In reality, Tigers season shot after first-round drubbing
Patrick Smith | May 25, 2009 | The Australian
THERE is much to learn from the fate of a team that wins eight of its last 11 matches in 2008. Especially when one of the last three games included a 29-point win over eventual premier Hawthorn. Form that should have but could not be transported into 2009 can have devastating ramifications. Richmond, a giant-killer in round 20 last year, now sits with one win from nine matches - road kill of its own making.
The beginning and the end of the Richmond re-emergence as any sort of power came in round one this year against Carlton. Season 2009 had come and gone in four quarters. The Blues beat their bitter rival by 83 points. Ben Cousins was injured, supporters flabbergasted, the players inept and overwhelmed. And the media out of control.
The drafting of Cousins had given Richmond extra members, a million-dollar bonus and expectation in place of hope. The latter is a dangerous progression. With hope comes dreams but no certainty; with expectation dreams are ditched and only success satisfies.
To be fair Richmond's fate has seen the media conduct an unwarranted and widely inaccurate attack on the club. When the club did not sack coach Terry Wallace as the media said it would, it unleashed a poisonous assault on the club that ultimately illustrated the media applies standards to others that it will not apply to itself.
As Richmond fell apart in round one, Carlton became the darling of the media. Not without reason. It licked the Tigers and then held off the Brisbane Lions, a team considered bullish stock in the new season under the return of the prodigious son Michael Voss. Two losses followed but a round-five trouncing of the Western Bulldogs saw the great belief return. The club theme for the season - "They know we're coming" - looked apt and menacing.
By round nine the Blues had a chance to push into the top four if they could beat Adelaide, a side that looked wrapped up in a team strategy so tightly that it allowed no spontaneity and demanded predictability. By half-time Carlton had not kicked a goal and this after a 51-point win over Collingwood in round eight. A third-quarter rally of sorts was contained and by full-time Adelaide had moved on to four wins, equal with the Blues. Worse, Jarrad Waite had sustained an ACL injury and Brendan Fevola was again unproductive. He now has kicked two goals in three games and on the weekend he allowed Ben Rutten to run off him and construct and share in counter attacks without protest. Coach Brett Ratten pushed Fevola up the ground but the full-forward appears discombobulated if he is not within touching distance of the goal posts.
We might know the Blues are coming, but just where they are going becomes less certain by the round. What we do know is that if Fevola is their barometer then it is some place where the sun don't shine. Last week against Collingwood Fevola did not score a point, never mind a goal, but 10 Carlton players still shared 16 goals. Against Adelaide, Fevola was just one of five players with a hand in eight goals. With Waite out indefinitely and concern over a possible recurrence of the neck injury to Nick Stevens, Carlton's chances of maintaining a top-eight spot are suddenly on a diet.
Just as that round-one match with the Tigers deflated Richmond, it might have also inflated the Blues. They have lost one more match than they have won but have the good fortune to meet West Coast at Etihad Stadium on Friday.
Collingwood, which could not beat Adelaide at the MCG in round one, and had combined losses of 139 points to St Kilda and Carlton in rounds seven and eight, has moved two places up the ladder to ninth. Not the footing for coach Mick Malthouse to feel secure that his contract will be extended into 2010.
But the win on Saturday night against West Coast was testament to Malthouse's ability to prepare his side for victory in the most hostile and desperate of circumstances. Weakened by injury and forced to travel off a six-day break, Collingwood doubled the contribution from the Eagles after the first quarter.
Collingwood is yet to begin negotiations with Malthouse about his future post round 22. But the club has begun putting together a sub-committee to assess the best way for the club to win a premiership in the next five years. That win over West Coast might be enough to convince the committee that Malthouse remains the best man for the job. At the very least he might get a one-year extension.
It is believed president Eddie McGuire moved last week to assure the football department that his board was aware how debilitating the injury count had become. That alone must have been comforting to Malthouse. As Richmond has found out, impossible expectation can lead to lunacy - at least in the media.
The two most improved sides in the league are St Kilda, which is on top of the ladder, and Essendon, which does not look like being budged from the top eight. The Bombers took control of the match against Richmond after half-time when coach Matthew Knights sought a commitment to what he calls "surge" football.
Knights is becoming the leading linguist in coach-speak and has mastered its quaintest dialect. Surge football is presumably pushing the ball forward as a giant wave might dump jetsam on a beach. It can be devastating at high tide but leaves slim pickings when the water retreats.
Be certain of this, however. When the surf's up the Bomber grommets take you on an unbelievable ride.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25531572-12270,00.html
