It's the start, not end, Tiger fans
Rohan Connolly | March 30, 2009
SUMMER has a lot to answer for. It not only denies us the game we love most, but six months without any meaningful competition raises expectations to ridiculous levels, the immediate reactions to the resumption of hostilities equally absurd.
Richmond, you may remember, finished ninth last year, with 11 wins and a draw, a middle-of-the-road team with some promising young players emerging, a reasonably potent forward set-up, but a propensity to leak like a sieve defensively.
Last Thursday night, the key players had shockers, that sieve sprung some larger holes, and the Tigers were duly thrashed by a team considered top-eight material. Well, stop the presses!
Here's a tip to the Richmond fans who have been flooding talkback radio for three days now having cut up their membership tickets and vowed never to attend another game while Terry Wallace remains coach. Have a Bex and a good lie down.
Sure, Thursday was insipid stuff, but honestly, you'd think this was a team ready to dethrone Hawthorn and leave Geelong sinking in its wake, such was the level of scorn heaped upon everyone bar the Punt Road bootstudder after the thrashing.
Which, despite Kevin Sheedy's wildly optimistic prediction last week, Richmond is most clearly not.
Forget Ben Cousins for two seconds. Please. What Richmond needs most to move from mediocrity to contender is precisely what it didn't get against Carlton. A decent, committed output from its senior core.
Joel Bowden, Nathan Brown, Brett Deledio and Troy Simmonds were ordinary to say the least against the Blues. Matthew Richardson's failure to pay Jarrad Waite due respect was a poisonous example for his junior teammates.
The Tigers laid 28 fewer tackles than their opponents, those five players landing just five between them. And we know by now Richmond doesn't have nearly enough skill to be able to ignore basic defensive fundamentals and escape with anything less than a hiding.
Before the Tigers steel themselves for this week's trip to Geelong, those senior heads would be well-served to have a look at Adelaide's effort against Collingwood, specifically the sort of commitment veteran Crows Andrew McLeod, Simon Goodwin and Tyson Edwards, close to the three best players on the ground, produce week after week.
But they'd do well, too, as would the yellow-and-black fans baying for some red stuff, to remember that one out of 22 isn't quite a large enough sample from which to be drawing conclusions. Particularly when it's the first of 22.
No wonder every coach would have been drumming into his charges in the lead-up to last weekend that, as exciting as is the first round, it carries, one could argue, even less weight than rounds two, three, four and so on. Because the end of this season, we'll be looking back on some of the first-round results and asking: "What the … ?"
Sydney coach Paul Roos knows the drill. His Swans have lost their past four season openers. In 2006, they were comfortably beaten by Essendon at Docklands. The Swans would go on to lose the grand final by a point. The Bombers, meanwhile, lost their next 14 games and finished 15th.
After watching his team fail to score a goal for almost three quarters, Roos will be also thankful that he coaches a team that sparks little interest in Melbourne, and, when the Swans lose, not a lot more in Sydney.
The Swans have just as big an ask in rebounding from the round-one reversal — Hawthorn at ANZ Stadium — as does Richmond against the Cats. But at least they can do it without radio inquisitions of their chairman, having their switchboard flooded by irate fans, or daily medical updates on their most visible star.
One suggestion Richmond might want to consider for next season's draw is requesting an opening-round clash interstate. And keep the time of its arrival back at Tullamarine a closely guarded secret.
That would certainly help it tackle its first assignment of the new season without the sort of hyperbole, and accompanying stage fright, last Thursday night seemed to inspire.
A good three months' worth of salivating over a game between last year's ninth- and 11th-placed teams didn't do the Tigers any favours. And who knows? Maybe it could also prove a heavy burden to carry for the opponent that won in such fine style.
But it would be nice if we could negotiate at least a few more of this season's 176 home-and-away games before we all start running around doing a fair impersonation of Chicken Little.
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