‘We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust’ - Rumi
Rumi, the great Persian poet of the 13th century, lined up for the Tigers on Sunday. He positioned himself sometimes on the left boot of Bachar Houli, sometimes on his hands. With Rumi at his side, Bachar came spinning out of the Tiger defence, sweeping across half back with a poet’s poise, scattering stars like Adam Goodes by tackling them into the dust. Bachar wrote a 32 line poem, every disposal a perfect rhyme. Time and again Bachar carved through the Sydney defence, a whirling dervish driving the Tigers deep into attack, reigniting the boldness that had abandoned us for at least the last 40 days and 40 nights. It was an outstanding performance, punctuated by his almost mystical ability to suddenly appear anywhere on the field when he was needed. Catching the telecast from my couch, I marvelled with young Holly about what this fellow might be capable of when he is not fasting for Ramadan. It was beautiful.
When I woke on Sunday, the hint of Spring in the air gave me a powerful though slightly inaccurate moment of clairvoyance. I sensed Richmond would win. We were gallant against the West Coast the week before, and Sydney seem to get lost on large grounds like dogs at an off-the-leash beach. I had also sensed that Jack would kick 7 goals - turns out he snared two, kicked a behind, put one out on the full, and assisted at least three... So I wasn’t far off. I also count the texta mark he left on Richo’s face at the end of the match as a goal. He played better after I roused him up a bit at quarter time when I thought I saw him check and tidy his hair when he came on the big screen.
It was great to see a number of players find their groove on the weekend. Our defence looked defensible for a change. Rance, Thursfield and Dea were very solid. Houli, Delidio and Grigg streamed off the half back line, sending the ball forward quickly, thwarting Sydney’s prized ability to push numbers behind the ball to create stoppages. Dan Jackson was a trooper (I admire DJ’s style of play a lot) and Tuck was his tireless usual possession-getting self. The work rate of our mid-field was much improved, and our forward defensive pressure much greater than in recent games. By the last quarter, the boldness that lifted our hopes in the first half of the season had returned. We surged. They crumbled. We won.
Let us not get too far ahead of ourselves (again). There were some basic skill errors at times on Sunday, the sort of errors that make Richmond fans remove and BBQ their eyeballs to avoid the greater pain of witnessing. The bold style of play that we seem to be working towards relies on accuracy, so when that goes missing the results can be horrendous. Our list still needs some work - we need to keep finding and bringing through players who can maintain consistency from quarter to quarter, week to week. Many of our younger players still took some time to settle even though the experienced could see that Sydney were flat and ready for punishment - maybe the Swannies thought the game was a battle for ninth.
At this point I must confess that I have had a soft spot for the Swans ever since South Melbourne’s Stevie Wright came and held a little league clinic at my primary school. He gave great encouragement that day, admiring the way I chased the footy around like a headless chicken. He told me not to give up my day job, which was funny because I didn’t have one. I assumed he thought my day job was playing footy. Yep - I played Little League that year in a Swans jumper against the Hawks in the bog at Princes Park. I gave away a free kick when I pushed another kid over for teasing me about not getting a kick. For that I got dragged, but it came with the benefit of getting a Four and Twenty Pie ahead of everyone else. Simple days back then. I was back in my Richmond jumper for the car trip home of course, as we listened to the last quarter of the Tigers game. Essendon beat Richmond by four points at Windy Hill that day, and our coach the driver was a Richmond man too. The driving got a little erratic after the final siren. I’ll never forget my day as a Swan, patting Barry Round on the back as he led the team out, the urging cheers of the six South supporters at the ground that day. Brilliant. Thus, I don’t enjoy beating Sydney.
But - it was a sweet relief to claim a win after another patch of games that had sent many fans clambering for new means of expressing disgust and despair. We have a friendly run home and it’d be superb for us to finish the season off with a clean sweep of the final three games. That’s very achievable. It would set us up to come spinning out of nothingness next year, scattering the stars of this season like dust. Allah willing. Eat them alive, Tigers, eat them alive.
