Autopsy Did we beat the game?

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Jedwards

Team Captain
Sep 29, 2009
388
228
australia
AFL Club
Richmond
Myself, like many Richmond supporters know what it’s like to be the laughing stock of the competition year after year, and then build up to becoming a dominate force that would win 3 out of 4 flags and be the envy of every other club in the land.

We had the best player in the comp who has also been one of the best marketing sports stars in Australian sport.

A captain/face of the club that everyone could love and would put the team on his shoulders.

Star players on every line, some the best in the comp at that position.

Role players that complimented our stars.

A game plan that was exciting and fun to watch. It held up in the biggest moments of them all numerous times.

Now time does pass and players do get older, have different motivations and everything else.

Although by 2020 we had just only hit our peak.
2021 the boys had finished celebrating a week before the season started so we accept that, I think a lot of us were with them.

By this time the stand rule was brought into the game.

Many will argue that it was brought in to stop our intense pressure style, I’ll listen to those arguments.

Although we adapted, and in 2022 we had another crack. But on the opposite side of the Pies that year, we would lose the close games and then made it into an elimination final.

Yet again, it goes to the script and we lose in an agonising close game.

2023 preseason or even earlier, Dimma gets a offer to coach the Suns on a big contract.

now in the back ground of all this. The business is booming, great and high level people in the football department. The administration and people leading the club were highly regarded and influential people.

Over time those people have been stripped away from the club and put into other organisations/roles, and those organisations are flourishing.

Now my question to all the Richmond faithful is,

Did we become so good as a football club and business that the AFL felt to keep the competition fair we had to be regulated back to the beginner levels?

I believe we could have won 6 flags personally 😔

(All for fun… but seriously)
 
In the sense that the gameplan was less reliant on skill and more on effort and structures it devalued the value of the draft because we could moneyball our way around it. And the draft is the CFL's biggest equalisation measure. One of the elements of the gameplan was to slow the opposition down giving away a free kick if necessary to allow time to set up defensively. So if the player was in a 1v2 on the wing, better to give away a free than lose the contest and allow quick ball movement, giving us a chance to win it back and score on turnover. Not that we were trying to give away frees but it allowed us to play on the edge and if we did give away a free it wasn't a big disadvantage. So they changed the rules, this is why stand was brought in, it made giving away a free much more costly. Also need to remember that this rule change was brought in by Hocking, ex Cats player, who we consistently beat in finals including GF and who was speaking with Chris Scott regularly while he was at the CFL (this is public knowledge, not speculation). It takes a while to change a list but there is nothing to stop other teams copying us so eventually they would have caught up. But yes, they hobbled us before we saw how far we could have taken it. The sport is ruined now, I haven't watched oppo games for two years now and am weening myself off watching the Tigers because of the umpiring (which the CFL brazenly uses as another equalisation measure because they can and there is no one to hold them accountable).
 
Yep we beat the game.
We were over-powered at being an AFL Club, had max stats in all areas.
Then the AFL got salty and released an update, nerfed us into the ground, handicapped us with umpiring and deleted our coach and club officials and replaced them with spuds.
We beat the AFL and they couldn't handle that.
 
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Yep we beat the game.
We were over-powered at being an AFL Club, had max stats in all areas.
Then the AFL got salty and released an update, nerfed us into the ground, handicapped us with umpiring and deleted our coach and club officials to leave and replaced them with spuds.
We beat the AFL and they couldn't handle that.
It's actually a great analogy. Commonplace in gaming for players to find exploits and game the system to their benefit. Also common for the devs to wildly overcorrect with some untested patch and ruin the party and turn their playerbase away.
 
I know you're partially joking in some part, but It actually isn't too far from the truth.

Some will call this tin foil hat stuff, but it is absolutely on record that 6-6-6 and 'Stand' were specifically introduced to impact our playing style because of how dominate it was.

We suffocated teams and ground them into submission with ease week after week because before these rules, our work rate and system allowed us to do so.

We had the highest number of set ups with extras running off the back of the square prior to 6-6-6 and our ability to man the mark laterally cutting off opposition dangerous kicks forced teams down the line and into our hands.


