Richmond got many reminders that they’re on the right track at the MCG and that it should not be all doom and gloom at the club
Richmond’s Nick Vlastuin during the Tigers’ round three AFL match against the Sydney Swans at the MCG on Easter Sunday.Richmond’s Nick Vlastuin during the Tigers’ round three AFL match against the Sydney Swans at the MCG on Easter Sunday.fans would have been thinking as they trudged to the MCG on Sunday. No more talk of brave, plucky performances.
It was the older hands too. Shai Bolton hardly qualifies as such, but he excels in red ball games at the MCG. Ace photographer Michael Willson, who nominates hazy, late autumn afternoons at the MCG as his optimal shooting conditions, says Bolton is his favourite footballer to snap. His camera was also presumably focussed on Nick Vlastuin, whose two-fisted spoils and intercept marks repelled Sydney all afternoon.
The first half of the Gold Coast game aside, no-one would have questioned Richmond’s endeavour heading into Sunday’s game. But it was scant consolation. It’s a frustrating place to be in – as a club, as a team and as a supporter base – when the memories of those glory years are still vivid, and when many of the stars who provided those memories are still present, but it’s just not working. You’re given the run-around by teams who, just a few years ago, weren’t fit to polish your boots.
One swallow doesn’t make a summer but there were signs on Sunday for long-term optimism. Adem Yze spent the first few months in the job saying how he wants them to be a very different team to the Hardwick-era Tigers. In recent years, he says, they’ve been slaughtered at the contest and leaky down back. He doesn’t want them to be stuck in the past. But you don’t get a lot of time with your players over summer these days.
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