- Joined
- Dec 8, 2003
- Posts
- 7,181
- Reaction score
- 12,719
- AFL Club
- Richmond
It was after Richmond's 26-point defeat of St Kilda on Easter Monday last year that Grant Thomas invoked the ire of the football world by claiming his beaten Saints were the better side. A year on, it's a lot easier to see where he was coming from.
Inefficiency cost St Kilda as much as Richmond's accuracy that day, the Saints losing despite 26 scoring shots to 22. The Saints converted a bit better yesterday, but when you've racked up 34 scoring shots to just 19, you can afford a little more latitude.
Since that round-four loss, it's been only onward and upward for St Kilda, with 13 wins to eight losses, the first three victories of 2004 as impressive as anything the Saints have produced since 1997. Their overflowing stocks of young talent continue to develop by the week. Nick Riewoldt, for instance, who was still an emerging star a year ago, these days is clearly one of the AFL's elite.
In contrast, Richmond continues to tread the same water it was splashing around in then, while a more unkind assessment might see the Tigers sinking slowly. Whatever improvements Richmond has made to its personnel both last year, and over last summer, it's hard to argue with a bottom line of just five wins and 16 losses since that round-four win. Since round eight last season, it's been an even more damning two wins and 15 losses.
More depressingly still for the Tigers, it seems the problems remain the same as they've been for far too long. Richmond's defence remains stodgy, uncreative, and lacking in skill. Its forward line still depends too heavily upon Matthew Richardson, the wind disappearing from Tiger sails yesterday when the spearhead took himself off with a hamstring injury just minutes into the game. And there still isn't enough class to go around in midfield, and arguably all over the ground.
A sorry seven-minute passage late in the second quarter seemed to encapsulate most of those woes. First, the Tigers were forced to switch the undersized and underskilled Ray Hall from a rampaging Fraser Gehrig, who'd just booted his fourth goal. Darren Gaspar was able to curb Gehrig, but Hall would soon be chopped up by Gaspar's original opponent, Riewoldt.
Then came the skill and decision-making errors. Greg Tivendale was mowed down from behind, fortunate that Heath Black's resultant shot hit the post. Tim Fleming ran into an open goal and promptly hit the post himself. Kane Johnson hit the post from a very gettable set shot. Youngster Brent Hartigan was penalised for running too far as the Tigers prepared to attack. St Kilda then rebounded, Nick Riewoldt marking at least 80 metres from goal, but shooting from only 30 after Andrew Kellaway's needlessly late charge conceded a costly 50-metre penalty.
While this was going on, and Richmond had slipped nearly five goals behind, three of the Tigers' best in Tivendale, skipper Wayne Campbell, and best-and-fairest winner Mark Coughlan sat cooling their heels on the interchange bench. That left Fleming and Chris Hyde out of their depth in the centre square against the best the Saints had to offer.
And it's those last few selected in the Tigers' 22 who still get found out when Richmond's best are either absent or having an off day. That was the case yesterday with the likes of Coughlan, who still had had only one kick when benched midway through the third quarter, Campbell, who ended up with 18 relatively ineffective disposals, and David Rodan, who had only four. Fleming and Hyde would have had trouble plugging those gaps on a good day, let alone one in which they touched the ball just four times combined.
Of course, Richardson's loss hurt Richmond, but if the Tigers are silly enough to think his presence would have changed the result, given that they could land the ball in their forward 50 only 32 times for the game, they're kidding themselves.
Thomas might have got a little ahead of himself after that defeat a year ago, but while his team has spent the time since catching up to his lofty expectations, the side that beat it that day appears, once again, to have gone nowhere.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2004/04/12/1081621895313.html
Inefficiency cost St Kilda as much as Richmond's accuracy that day, the Saints losing despite 26 scoring shots to 22. The Saints converted a bit better yesterday, but when you've racked up 34 scoring shots to just 19, you can afford a little more latitude.
Since that round-four loss, it's been only onward and upward for St Kilda, with 13 wins to eight losses, the first three victories of 2004 as impressive as anything the Saints have produced since 1997. Their overflowing stocks of young talent continue to develop by the week. Nick Riewoldt, for instance, who was still an emerging star a year ago, these days is clearly one of the AFL's elite.
In contrast, Richmond continues to tread the same water it was splashing around in then, while a more unkind assessment might see the Tigers sinking slowly. Whatever improvements Richmond has made to its personnel both last year, and over last summer, it's hard to argue with a bottom line of just five wins and 16 losses since that round-four win. Since round eight last season, it's been an even more damning two wins and 15 losses.
More depressingly still for the Tigers, it seems the problems remain the same as they've been for far too long. Richmond's defence remains stodgy, uncreative, and lacking in skill. Its forward line still depends too heavily upon Matthew Richardson, the wind disappearing from Tiger sails yesterday when the spearhead took himself off with a hamstring injury just minutes into the game. And there still isn't enough class to go around in midfield, and arguably all over the ground.
A sorry seven-minute passage late in the second quarter seemed to encapsulate most of those woes. First, the Tigers were forced to switch the undersized and underskilled Ray Hall from a rampaging Fraser Gehrig, who'd just booted his fourth goal. Darren Gaspar was able to curb Gehrig, but Hall would soon be chopped up by Gaspar's original opponent, Riewoldt.
Then came the skill and decision-making errors. Greg Tivendale was mowed down from behind, fortunate that Heath Black's resultant shot hit the post. Tim Fleming ran into an open goal and promptly hit the post himself. Kane Johnson hit the post from a very gettable set shot. Youngster Brent Hartigan was penalised for running too far as the Tigers prepared to attack. St Kilda then rebounded, Nick Riewoldt marking at least 80 metres from goal, but shooting from only 30 after Andrew Kellaway's needlessly late charge conceded a costly 50-metre penalty.
While this was going on, and Richmond had slipped nearly five goals behind, three of the Tigers' best in Tivendale, skipper Wayne Campbell, and best-and-fairest winner Mark Coughlan sat cooling their heels on the interchange bench. That left Fleming and Chris Hyde out of their depth in the centre square against the best the Saints had to offer.
And it's those last few selected in the Tigers' 22 who still get found out when Richmond's best are either absent or having an off day. That was the case yesterday with the likes of Coughlan, who still had had only one kick when benched midway through the third quarter, Campbell, who ended up with 18 relatively ineffective disposals, and David Rodan, who had only four. Fleming and Hyde would have had trouble plugging those gaps on a good day, let alone one in which they touched the ball just four times combined.
Of course, Richardson's loss hurt Richmond, but if the Tigers are silly enough to think his presence would have changed the result, given that they could land the ball in their forward 50 only 32 times for the game, they're kidding themselves.
Thomas might have got a little ahead of himself after that defeat a year ago, but while his team has spent the time since catching up to his lofty expectations, the side that beat it that day appears, once again, to have gone nowhere.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2004/04/12/1081621895313.html
