and now..Greg Stafford

[Mooster7]

I'm confused which is perfectly Ok. I'm an American.

I'm almost finished crunching my numbers for the regular AFL season. Part of that involves reading every possible evaluation for every possible player throughout the league and deciding how that may affect raw numbers I assign each team in "Mooster's Ladder."

Everything I read about Richmond players - even on "enemy" web-sites - seems to suggest we have no weaknesses. That is, when it comes to talent.

Everyone envies our owning Brad Ottens, Matt Richardson. The wise (which includes myself purely by coincidence) views Andy Kellaway as a big threat.

Darren Gaspar & Matt Knights always receive accolades. Adam Houlihan has been hailed as great new blood. I was reading just last week how the other 15 wish they had a straight kicker like Tivendale. I just finished reading Hourn's admiration of Joel Bowden who, if he is not as great as Ottens, is a contender.

Now, I have read a story in the Herald Sun as to how Greg Stafford may offer great hope for the 2002 season.

Like I said, this isn't all coming from over-enthusiastic Richmond fans (such as myself). It seems to be coming from everywhere. I am reading doom and gloom on enemy web-sites when they are taking looks at their own prospects. Nowhere do I see as many great players being mentioned on a single team. An exception would be Essendon. Those guys are intoxicated and would worship my grandmother if she wore black & red.

So my questions are:

Why not be over-enthusiastic Richmond fans?

How can we have a terrible mid-field and an "average" forward threat, with all these great players?

Who wants to bet Richmond will finish above third this year?

Mooster's number crunching suggests it will be so.

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

well mooster it basically comes down to our past and lack of respect!granted 2-3 yrs ago we were regarded as the least skilled side when it came to field kicking.
the players were not totally to blame for this mind you.before danny came to the club we had a football dept run on an oily rag with the senior coaches having more or less do it alone.
game plans were simple.
not encouraging past greats to come down to the club and help out the youngsters.

the club finally in their wisdon decided to spend more money where it was needed.
look at the results?
pretty simple a well run machine run by not inderviduals but by a team.
while we still have a few who,s foot skills are a lot left to be desired we plan around that therfore every players knows every situation.
we have adressed our weakness,s and all is needed is respect which is earnt by the very things that we a chieved last year and a repeat of it this year we will finally be respected!
why not be over enthusiastic?funny you should ask that i was talking to a freind about the same thing more or less just the other day.my conclusion is that we have been down for so long and the memorys of 95-96 still very much in the back of my mind.
having said that i have all the confidence in the world on danny,s coaching ability and unlike 96 we are more stable as a club.

we have a improving midfield and a fwd line that evrey other club would drool over.
anyhting less than 3rd will be dissapointing.

cheers!

 

[damnfine]

opposition supporters rating us highly? umm i don't think so...most people think we are an overachieving bunch of hacks..well maybe not that harsh but close enough...

 

[Mooster7]

Originally posted by damnfine
opposition supporters rating us highly? umm i don't think so...most people think we are an overachieving bunch of hacks..well maybe not that harsh but close enough...

Let them think that. Later they can have cake. But that isn't what I'm blabbering about.

No one is picking Richmond 'as a team' to finish above third (the mean average is a 6th rung finish). What they are doing is picking Richmond players.

I've made spread sheets for each of the 16 teams with their 2002 schedule on it. Then I have averaged the win/loss history for each team as they've played one another. That gives me a baseline percentage. The baseline gets modified by as many factors as I can muster. Primarily past 3 year history and player strength. From there, it is a matter of monitoring injuries and trends as the year progresses.

To that end, I have read everything about every single AFL player that I could find. I've lurked in filthy chat rooms/forums that I'd rather forget (and in which I would certainly have been killed if discovered). I've also read tons of articles from newspapers all over Australia.

What I have found is that there are more positive comments about more Tiger players than there are for ANY OTHER team. Nearly everyone has a respect for Ottens, Richardson, the Kellaways and Gaspar. I have also collected books of praise for most of the rest of the Tigers as well.

Surprisingly, even Brisbane & Essendon have less praise for their players than does Richmond. Sure, there are the usual suspects "St James" for example. However, from gathering the media opinion and that of the supporters, they have concern for either; the rest of the team, or the depth.

No one person from the lesser 15 will heap praise on the Tigers as a club. Though, reading extensively, if the sports writers and fandom in aggregate was represented as a single entity, that entity would have a host of yellow & black on their fantasy team.

