossible to beat with their reach and speed. Oh yeah, (the recruiters') eyes light up when they see them because it gets back to the rareness of them."

Richardson, at the opposite end of his career to Franklin, is proving with his hard-running role on the wing this season that he is every bit the freak Buddy is. Racking up more kilometres and possessions than some of the competition's premier midfielders, he also leads the AFL in contested marks. All at the height of 196 centimetres, weight of 104 kilograms and age of 33.

From a fitness and conditioning point of view, Richmond's elite performance manager Matt Hornsby explained most things could be trained into players, but those who were genetically blessed had a natural advantage. "It's their ability to cover the ground with endurance, to keep reproducing across the whole game and also have good speed and power. Richo's the perfect example of that and Buddy's the exact same," he said. "Every parameter of conditioning can be improved but you just have a ceiling on them depending on your own genetics. Guys like Richo and Franklin have some pretty handy genetics that allow their ceiling for athletic potential to be a lot higher than other players."

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/afls-freaks-reach-new-heights/2008/05/10/1210131331490.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

[mightytiges]

Great article by Browny  although we didnt need the image of Patto in his undies doing his best Risky Business imitation  .

I think Angie Hart would know Richo's name instead of saying "there's that guy who plays for Richmond" lol.

[one-eyed]

Robbo on SEN about Richo

"An all-time champion I doesn't know but he's a Richmond champion, a champion bloke and everyone loves Richo."

[julzqld]

Goose.  I'm sorry but who got the biggest cheer from the crowd for the Dreamtime?

[Ox]

Matty represents us all.

The best thing about the RFC over the last 29 years.

I've called for his sacking  but from the perspective of a lovers tiff.

The youngens dont realise how inspiring it is for 30 somethings to watch
him ripping it up at his age.

 

[WilliamPowell]

I've called for his sacking  but from the perspective of a lovers tiff.

())( and Richo = 

The youngens dont realise how inspiring it is for 30 somethings to watch
him ripping it up at his age.

 

Forget the 30 somethings, it's pretty inspriring for the next decade up too 

[Smokey]

I've called for his sacking  but from the perspective of a lovers tiff.

())( and Richo = 

The youngens dont realise how inspiring it is for 30 somethings to watch
him ripping it up at his age.

 

Forget the 30 somethings, it's pretty inspriring for the next decade up too 

And for those about to be the next next!!! 

[one-eyed]

Found this article on Richo on BF.... this full text is here:

http://www.puntingace.com/nicktedeschi/richo.html

There is no doubt that Richo has his flaws, like nearly all of us. He has a tendency to get a little nervous from set shots and occasionally his heart-on-the-sleeve behaviour can be misconstrued. But these are nothing more than blips on his radar of greatness and they certainly don’t define Richo the man or Richo the footballer. That is because Richo is the personification of heart. No player has the phenomenal ticker that Richo has. He runs all day and then runs some more. He tackles hard, he scraps like a junkyard dog, his bread and butter is the contested mark and few show as much endeavor on second and third efforts. His loyalty to the Richmond Football Club and the game in general can never be questioned, nor can his natural brilliance and his ability to change the course of a game. Despite being matched-up against the usual horde of taggers and despite rarely receiving any love from the umpires, he remains tenacious and always willing and rarely lets the Tigers down. Few players are as inspirational. There is certainly nobody that plays as hard. 

[2JD]

Found this article on Richo on BF.... this full text is here:

http://www.puntingace.com/nicktedeschi/richo.html

There is no doubt that Richo has his flaws, like nearly all of us. He has a tendency to get a little nervous from set shots and occasionally his heart-on-the-sleeve behaviour can be misconstrued. But these are nothing more than blips on his radar of greatness and they certainly don’t define Richo the man or Richo the footballer. That is because Richo is the personification of heart. No player has the phenomenal ticker that Richo has. He runs all day and then runs some more. He tackles hard, he scraps like a junkyard dog, his bread and butter is the contested mark and few show as much endeavor on second and third efforts. His loyalty to the Richmond Football Club and the game in general can never be questioned, nor can his natural brilliance and his ability to change the course of a game. Despite being matched-up against the usual horde of taggers and despite rarely receiving any love from the umpires, he remains tenacious and always willing and rarely lets the Tigers down. Few players are as inspirational. There is certainly nobody that plays as hard. 

Great article to read for a Richo tragic like myself! "as graceful and dangerous as a snow leopard in heat!" LOL the mind boggles!

P.S (What is an Oxford comma?)