So given they went to the length of introducing not 1, but 2 key rule changes to impact our game, I'd say we clocked the game.
 
We were a laughingstock for so many years, oppo fans loved the fact we would always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Even when we broke the drought in 2017 it was a once off, like the Dogs. Oppo fans wanted us to slide straight back down the bottom. I reckon this is why cats' fans had real dislike for us, they were used to flogging us for decades, even their coach refused to accept that we were the best team in the comp early on. I remember the Rance game in 2017 down at the cattery, once again cats' fans thought same old Richmond so close but so far. Then in one finals series they were left with the sting of a Richmond army up and about.
2018 everyone started to realise it wasn't a one-year fluke and i felt like we were the best team in the comp that year but unfortunately ran out of steam in the back end, the team learnt from that and reckon it held us in good stead for Back to backs.
2019 was all about the state of the game, with the AFL and oppo teams unable to stop our run from half back and turnovers so talks of a 6-6-6 rule were born. Unfortunately for the AFL that didnt work at all, I remember Rance going down with a knee in round 1, not many teams are able to lose their stand out star defender and perform like we did that year. Cries of Vicbias and MCG home ground unfairness was the talk at the time. The comp still didn't want us to win or admit that we were the best, it was always some other reason why we won.
Then the Rance retirement talk started and more jabs at the club from over the fence to try and destabilise us, surely this is the end of Richmond now, 2020 started and we start poorly, covid came and hubs were born. Richmond were done and dusted no more MCG home ground for us, our players don't like the hub or restrictions and are thumbing our noses at the rules. Then we started winning again, so calls of the unsociable tigers raised it head. Lynch and Cotchin are thugs, Stack and CCJ out again breaking restrictions. The boys had a fetish for Chols underwear.
Bloody Richmond think they are so smug. As we all know, the finals came again and this time we well and truly pissed the AFL off by winning the flag interstate. A Victorian team winning the flag at the GABBA so much for needing the G. Hocking was pissed and comments were heard how much he disliked how our players would move off the mark to cut off short passes a new rule was born the stand rule.
**** the CFL and their bullshit ways, but I take solace in the fact our club won 3 flags in 4 years and our back 2 back flags were the ones that stung deep throughout the competition.
 
In the sense that the gameplan was less reliant on skill and more on effort and structures it devalued the value of the draft because we could moneyball our way around it. And the draft is the CFL's biggest equalisation measure. One of the elements of the gameplan was to slow the opposition down giving away a free kick if necessary to allow time to set up defensively. So if the player was in a 1v2 on the wing, better to give away a free than lose the contest and allow quick ball movement, giving us a chance to win it back and score on turnover. Not that we were trying to give away frees but it allowed us to play on the edge and if we did give away a free it wasn't a big disadvantage. So they changed the rules, this is why stand was brought in, it made giving away a free much more costly. Also need to remember that this rule change was brought in by Hocking, ex Cats player, who we consistently beat in finals including GF and who was speaking with Chris Scott regularly while he was at the CFL (this is public knowledge, not speculation). It takes a while to change a list but there is nothing to stop other teams copying us so eventually they would have caught up. But yes, they hobbled us before we saw how far we could have taken it. The sport is ruined now, I haven't watched oppo games for two years now and am weening myself off watching the Tigers because of the umpiring (which the CFL brazenly uses as another equalisation measure because they can and there is no one to hold them accountable).
I’m on board with this. We are umpired differently to other clubs. I wonder when the horror show will stop. Do they bottom out to get the number 1 pick and bounce back up quickly, and bring the tiger army back. We are a proven ‘good business’. Do they want us to get rid of Dusty because they want to move away from the ‘bad boy’ image. Or are we cursed due to the fact they are planning to knock down the Jack Dyer stand. I don’t know, those are just a few contemplations I have had.

All I do know is, no team wins premierships better than the Tiges. The Tiger army is the biggest and we also have the most bandwagon supporters lol. Collingwood tried to recreate what we did in 2017 but it wasn’t the same, even their supporters know it deep down.

We will again paint Melbourne Yellow & Black in the not too distant future..
 
