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

… 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!)

…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.

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

Well, my tips are already in trouble (2 for the week) - congratulations to Sam (Meika) and Rodney who are in the lead on 5. Must admit, I thought that I’d tipped the Magpies and I really should have picked the Saints. And I’m a fool for being surprised that the Tiges got done by filthy Carlton - looks like one of my predictions has come true already.

With the dawn of a new AFL Season approaching, I thought it appropriate (given that the old man and I have got a membership this year) to take some time out to pass on some valuable predictions on what the season 2007 might look like for the Mighty yeller and black.

Richo (Matthew Richardson) to spend half the season on the sidelines. The big, dumb and ugly one is just losing the fight against retirement. I love him, and hope he’s got a couple more seasons in that tired old body. But I can’t see him gracing the field for more than 10 or 11 games this year.

Shane Tuck to win Richmond’s Best and Fairest. He’s quickly becoming the sole representative of consistency in a violently inconsistent midfield. As long as Patrick Bowden stops feeding brother Joel exhorbitant amounts of leather, Tucky should take it this year.

Terry Wallace to write off a thrashing as a “learning experience” and “good for the team”. Don’t get me wrong. I love Wally. But sometimes the crap that spouts from the senior coach’s mouth just makes you want to collapse in incredulity. For the past 3 years we’ve been allowing the Tiges to get off with pathetic efforts because we’re “such a young list”. And given that it seems to be working well for Tiger Terry, I can’t see the line changing just yet.

A big win against a team much better than us. It seems that every year the Tiges manage to get up over some pretty tough opposition including last year’s shock win over (then premiership favourites) the Crows.

A big loss over a team we are much better than. The inevitable baggage that goes with being giant killers is that you then end up getting beaten by a team who shouldn’t be able to make your reserves. So Round 1 against the navy blues is probably a danger game for us.

All in all, the prediction you’re really waiting for……. the Tiges will probably finish

9th.

Ninth. It’s almost enough to make you want to cry. It’s simultaneously a testament to some awesome performances, and a demonstration of the bitter disappointment of yet another year without finals action. Things are improving - I really only had one or two weeks where I believed that we might make the finals. How many times did I write that “we are not a good team”. But it still hurts.

With nothing to play for, and against the side that has been the most dominant by far for the past two years, it was never likely to be pretty. I saw some, but was more than happy to switch over to the ABC and while away an hour or so on lawn bowls rather than inflict any further pain on myself.

There were good signs: Raines, White, Howat and Hyde all played well in the portions I saw. Andrew Raines is already well on the way to being a champion of the club, and we have a team that will surely get better as they gain experience. There will be holes next year - it would be unlikely at best that there is another year or more left in either Gaspar or Kellaway - and you cannot build a backline on the shoulders of Joel Bowden, Andrew Raines and Ray Hall. So we need to do something about aquiring a tall defender.

To have prevented yet another 100 point defeat at least showed some semblance of pride in the jumper. And with more of our top players on the park, we’d have made the first week of finals. We won’t remember 2006 as a great year for the Richmond Football Club, but we might just remember it as the year players like Dean Polo, Andrew Raines, Danny Meyer, etc. really started something special at Tigerland. Until season 2007 - that’s it for the Richmond Reports.

West Coast Eagles 26. 17 (173)

def.

Richmond 12. 13 (85)

There is something about football players, that makes you appreciate the ugly ones more. Steve Silvagni might be the Full Back of the Century - but everyone loved Mick Martyn (possibly the ugliest Full Back of the Century) a whole lot more. And while magpie scum supporters might cheer a goal from Chris Tarrant, they roar when Anthony Rocca (a face that even his mother isn’t that keen on) kicks one.

And we don’t want our heroes to be the blameless, clean-cut, goody-two-shoes. We want our heroes flawed, preferably really flawed. Which brings us to Matthew Richardson. Richo. Now Richo is the epitome of flawed. There are few star full-forwards in the game who can kick the ball out on the full from 15 metres out. Richo has done that on more than one occassion. He is big, he is dumb, and he is very, very ugly.

But when the big man is on, he is on. I remember vividly the day I saw him kick 10 against the Bulldogs. It was in the year we won the wooden spoon, and if it wasn’t for Richo we’d have been walloped that day. I can just remember thinking that this was how other supporters must feel every time the ball goes into the forward line. Because for that day, you believed that Matty Richardson was going to kick a goal. Didn’t matter how difficult the mark. No matter how close to goal he was. He was just kickin’ them.

And to beat a team like Essendon, who have inflicted more than their fair share of pain on us in recent times, is a beautiful, beautiful thing. And nine goals is a big game in anyone’s books. So you can keep your clean-cut (and injured) Matthew Lloyd - it’s the big, dumb and ugly Matthew Richardson for the yellow and black!

Richmond 20.9 (129)

def.

Essendon 16.17 (113)