Just love how the Tigers finally beat a top team and suddenly the talk is all about "will they be the target team of the back half of the season", lets not forget how many times the men and black and gold have shown promise in the last 20 years and yet never delivered.....i for one will not be expecting anything, but will be more than happy to be taught a lesson..... You Tigers fans get so excited way to early in the piece, the tigers still arent in the 8......maybe i should get as excited about North Melbourne (after all we did beat Geelong, and look what happened since then).....
The Tigers have had a lot of tough games and looked good, rather than playing a lot of dud teams and having to eat their dust in the last quarter. North will probably need to bottom out to get the top quality/class they need to improve and be a contender once again. Or else hope that their cut price football development coaches do a better job than the high priced ones in Essendon/Carlton/Hawthorn/Geelong/Collingwood. Not sure they will to be brutally honest. North is a proud club and would hate to go down to get picks, the issue is that by not getting champions with lower picks, it's less likely for one to bob up. You only get a 10 year rule and Carey/Longmire (Sydney stupid recruiting staff in those days) a few times in 50 years. It appears North will need to be the first to move on a rule change or find another sucker (GWS?) to scam some great players. Maybe free agency will be that meal ticket. Who knows?
benstar - compare the two teams draws. Then come back and we can have a chat. The different feeling about Richmond this time is that we have actually got a coaching group who have put in place structures, a defence that is among the better ones in the league, a ruckman (thank god) after not having one for 15 years or so, and a deep deep midfield. We've actually done things to plan, properly, no shortcuts and it is starting to click. I have Lids, MArtin, Morris, Ellis and Rance. Put Maric in a friends team at the start of the year and not mine - I am an idiot. But all have been more than serviceable. As for Morris - mature aged, should play most games the rest of the year - Hardwick loves his efforts so he's in the coaches good books.
@chris88 fully agree on all things there; especially Morris. Loved his work so far this season and is the real tough body in defence we needed. Also, I am really happy for Ben Griffiths who we know has had ability but now has gotten on to the park, and in defense, didn't look half bad....especially his 75 metre bomb that went to the goal line.
<blockquote>Quote from Tigersfor2012 on May 29, 2012, 15:29 @chris88 fully agree on all things there; especially Morris. Loved his work so far this season and is the real tough body in defence we needed. Also, I am really happy for Ben Griffiths who we know has had ability but now has gotten on to the park, and in defense, didn't look half bad....especially his 75 metre bomb that went to the goal line.</blockquote> My ex-girlfriend is going out with Ben Griffiths, shouldn't have let that one go haha But I must agree also with the tigers fans here, I have two die-hard Richmond mates and they haven't got carried away with the win. They know its good, but also know that the tiges are on the right path now. Obviously too early to tell on short-term chances at a flag, but at least you can take some confidence in the fact that your club looks like it is structured to at least give it a good crack, and get very close. Am looking forward to the next dreamtime game getting 95k plus!
Benstar- The comment about Richmond being the team in the back half of the season was purely based on the ease of the draw they have and not that they beat Hawthorn. As a West Coast support I'm not phased if they blitz it or choke and finish 9th. I suspect they will finish better than 9th however and if they can win a few games I was interested which of their mid players could actually rack up good scores and provide some surprise value. For all the Richmond supporters I'd be sitting tight until the Tigers were locked in so deep that they could not finish mathmatically outside of the 8- then go hard and loud!!!!!
Like all tigers supporters with a good memory, I am not getting excited yet because there is a long way to go and the tigers are the best at finishing 9th. Our draw gets better but we are also the kings at losing games we should win and we are already behind in the count. Who is not going to make the 8? With the Cats 9'th and expected to make the 8, if we are going to make it what 2 teams will drop out? You would expect it to be the Bombers and Adelaide, but as they are 2 and 3 it is unlikely (especially with Adelaide's draw). So to all the Richmond mongrels out there I say go loud and go proud. Worse case scenario we get shit hung on us for not making the 8, like that is a new experience.
Who drops out of the 8 for Richmond then and potentially the cats ??? Can't see them making the finals . Just remember this was the same team that lost to GC and Port last year , wouldn't be getting too excited yet. Edit : I posted this before seeing the above comment
Couple of the posters above are, I would say, quite indicative of the average Richmond supporter right now. Very happy with the win v the Hawks, especially given it was a reward for good effort, but: a - more impressed with our overall improvement this year, and b - not at all getting carried away in the slightest. Still much work to be done. The foundations are there, but lots of work still to do. As for finals - again, still a long way away. The media love to jump on a bandwagon so much they have a few already built out the back they can wheel out when required. At the moment they, not Richmond fans, are on a rather smug and self-congratulatory bandwagon that many Tiger supporters don't want a bar of.
Oh crap, forgot one other thing - Ben Griffiths. We've always known he can kick the footy - but boy, can he kick the footy. If he can stay fit and perform, he'll remain in the team too - and if so, at $211K he is an interesting, awkward, SC option.
Fez - if Big Ben stays fit (and that's always been the problem) he'll score OK. He is close to the best long kick at Richmond. Played forward early in his career and his kicking for goal was frightening - he'd take a mark 50 out, go back, barely pause, trundle in off a few steps and just belt the ball 65m - and unerringly straight. One goal he kicked against the Swans at the G last year in a great comeback win comes to mind - vital part of the game, about 45 out on an angle and with a flukey breeze, trundled in and it never looked like missing. If he is used in defence as a big backman (200cm and 100+ kilos) he'll be called on to do the occasional kick in - and we saw on Saturday what can happen with that - kick to the centre and a simple "over the back" play to someone running into an open goal. His kicking can break open a zone, which is important.
Ah the good old Tony Shaw legacy lives on... probably the only decent strategic move in his coaching was the bomb and stream forward.
When it works, its great - Dustin Fletcher has been doing it for years. But when it doesn't - massive troubles!!!
He'll be punting in the USA before too long. Two kicks in particular on Saturday were huge, thought I was seeing things on one of them.
Griffiths is one of the longer kicks for Richmond but he's not as accurate as a Deledio. I reckon that in a couple of years, the best long kick in the whole competition will be Brandon Ellis. He can kick 60 metre spearing pass of 2 steps and we recruited him for that reason (among others).