With everyone coming out of the woodwork to pick this Tiger and that Tiger as being particularly skilled (to the point that almost the entire Richmond club has been singled out) it surprises methat we are rated at lucky sixth. Especially when I can only typically find 3-6 players from each of the other teams so praised in any consistent fashion.

Peace, and I'm picking the Tiges to go to the final game, 2002.

 

[Tigerheart]

good work Mooster...great work too from tiger of old ( the leon cameron of big footy . )

i too remember 96 and what a long season it turned out to be.
If we lose three in a row in the early stage of this year Mooster, I wouldn't expect people to react at all well...expect even to hear rumours about Dannys' job.

it doesn't take much to shake the confidence of the average tiger fan.

But I do believe we are in great shape and that the exposure our youngsters have had this pre-season will reap bigger benefits than a wizard-silver-cup in a cabinet somewhere.

I'm drooling over cracker and houlihan already and with hilton and pettifer also flanking the twin towers ...our forward line is hot.

Richmonds biggest threat is the depth in its tall division. 9 big guys. 8 with experience including Vardy. probably need a couple more. Cross fingers that Holland, Richo, Gaspar, Stafford don't trip over.

If we can avoid big man injuries and a a final at the Gabba...and take this up-coming practice match grand final in our stride...a real grand final is a big possibility.

Fight and fight and win.

 

[damnfine]

Originally posted by Mooster7


their not really..not many supporters of other clubs rate the kellaways , knights , richo and gaspar particulary high...
people obviously rate otto highly but other than that? bowden yeah and cameron and maybe ben holland and tivvers ..
not that i agree with that , we have as much talent as the likes of port and hawthorn ...

 

[Richmondfan#1]

Well said tiger of old! Except for maybe the spelling and grammar .
The respect issue is bugging at me and I can't quite work out what it is. Perhaps it is we finally made the finals, top 4. Now we have to once again make the top 4 to earn this respect. I believe we can achieve this but even top 6 can still prove we are something or potentially something. However then I feel respect doesn't bother me. Stuff what the other teams have to say, they'll get it back once they see what we can achieve. I'm just confused inside my mind, lol.
We have quite a few 'quiet acheivers' such as Tivvers and Bidders and the Kellaways and Cameron are such great blokes for our side that what they do for us often goes unnoticed.

It will be good to see how Stafford fits into this team.

 

[Tigerbob]

We have had "potential" for years.......

Now we finally have the right coaching admin and attitude to succeed.

I couldn't care less if joe blow doesn't give us any respect, really, we now know we are good, we are living up to all the hype, and to hell with opposition supporters........well most of them

Danny has done wonders for this club and now we will embark on a great tiger dynasty, one I have been waiting for all my life!


With players being regarded highly by the opposition, Im not too sure about that!

Look at Richo, people call him a hack, they are people that dont know jack ****e about footy. They look for the miss from 15m out, not the 200m up and 200m back sprint just to create a contest, where his defender has got his hands on his head huffing and puffing (ala A. Rocca style). He is the most exceptional athlete I have ever seen in my life, besides the african american basketballers, and he is the most electrifying player in the comp! Doesn't sound like a hack to me!

Knights gets his criticism, so to Campbell, for the life of me I cant explain why people knock Gaspar but it does happen! And they all dont get the recognition they deserve, look at Bowden, how he didn't get on the wing in the All Reputation team is beyond me, ditto with Richo!

The only one that doesn't have his knockers is Brad Ottens, and there is a simple reason for that....
He is simply, along with Jonathan Brown, the NEW AGE SUPERSTAR! Will stamp himself as one of the best!

So Mooster, if that is your real name, I dont think your statement is right about our players getting regognition from the opposition! .................

But who the fu(k cares!

 

[CJH]

Mooster,

I do rate our chances this year. In my view, there are only 5 teams this year who will realistically challenge for the premiership. They are Richmond, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Brisbane and Essendon (in that order!).

We have a forward line that bristles like a battleship, have the most mobile and athletic rucks (for God's sake, Otto ran down McLeod the other night!), possibly the best running division (OK, Brisbanes is good too!) and a steady defence.

We are only short on a strong bodied midfielder player of the ilk of Voss, Riccutio or Chick. This is not a major worry though. We still are able to win enough of the ball.

I have stated before that anything less than top 4 will be abject failure, anything less than a Grand Final will be a disappointment and a premiership is expected.

I believe that we have every right to expect win a premiership - just becuase we don't have a techically perfect team (like that of Essendon in 2000) doesn't mean that we cannot win it.

You only have to look at Adelaide in 1997-8 to understand this. No-one gave them any chance even at the start of the finals series, let alone at the start of the season.