Rolling the tambling diceDan Silkstone | July 9, 2009
IN 2004, Richmond rolled the Tambling dice, selecting with draft pick No.4 a player ranked highly by many recruiters but one who has since become one of the most controversial in the club's long fallow period.
Most dice are six-sided - this one had just five. The first five players read out on draft day, if not the order, matched closely with the top prospects identified beforehand by most clubs. Those young players, in now oft-cited order, were Brett Deledio, Jarryd Roughead, Ryan Griffen, Tambling and Lance Franklin. Only pick six - the Bulldogs' play for Tom Williams - was considered a surprise.
For the longest time, that dice roll has looked a lot like snake eyes. Richmond has been roundly mocked for taking Tambling and Deledio, while ignoring nascent superstars in Franklin and Roughead. All the while, the Western Bulldogs have been let off the hook. Two top-six picks netted them Griffen and Williams. The early success of one has partly masked the misfortunes of the other.
Here's an idea, though: What happens if you take another look at that famous draft with 2009 form in mind?
Viewpoints form early, prejudices soon after, and Tambling's introduction to league football was uninspiring. But, five years after the most talked-about draft of the modern era, Tambling appears to have forgotten that he was supposed to be a mistake. The 22-year-old has unleashed a string of eye-catching performances in 2009 - even as his team has struggled.
Franklin meanwhile - among the best handful in the competition last year - has dulled a little, Roughead has hardly sizzled and while Deledio and Griffen have had their moments, few of them have been so grand as in seasons past.
If you calculated draft order on 2009 form alone, there's every chance Tambling might go at No.1. At very least an argument can be made.
How good has he been? This year, the often-maligned Tiger averages 22 disposals, seven marks and - importantly given the ability to run and carry he has recently displayed - four inside 50s per match. They are impressive numbers in a team that has lost many more matches than it has won. But something else happens when you look at more recent form.
In the past five weeks, he has been as good as anybody.
During that period, Tambling has averaged 27 disposals and eight marks, playing as a damaging wingman-cum-half-forward. Against West Coast in round 12 he was clearly best man on the field. Last week he tore Adelaide apart en route to a career-high 31 touches. He is finding space, finding the ball and using it to change the course of games.
Since round 10, Tambling ranks third in the league for marks and is also third for uncontested possessions. Not only is he getting much more of the ball, he is using it better - his disposal efficiency, at 79 per cent - is easily a career high.
It all seems to coincide rather conveniently with the change of coach at Punt Road and yet assistant coach Brian Royal - who has worked closely with Tambling - says there has been no change in what is being asked of the player under Jade Rawlings.
"His workrate has lifted significantly this year and he has a better understanding of how hard he has to work," Royal says. "His body has taken a bit longer to develop than some. He's got the licence to play as a wingman or half-forward and he has relished it. It just took time for him. This is his fifth year and it is all coming together, starting to click."
But sometimes players respond as much to subtle psychological cues as they do to team orders. Tambling is the ultimate confidence player, Royal agrees. "He feels a really strong part of the team now, like he belongs in the side," he says. "He has got belief now, some players have that straight away and some take a little bit longer."
Royal says the burden of being in THAT draft has been difficult and the public opprobrium of Tiger fans has not helped. You could see these things in the past, just watching the hesitancy with which he played. Too often the fear of making a mistake overrode the desire to take the game on. The mistake was duly made.
"Richard Tambling did not pick himself at No.4, the Richmond Football Club did. People don't understand the pressure that put on Richard was quite enormous," Royal says. "It can be a burden and I know it has been. Those external pressures were enormous."
Tambling is up this year. Others are a little down. This speaks to the vagaries of both team and individual form as well as injury, but also to the different rate at which young men mature. It is hard in AFL football to play five consecutive seasons in top form. Try to think of those who have done it in the past half-decade: Chris Judd definitely. Jonathan Brown, maybe. Gary Ablett? Probably not.
At different points in that period, each of the 2004 top five has shone. If you had reset the draft order after just 12 months, Deledio would have more than justified his top selection. The No.1 pick lit up season 2005, helping himself to the Rising Star award and showing off blistering pace. Since then he has been steady, though never the dominant midfielder he was drafted to be. Cameos up forward and in defence were tried before he found form last year and snagged the Tigers' best and fairest. But in 2009, Deledio has slipped a little. His average disposals are down, as are goals per game, scoring assists and marks.
Early on, Griffen was probably tracking second-best. He finished second in the 2005 rising star and was hailed as an emerging gun. In 2007, he struck injury trouble: first a knee problem, then a twisted bowel. As he moved from defence into the midfield he has sometimes sparkled while at others frustrating Bulldog fans with his inconsistency. He is yet to stamp himself as an elite midfielder. In a team that racks up plenty of touches with a share-and-carry style, last weekend's win against Hawthorn was his biggest tally in five years: 31 disposals.
When you talk about Franklin and Roughead, normal rules don't quite apply. Both - like their team - appear to have dropped off this year. Neither looks the game-breaking threat he was in 2008. And yet, both have still kicked plenty of goals. One does not imagine Hawthorn would wish to trade them for anybody. And they have a premiership.
Tambling, Deledio and Griffen make an interesting comparison. All play sometimes in the midfield and yet none are top-line onballers in the traditional sense. They get less of the ball than the likes of Ablett, Judd, Dane Swan or Sam Mitchell. It took four years for Deledio to nail his first 30-plus possession game (surely a barometer for key midfielders). Tambling and Griffen both snared 31 disposals last weekend. In both cases it was a career high.
Royal agrees that Tambling is probably shading the other four in 2009 but notes it is his fifth year and he has plenty of catching up to do. "Deledio has a best and fairest, Franklin has a premiership and a Coleman medal, Roughead and Griffen have had very good periods," he says. "They go up and down at different times, that's just football."
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