There's definitely truth to the idea that rule changes were made specifically to curtail us. I have no doubt about it. One of the biggest criticisms aimed at us (judging by my own interactions with oppo fans) was that we played unattractive, unskilled footy. The AFL, I'm sure, felt the same way.

Be all that as it may, what the hell did we do in response? We came into 2021 thinking we could go again, despite an ageing core and inspite of the rule changes. Then after 2022 we thought, with a couple of trades, we could mount another serious challenge. All the while with, in essence, that same ageing core.

IMO this was our biggest mistake and we'll be paying for it for a long time. Somewhere along the line we, i.e. the club's decision makers, blurred the line between doing what's best for the club and staying loyal to individuals who helped bring the team success.

We needed to be more pragmatic. Ruthless even. Too many veterans were left to finish on their own terms and most players simply aren't realistic enough to walk away when they should. Sadly, we're seeing it with Dusty now.

In today's environment where edges are small and the AFL is constantly tinkering with what is supposed to be an equalised competition, you can't afford not to be proactive. You've simply got to have one eye on the future at all times.
 
partly the AFL curtailing our power (i.e. rule changes, poaching of key personnel, umpiring)

but also partly self-immolation (dimma cheating scandal, faiure to adapt to rule changes, appalling inability to replace our key personnel with good operators)

in combination, it has been utterly catastrophic
 

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We were a laughingstock for so many years, oppo fans loved the fact we would always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Even when we broke the drought in 2017 it was a once off, like the Dogs. Oppo fans wanted us to slide straight back down the bottom. I reckon this is why cats' fans had real dislike for us, they were used to flogging us for decades, even their coach refused to accept that we were the best team in the comp early on. I remember the Rance game in 2017 down at the cattery, once again cats' fans thought same old Richmond so close but so far. Then in one finals series they were left with the sting of a Richmond army up and about.
2018 everyone started to realise it wasn't a one-year fluke and i felt like we were the best team in the comp that year but unfortunately ran out of steam in the back end, the team learnt from that and reckon it held us in good stead for Back to backs.
2019 was all about the state of the game, with the AFL and oppo teams unable to stop our run from half back and turnovers so talks of a 6-6-6 rule were born. Unfortunately for the AFL that didnt work at all, I remember Rance going down with a knee in round 1, not many teams are able to lose their stand out star defender and perform like we did that year. Cries of Vicbias and MCG home ground unfairness was the talk at the time. The comp still didn't want us to win or admit that we were the best, it was always some other reason why we won.
Then the Rance retirement talk started and more jabs at the club from over the fence to try and destabilise us, surely this is the end of Richmond now, 2020 started and we start poorly, covid came and hubs were born. Richmond were done and dusted no more MCG home ground for us, our players don't like the hub or restrictions and are thumbing our noses at the rules. Then we started winning again, so calls of the unsociable tigers raised it head. Lynch and Cotchin are thugs, Stack and CCJ out again breaking restrictions. The boys had a fetish for Chols underwear.
Bloody Richmond think they are so smug. As we all know, the finals came again and this time we well and truly pissed the AFL off by winning the flag interstate. A Victorian team winning the flag at the GABBA so much for needing the G. Hocking was pissed and comments were heard how much he disliked how our players would move off the mark to cut off short passes a new rule was born the stand rule.
heck the CFL and their bullshit ways, but I take solace in the fact our club won 3 flags in 4 years and our back 2 back flags were the ones that stung deep throughout the competition.
we could have won 6 flags if shocking didnt change the rules

not joking
 
Of course, we did!
No doubt about it whatsoever!
(Just a shame Rancey retired when he did...or we would have been collectively reamed up the clacker by The AFL Old Boys Club with even bigger rule changes!)
Just have a look at the rule changes and free kick bias that was instigated by The AFL Old Boys Club to try and stop our Grand Final runs!
Reportage of our players and penalties.
The Covid fine$ that destroyed our assistant coaches payments!
The ARC fiasco!
The cannibalizing of our Club's personnel!
The mad collective rush by the Media to pile on and blame our poor game style to a so called playing on the edge!
Our 2024 Fixture...is the big FIX on our Club to reduce our membership numbers and sponsorship value!
Compare the pair!
Hawks and Scatters never had this massive reaction to their GF wins!
 

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