TheGeoffRe(y)port

Richmond lose by 3 points after Kelvin Moore misses a shot at goal with a minute to go. Wounded Tiger headline for the match report:

“One Moore Goal Away“

Come on, that’s gold. Anyone from the Herald Sun or The Age - just give me a call sometime and we’ll see what we can sort out.

For those of you who skip over the Richmond related posts, help is at hand. And for those of you who only visit in the hope that I’ve written something about our fearsome yellow and black warriors, I can help you too! I’ve decided that the next adventure in my blogging career is to quarantine off the Richmond related posts over to “The Wounded Tiger” - thewoundedtiger.com

From the about page:

The Wounded Tiger is the heartbroken lament of a Richmond supporter who has undergone far too much trauma with his team to ever give them up.

I’m mostly doing it because a) I saw a cheap deal on domain names, and b) most of my Google traffic is for Richmond related content, and I couldn’t handle forcing people who have come to find out about Richo and Browny instead looking at wedding video and theology. So tell all your yellow and black friends: thewoundedtiger.com

Purple-hearted Mark will love me for picking a fight with his arch-enemies the wee-girls, but when I read this on The Age (stolen from the West Australian) I couldn’t let it pass without comment:

“WEST COAST chief executive Trevor Nisbett has accepted responsibility for the scandals that have rocked the club but defended his job and said calls for his sacking were naive because no single person could change the player culture at a football club.”

So it’s naive to suggest that you should remove a significant part of any problem, because it doesn’t make up the whole problem. Nisbett is right though - no one person is able to change the culture of the football club, and so as a result the entire management of the club should resign if they are serious about changing the culture.

… but us Tigers people are certainly not bandwagon supporters. After putting in one of the worst seasons in the club’s long history, we’ve managed to set a new pre-christmas record for memberships. The faithful yellow and black certainly are faithful. And I haven’t even added mine to that number yet!

(Rest assured, the future wife has already green-lighted the proposed membership. There’s half a chance she might sign up to come along for the ride!)

Brandt Snedeker is not only a difficult name to pronounce, but it’s not a name I’ve ever heard of before. But today, he deserves to be applauded, because he stared a whole bunch of money, career development and possibly a really great kick start to getting a little bit of fame, but instead knocked it back for the sake of sportsmanship and honesty.

Snedeker will be able to look himself in the mirror the morning and see an honest man. Golf is the only game of self- regulation and yesterday on the 14th hole he called a penalty on himself for something no one else saw. Had he said nothing, he would have shot 11-under and gone into a play-off with Parry.

The American was in the rough just short of the green on the 510-metre par five, and removed a leaf from behind his ball prior to playing his shot. The ball moved ever so slightly, and Snedeker immediately conferred with O’Hern, his playing partner, and a rules official then confirmed the one-shot penalty. It resulted in a bogey six on the hole. (The Age)

So today, I wanted to applaud Brandt Snedeker - difficult name to say, and might never hear from him again, but he chose to take the high road.

(Edit - Oh yeah, this is about golf, in case that made NO sense at all. The Australian Open, specifically) 

…you need to do something to reinforce that you’re a tough team. Coming off winning the wooden spoon and disgracing the jumper in our biggest ever defeat - we need to do something that fixes that idea in people’s minds. Something to restore the image of a “fighting fury” - that picture of a fearsome and rough as guts team that harks back to the era of Captain Blood. So the Tiges got out there and we……..

…signed a sponsorship deal with a haircare line. The press-release below has my opinion annotated in italics below. You can see the unadulterated version on the Richmond website:

Richmond Football Club has announced that Matrix Men (part of the L’Oreal group - well at least they’re a nice manly company like “L’Oreal”) will join the Club as a sponsor for the 2008 season.

Richmond’s CEO Steven Wright said, “We are delighted to have Matrix on-board as a new partner and the official shorts sponsor of the Club.

“Matrix has long been regarded as a pacesetter in the salon professional industry in the USA and it is now making significant inroads throughout Australia.

“With Matrix’s growing focus on men’s hair care and grooming, there’s an ideal opportunity for it to promote product awareness via the strong Richmond brand.” - and lets face it, if there’s something the “Richmond brand” needs - it’s to be associated with prettying yourself up.

Brent Durrant, General Manager for Matrix Australia says, “Matrix Men is excited to support one of the most well established teams in the Australian Football League (AFL). Richmond’s strong tradition, heritage and support system epitomise the values of Matrix.

“To the best of my knowledge, this level of sponsorship is a first for a hair care brand in the hairdressing industry - I wonder if there’s any reason for that - and Matrix Men is the perfect fit. Not only will the players look great on and off the field, it provides a perfect opportunity for the Matrix brand to be communicated to a broad audience.”

Nathan Brown, Mark Coughlan, Brett Deledio and Andrew Raines are ambassadors for the company’s Style Control System range. - we already have a “style control system”, it’s called “Shane Tuck’s Face”. No danger of any style getting out of control with Tucky around.

I realise that this post will probably serve to further marginalise the people who have started coming on here to read about the wedding, but I couldn’t let this go by uncommented. With pretty boy moves like this, it could only be a matter of time before we switch black for brown, and go for a vertical stripe pattern.

Dear Geelong,

I realise that I have not been your greatest advocate. I understand that throughout this year I have taken a great deal of pleasure in relaying my belief that you would choke in late September, and that you might not really be the “real deal”. I confess I’ve even offered up scorn to the selection of Mooney and Milburn in the All Australian side. Understand that this is partly because you have hurt me - both in demolishing the shell of a team that the Tiges have been this year, and through Gary Ablett Snr’s nasty habit of kicking 15 goals or more against the yeller and black back in the bad old days.

But as hard as it might be to believe: I like you. I think you play a beautiful style of footy, and I’ve enjoyed watching you play this season. You have restored the respectability of this great footballing state, and proven that attacking football can win big games. There is no doubt in my mind that I’ll be wishing on the blue and white this weekend, rather than that self-absorbed arrogant mob from Alberton.

So it is in the spirit of reconciliation and friendship that I make this one, heartfelt request:

Please, PLEASE.

Don’t choke

Yours Sincerely,

Geoff Matheson - Lover of all good things in football and disliker of the size of Mark Williams’ head.

There has been very few occasions to celebrate this season. But if we’ve managed to cost Collingwood either their spot in the top 4, or even better: their spot in the top 8 then at least we can know that this season hasn’t been a complete waste of time. Deledio has kicked 5 goals and in a rare moment of actually trying something from Terry Wallace: we threw Polak forward at the opening bounce and the only man holding the tigers together at the moment (Nathan Foley - what a star) delivered to him beautifully.

You’d take a win over Collingwood as fair trade for three wins of other sides.
A rare moment of joy in a horrific car-crash of a season.
GO TIGES!

Last night I gave Rebecca the opportunity to see Richmond take on Geelong (and by inference, to see how I act at football games). Unfortunately, the Richmond football club rebelled, and in what can only be considered a protest at the forced retirement of club stalwart Darren Gaspar, denied my love the opportunity the chance to watch anything which could be in any way described as football.

Words can’t express how bad the team was: but there has never been a bigger loss for the Tiges than last night. The disappointing part is that players like Joel Bowden, who is unlikely to have played a worse game in his entire career, will likely still be bestowed with the wholly undeserved privilege of wearing the very same jumper they have disgraced so carelessly. I really do like Terry Wallace - but if he coaches our team to another defeat above 100 points than I cannot see a way for him to continue in a senior coaching role. Anywhere