[one-eyed]

ANDREW BEWS: The rebirth of Tiger Matthew Richardson
Geelong Advertiser
14May08

IT'S taken too long for the penny to drop at Punt Rd.

Watching Matthew Richardson rekindle his career out on the wing this year has been one of the feel-good stories of the AFL. But the fact that it has taken until he was 34 for the Tigers to allow the big thoroughbred a free rein through the midfield will always leave us wondering what could have been.

Richo is one of the game's great enigmas.

He is one of the most athletic and talented players to have pulled on a Tigers jumper.

Whether at centre half-forward or full-forward, he has spent his career always commanding the best defender, plus another couple to chop him out.

The Richmond forward line has therefore been one-dimensional, to the point where Richo himself has demanded the perfect ball lace-out to get his kicks. Otherwise he has spat the dummy, which is why football supporters, not just Tiger fans, have had a love-hate relationship with him.

Richo came to Richmond as a big key forward in 1993 from Devonport in Tassie. His old man, Bull, played for the Tigers in the '60s, so he came to the club as a prized father-son recruit.

He was the club's leading goal-kicker in his second year of AFL footy and has achieved that feat 11 times since, amassing a record 767 career goals along the way.

Given that he is such a big man and has a great pair of hands, it would make sense to play somebody like Richo at full forward.

The bizarre thing, though, is that with him there, the Tigers have been almost the worst-performed AFL club throughout his time at Punt Rd.

I am certainly not pointing the finger at Richo for the Tigers' woes. In fact, if anything, his brilliance has worked against the club.

Let me explain myself there.

Richmond has for a long time banked on Richo being its lone saviour.

The club's recruiting and coaching staff tended to overlook recruiting key forwards given that they felt they had someone there who could do the job for them by himself for 10 years.

But, you only need to look at history to realise that successful teams are not built on one lone forward.

Think Hawthorn in the '80s and you talk of Dermie and Dunstall, plus the support staff of Peter Curran, Russell Morris and co.

Think Brisbane in the '90s and you talk of Alastair Lynch and Jonathan Brown, plus the support staff of Daniel Bradshaw and pinch-hit ruckmen such as Clark Keating and Beau McDonald.

I could go on. Hird, Lucas and Lloyd spring to mind with the Bombers in 2000.

Richmond has never provided Richo with the same sort of support staff, except for the year when the Tigers made the preliminary final.

Guess who was at the club then? Brad Ottens. The Tigers traded Otto soon after.

The Tigers have failed to support Richo with the right sort of player at the draft table time and time again.

It is a well-worn tale that Richmond chose Richard Tambling ahead of Buddy Franklin, but it also chose skinny outside player Aaron Fiora - no longer at the club and now running around for Casey in the VFL - ahead of Matthew Pavlich a few years earlier.

Buddy has turned out to be a sensation, but his success is built around a strong support base of Jarryd Roughead, Mark Williams and Tim Boyle.

The Dockers tried to support Pavlich by recruiting Chris Tarrant, but realistically he is playing a lone hand and look where Freo is on the ladder right now.

Although it is hard to predict just how a player from the draft will turn out, Richmond has neglected to pick the type of player who could have ably assisted Richo and provided opposition defences with more than the one headache to worry about.

This year, the Tigers have finally restructured their forward line, with Richo out of there in a bid to give opposition teams more to think about.

This has worked well on two fronts: it has given Richo the freedom to use his big engine up in the midfield, and it has also given the Tigers more avenues to goal.

Last year, Richmond was far too predictable in that it always looked for Richo. And given its game style of slow possession this made stopping him, and Richmond, a lot easier.

In his new role, Richo is like a kid in a lolly shop. He has been given freedom to roam all over the ground, use his height to advantage in marking contests and drift forward when he wants.

Players such as Nathan Brown, Jack Riewoldt, Brett Deledio, Graham Polak and Matt White are benefitting from his work up the ground.

They simply have to stand up and kick goals without Richo in the forward line - and they are doing it.

The reliance on him is gone.

It's as though the coaching staff at Tigerland has finally seen the light.

'Plough' Wallace has been bold enough to do what a lot of others have always thought, so credit to him.

But is it too late?

Unfortunately for Richo, I think it is.

As a 34-year-old, switching his game to midfield, with the way the game is being played these days, will be a big test on his body long-term.

It will probably bring about his retirement sooner rather than later.

So we should soak up the now.

For however long it lasts, I am going to keep enjoying the Richo show.

http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2008/05/14/13910_gfc.html