Pleasing to see some of our senior listed players on the comeback trail from injury representing Coburg against the Box Hill Hawks on ANZAC Day.

Rory Hilton played the nearly the entire game rotating through the mid-field and then resting up at the forward line. Rory had plenty of possession, used the ball well and was one of Coburg's best.

Matthew Rogers played a just on half game. He came on in the 2nd quarter starting the in centre. He spent a some time up forward. The good news was he moved freely, the bad news Matthew had very little of the ball.

Justin Blumfield is another on the comeback trail from a recent knee surgery. Although it is apparent that Justin is lacking in match fitness, he did get a fair bit of the ball when he was on the ground. However, OER can report that there was brief scare during the 2nd quarter when Justin received a knock to his shoulder. Pleasing to see was the Justin returned to the field with his shoulder strapped in the third and played out the remainded of the match with no obvious ill-effects from the knock to his shoulder

Along with nearly all of the senior team who were at Coburg Oval to watch the "Burgers" young recruit Kyle Archibald was there to watch his teammates. As reported Kyle has been suffering from the dreaded Oestitis Pubis. Kyle had told me back at the annual Family Day that he hadn't been able to run since before Christmas and most of his work revolves around the bike.

After having an interupted pre-season our number 1 draft pick Alex Gilmour played for Coburg on ANZAC day. Very quick on his feet and with solid disposal by hand or foot Alex is making steady progress at Coburg.

The Tigers Footy Director Greg Miller briefly attended a pre-match function for one of the Clubs membership groups. He spoke in glowing terms about our young recruits in particular Hartigan, Gilmour, Roach, Raines and Jackson and said that even he was surprised with the progress since they joined the Club back in October. He has been especially impressed with young Andrew Raines who is further advanced in his development than the Club anticipated.

Obviously Greg was extremely disappointed with the teams recent results. He said the biggest problem we faced was the fact that so many of our senior players were out of form. He said that in the week leading up to the Adelaide game the club had deliberately put the onus on team performance sqarely on the shoulders of the leadership group - with the 1 percenters being the main focus.

While watching the Coburg Tigers on ANZAC day I managed to catch up with Bill Nicholls who is on the comeback trail from injury. Billy told me that he had suffered a hip injury early in the pre-season and as result he had sustained problems with his hamstrings. In fact Billy said that he was all set to play in Coburg last practice game but suffered an injury during the warm up. The good news for Billy is that he played half a game for the Coburg reserves on ANZAC day and was hopefully of lining up for Coburg seniors this week (1/5/04)

In what year did Scanlon's first produce their now famous swap cards?

Answer next Week

Got some inside info you want to share? Or perhaps the answer to this week's trivia question.

Feel free to drop me a line at:

WilliamPowell@oneeyed-richmond.com

Finally, have you ever wanted to experience a little piece of tiger heaven? Well I had that opportunity on Tuesday 23/04/04 at the first 2004 Tommy Hafey luncheon that celebrated "Captains Courageous". Some of the past greats present included Des Rowe, Ron Branton, Roger Dean and Bruce Monteath.

Bruce Monteath looked like he could pull on a pair of boots today. Ron Branton was a delight and I managed to catch up and have a brief word. The one thing that stood out when talking to Ron was is passion for the Tigers and how important he believes that passion should be passed onto todays players. Interesting to note that while being interviewed he stressed the honour associated in playing for Richmond and that it was time for todays players to create an era of their own. I think it is fair to say everyone in the room agreed with those sentiments.

The next Tommy Hafey Club luncheon is on Wednesday June 2nd and it will be a tribute to our 1969 Premiership Team. So if you want to enjoy an afternoon of Tiger heaven this is for you.