TheGeoffRe(y)port

I know that there are good examples of this stuff happening in churches. But reading this article, I was just struck by how much this sort of stuff needs to be a part of our out-working of the Kingdom. Maybe I’m biased and just like the thought of something positive coming out of the Richmond Football Club (nothing has happened on the field since 1980 - so it’s gotta come from somewhere). And I was struck by Dale Weightman’s quote (one of the few players from that team that I can remember playing):

“That’s what we do, we look after our own.”

Sounds just a little bit like something another hero once said:

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35)

I’m sorry for the title, it’s self indulgent and cheesy. But I’m auditioning for a job as a sports sub-editor on the Herald Sun. And a line like that is pure gold.

These Richmond reports have lost a little bit of impetus, since I haven’t actually watched the Tiges play in over a month, and am only basing my conclusions on second-hand recollections, and newspaper reports. With Journalist skills like these - I should see if “Today Tonight” has any vacancies….

One of the truly good-news stories to come out of Punt Rd this season has been the emergence from virtually nowhere of Andrew Raines. The boy barely got a gig last year, although he showed some promise late in 2005, he’d been around for quite a while and was really given a one-year contract as a last chance effort at “making it” in AFL footy. But this season he’s been in everything. Seasoned observers* testify that he has the look of his father - Geoff Raines (no slouch, won some best and fairests and all that, plus a ripper first name), but he has consistently shown real quality in a side for whom “consistent” is not an honest appraisal.

Sunday’s performance was out of character for a Richmond side that continue to baffle anyone who tries to predict what they might do. These matches - the easy wins over lower quality opposition, have been the games that we’ve regularly managed to throw away. But incredibly, we’ve done in the Blues with another massive win - making it two on the trot and strengthening our claim for ninth. Ah, the nostalgia - we’re back where we belong…

Richmond 21.14 (140)

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Carlton 14.11 (95)

* - By seasoned, I mean old, and by observers, I mean my dad

… at ninth. Now that the finals are all but mathematically impossible (Ray Hall’s got a better chance of winning the brownlow), it’s encouraging to see the mighty tiges doing what we do best - finishing just outside the 8. For a while there it looked like we might slip as low as 11th - which we certainly don’t want because who needs better draft picks.

Well, to put this in perspective, we beat an interstate team who is likely to finish in the bottom four and was missing their best 6 or so players. And it’s too late. So while I’m not going to lie to you - it certainly brought a smile to my face to hear that the Tiges had got up by such a huge margin, and I was pretty surprised - it’s not really worth too much of a celebration.

But maybe I should just take what I can get and stop whingeing.

Richmond 21.16 (142)

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Brisbane 8.12 (60)

Just to be really clear - the dream is over for another year. There won’t be a late storm into the feight. No fairytale finals appearance for the boys in yellow and black. We’re just left with that same old feeling. The feeling of demolished hope. That feeling that you’re in an abusive relationship. That the promises of a month ago were just as empty as they have always been. You want to cry but you know that there are bigger things to worry about. You want to run away and hide in the corner. You don’t want to ever watch football again. But you know that you’ll watch next week. This week it was a pathetic start. There’s always something. Next week will be a fade-out, or a mid-game nap. The result is the same, only the details are different.

Embittered. That’s the one thing that all Richmond supporters have in common. We are all embittered.

Western Bulldogs 15. 10. (100)

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Richmond 10. 18. (78)

…don’t say anything at all.

St. Kilda 27.12 (174)

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Richmond 10.11 (71)

This weeks Richmond report has been cancelled due to insufficient information available. Truth of the matter is, for the second time in two weeks I’ve chosen the company of Bec and Marlon Brando (no prizes for guessing the bigger influence, but I’ll give you a hint, the one who’s not dead) over a miserable night watching the Tiges get obliterated. I regret nothing.

Sydney 14.17 (101)

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Richmond 7.11 (53) 

A couple of wins on the board and you think that maybe, just maybe we might be able to give the Dees a red hot go. Not really. And while I opted for the company of Pacino and Brando over that of Richardson and Bowden (well, perhaps it was the company of Bec and Beth that swung the deal), you really believed that we might give Melbourne a shake.

