What a wonderful way to finish off the season. A good win over Melbourne who has had our measure in recent times, followed up by a great win over an in form Adelaide on the road. There’s been plenty for the Tiger fans to be excited about. Vickery showed just how classy he is in the win over Adelaide, booting four. Cotchin again lifted when the game was on the line, as a good leader should. What a wonderful example he sets for the other players, both younger and older than him. His win-loss ratio as captain is also looking pretty good! My personal highlight of the game was the sneaky little soccer kick over to Vickery that Dustin Martin pulled off in the last quarter. You can’t teach that stuff.

Everyone is of course mentioning the dreaded ninth position that Richmond are know for placing in far too often. It may not happen this year, depending on how this final round’s games play out, who wins and by how much, but we can still achieve this much maligned position. However when you think about it, going from 15th last year to possible 9th this season is a big improvement and can only be a positive. We will all just have to wear the comments and smile because we know big things are coming, just around the corner. We are heading in the right direction.

It will be interesting to see who is cut from our list at the end of this year. Hislop, White, Nason, Browne, Gourdis or Mcguane perhaps? What about Farmer and Thursfield, have they done enough this year to stay on? And who is likely to be traded to another club? Webberley has been really consistent at Coburg all year and has been good as the sub the last few games so hopefully he will remain. I also hope Tuck and Miller get another year. They have both been excellent and we need some bigger bodied, experienced players. Hopefully our recruiters will be able to find us an A-grade ruckman, although the question is what will we have to give up to get him? The recruiters did a fantastic job getting Grigg, Houli and Miller to our club last year so fingers crossed we do as well in this trade period.

I also want to congratulate Brett Deledio on firstly playing his 150th game this weekend, and secondly for being the youngest player to reach this milestone at Richmond. Deledio puts in 100% each game, and instead of playing up forward kicking goals which he could do at another team, he plays down back helping the young boys to learn and delivering the ball accurately away from the opposition goals and into ours. He really is a great team player and should be commended for this.

I guess I can’t talk about this week without mentioning the situation with King getting reported and suspended for two weeks. It’s almost ironic that he missed the first game of this season as well. I guess it gives someone else a chance to show what they can do in the forward line.

Finally, this weeks match. It’s the Eureka Game this week, which is to honour the workers of Australia, the spirit of the Eureka rebellion and the birth of Australian democracy. I urge you all to flood Etihad with a sea of yellow and black, and show our boys just how proud we are of how well they are finishing.

As always, Go Tigers. Meg.