Greg Stafford told a pre-match function on Sunday that he could not give a guarantee that he would play again this season. He is currently in "rehab" and the hope is he will be available by round 21. Staffy said if he is fit for round 21 he will play if he isn't then that will be his season.

A couple of weeks ago we reported that Rory Hilton had gone home to Wodonga to spend sometime with his family after his knee reconstruction. Rory is now back in Melbourne and the great news is he has commenced swimming as part of his rehabilitation. All reports from the surgeon are positive and Rory is on track to start running within the next couple of months.

Back to Greg Stafford at Sunday's pre-match. It was a very different looking Greg Stafford who, last Friday went under the barber's shears as part of the "Bluey Day" fundraiser. Richmond sponsor Connex Trains offered a cool $10,000 if Staffy went for the "number ones". Staffy obilged and as a result there is now a very tall intimdating looking Tiger ruckman around Punt Road (pity he's out injured at the moment).

With 3 games remaining in season 2004 there are only 4 senior listed Tiger players who have not played senior footy this year. Alex Gilmour, Andrew Raines, Bill Nicholls and Kyle Archibald are the players in question. Reports from the Coburg game on weekend suggest that young Andrew Raines continues to impress. Here's hoping the he gets a game before the season is out - in my opinion he has earnt it.

As I have said reviously my theory is pretty simple: "if you pick the kids, play the kids".

As the questions seem to be too easy I have taken a different tack this week. No "who am I" or "how many games did they play", this week I bring you ......

Who said this?

Answer next Week

If you have got the answer to this week's trivia question.

Feel free to drop me a line at:

WilliamPowell@oneeyed-richmond.com

Or post it on the forum!

And my final word...

Never fear Tiger fans there will be September action this season. Coburg are currently 3rd on the VFL ladder and are guaranteed a finals berth. The other bonus is a number of senior Tigers have played the required 7 games (either senior or reserve VFL games) to qualify for the VFL finals. Jackson, Roach and Raines will all be on show during the VFL finals. They are our future.

OER's Media Watch..aka..WP's Soap Box

Twinkle, twinkle .... will he or wont he .... when will he ....

This is just a sample of the fun week tiger fans have had regarding our new coach. Caroline tolds us about Greg Miller's twinkling eye, Patrick Smith told us about our "season of desperate disappointment" (The Australian 2/8/04) and told us that Kane Johnson has been "serviceable".

Mike Sheahan evaluated our list and compared it to the Hawthorn list. The only problem was he doesn't seem to know who is on the Tiger list considering he managed to "forget" to list one player. Jackie Epstein from the Sunday Herald-Sun obviously used Mike's RFC player listing for her story titled "Which Club" (Sunday Herald-Sun 8/8/04) because she managed to forget the same player.

Jackie also managed to come up with this gem in the "Which Club" article when she listed the "cons" about coaching the Tigers:

"Success starved fans have high expectations and the pressure could be suffocating"

Jackie obviously doesn't read OER and certainly doesn't give Tiger fans much credit. Success starved - definitely but you don't need to be Einstien to know that we have accepted that we need to re-build and that this process has started and we are prepared to see it through. I know this probably extremely disappointing because of the effect it will have on newspaper sales but we've accepted it it would be nice if the media could too.

Keep Prowlin - WP