Not exactly. Most reports indicate that we were flattered by the scoreline, and that Joelly Bowden had a shocker. And really, we’re a side that depends on him in the backline more than any other player. Ah well, it was one we had to lose, and there have been much worse defeats. Just gotta hope that the Tiges can bounce straight back next week!

Melbourne 9. 16. (70)

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Richmond 7. 10. (52)

I didn’t want to feel like this. For so long I’d been disciplined, reminded myself of the hurt, told myself that it wasn’t worth the pain, even uttered that most unsavoury of sayings for a Tigers’ man: “Maybe we’ll come ninth”. But it has been harder and harder to resist. There are only so many times that you can utter “what’s going on?” and “we are not really a good team” when they keep winning games. Unfortunately, love conquers all.

Deep down, I know that I shouldn’t have, but once the words have come out, there is no putting them back. Saturday evening, having tracked most of the game on the “live scores” bit on the AFL website, I mumbled those most dangerous of words: “we could make the finals this year”. Straight away, I knew I shouldn’t say it. But it happens every time. I’m a hopeless romantic at heart…. the optimism has to come out eventually.

The signs are good. We’ve won games without Gaspar, without Richardson (and with Richardson not playing huge parts), for the first time since about 2001, we’ve got a ruckman who is able to dominate games, and we are playing to a game plan; albeit an often unattractive one. It is a sign of the demoralising effect from years of ineptitude that making the finals would be an awesome achievement. But maybe, just maybe, this might be the year for it to happen….

Richmond 14.8.(92)

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Port Adelaide 6.18.(54)

Sometimes life just throws up unexpected pleasures. Like finding out that your income tax return is higher than you thought it would be. Events that have an untarnished shine to them. Chipping the ball into the hole from miles away. Events that bring an involuntary grin across the entire width of your face. Beating Collingwood on Sunday is about the pinnacle of this genre of happenings.

I missed all bar the final 5 minutes of the game a fortnight ago, due to travelling interstate - and was glad to have done so. By even the most optimistic observers it was a deplorable performance. So very, very little hope was held out for this game. Wet weather at least meant we were unlikely to go down by more than 100 points. I didn’t even worry about catching the game, figuring it would be far more beneficial to be playing charades and boggle with the young adults rather than put myself through that level of trauma.

I should never have doubted. Read the rest of this entry »

I managed to get along to this week’s game, and it was worth sitting in the freezing cold. The Kangaroos are pretty down at the moment, and it was blatantly obvious that they were a team that was lacking confidence. The could have been 10 separate occassions where a kick or a handball went directly to the chest of a Richmond player. The Kangaroos picked us out and drilled it to us. The only player of any merit in the Kangaroos side was Nathan Thompson, who was very unlucky not to have kicked 8 goals - he ended up with 5 and hit the post three times.

Richmond badly missed Matthew Richardson. For most of the game we completely lacked any semblance of a marking target in the forward line - Kayne Pettifer was playing at full forward. Although he aquitted himself admirably - kicking 4. Nathan Brown’s return was very encouraging: he looks like he might return to form at some stage late in this year. He managed to get quite a bit of the ball, setting a couple of goals up and kicking two himself.

Joel Bowden has cemented his place in the Fantasy Football sides of any astute player. Richmond has a game plan that says “If you can’t find a player on their own to kick to, kick it backwards to Joel Bowden”. It sounds absurd, but it is exactly what our young, impressionable team needs. They’ve clearly had it drilled into them that rather than panic at any stage, we turn around and kick it to Joel and let him set up our play. Kane Johnson might be the captain, and a great captain he is, but Joelly is our conductor, orchestrating any movement forward.

It wasn’t a pretty win, we’ve played much better this season, and had we played a better side we would almost certainly have been beaten. But from a Tigers supporter’s point of view, these are the wins that almost mean more than any other. The wins we should get. They’ve been the games were the tigers of old have inexplicably let slip. But Terry Wallace is transforming this side. They’re not a premiership side. They’re not even neccessarily likely to make the top eight. But they are beating the teams that they are better than. And that is a sweet relief.

Richmond 15. 12. (102)

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Kangaroos 9.13 (67)