It’s 1.18am, Tuesday, and already I’ve watched a replay, thankful my partner agreed (well, truly, she insisted) we subscribe to Foxtel, and now I log onto my favoured Richmond online fan forum (puntroadend.com) – as it is after wins; to prolong enjoyment, to read thoughts of others, to gain new insight – and see the screen is ablaze with user names. Nobody sleeps in the jungle tonight. None want this dream to end. Here is the moment we have all waited for – expunging the harrowing Fremantle loss, our Dreamtime listlessness, forlorn seasons in the football wilderness – and in these lonely hours I know I am far from alone.
Rain falls outside and I decamp to the spare bed, too stirred by euphoria for more than a brief sleep.
Who knew our team could play such beautiful football? Who knew they would choose this game, at this ground, against this team, on this night, in front of their crowd, to make such an emphatic statement of intent? Who knew our players, from deep in defence, could link up in such pleasing couplets, then triplets, and run the ball with such fluency the ground’s length? Who knew Nick Vlastuin would be such a game-breaker – such a leader among men – in his sixth game of AFL football? Who knew our backline could be so miserly? Who knew Ivan Maric would step up for his season’s best performance against his biggest foes, Dean Cox and Nick Naitanui? Who knew the luck – the hit posts, a juggled Jack Darling mark disallowed on the siren, Dan Jackson’s improbable goal, even the score review decision – would all fall our way.
And, who knew Matthew White, a spare-parts runner, who for the better part of the last two seasons has cooled his heels at Coburg, would choose this game to truly come of age as a footballer, to belong, to command respect and admiration from the game’s fans, and his peers and critics? Any other game and his influence may have been virtuoso. But tonight, his vigour for the contest was shared by all who wore the Yellow and Black.
Hardly have I known a night like it. The experience seems peculiarly foreign. A deep inner contentedness has taken hold. A weight feels lifted. I rest my head on the pillow, listen to rain on the roof, close my eyes and think of Trent Cotchin, and Aaron Edwards’ tackle, and Alex Rance’s pomp in the backline, but also of the Latin motto spectemur agendo. Let us be judged by our acts.
**
Early Tuesday morning and I lie in bed and check the Twitter conversation and read the online match report and still can’t quite believe it’s true until I see hard copy. Mornings like these need a newspaper, regardless that already I’ve read what is to be said. I want the inky words spread before me. I want to stare at that ladder, and see my team’s name printed in bold, with the numbers six and four alongside, sitting comfortably between the words Carlton and Collingwood. In this age of corporate football, of national ideals and market spread, it seems a throwback to read those bottom-four teams in the top eight – Essendon, Carlton, Richmond, Collingwood – and think of parochial rivalries, and inner city feuds, and a way that football in Melbourne once was, and the pleasure it gave a Monday morning.
Nostalgia overcomes me. And then I do something I’ve not done all season. I knowingly tune into SEN Sports Radio, wanting to consume this win, waiting for Kevin Bartlett’s show, ready to hear the joy in his voice, and listen to how he interprets what has happened. His opening monologue does not disappoint. His wit is dry, his humour stirs the pot. He ends with three words that surely gladden all Richmond hearts. “It’s Tiger time.”
**
The night before, we were blessed. For all Tiger fans, wherever we were (Auntie Donnie, on a night drive from Ballarat to Adelaide for a funeral, texts from Tailem Bend), and however we managed to follow the game, in those darkened hours we basked in glorious repose. The joy was ours. The win surely meant more than four points. A whole range of new possibilities – a new way of thinking – has opened up. If we can play like this on that night, surely we can do almost anything!
And then I remembered. Last week, when filing my weekly ramblings, I added a footnote: “ABSOLUTELY PROMISE that next week's blog will be 700 words. (Unless we win, in which case expect 2000 words)”.
How can I possibly contain all that happened on Monday night – all the emotions, the individual efforts, the pleasing teamwork, and the coaching moves and team selection – into 2000 words? I could write all week. I could string together sentences as Bachar Houli and Shaun Grigg and Brett Deledio and Nathan Foley string together handballs and plays, looping and crossing and entwining, hoping for this never to end.
**
Many years ago I met a woman who worked in the wardrobe department of Opera Australia and who taught me a lifelong lesson. She was a dressmaker, who I found with her mouth full of pins, cutting out a checked velvet pocket flap for a jacket she had worked on for two days, and had maybe five more to go. I was astonished by her attention to detail, by the intricacy of her handicraft that was unlikely to be noticed by anyone in the audience – even those in the best seats, with the best opera glasses.
“I hope it helps the performers to create a character, if they notice that a jacket’s fully lined or the checks all match,” was her explanation, for the finery of her task. “If we didn’t do a good job it would be less rewarding.”
This pride in one’s work – an attention to detail – I thought about while watching Richmond’s game against Port Adelaide, and again on Monday night. During the match against Port, privately I was disappointed at a Richmond player’s standing of the mark at what could have been a turning point in the third quarter. Games of football ebb and flow like tides, and a key is in stopping their turning when the game runs your way. At this moment against Port, it was always likely to be a goal against us, but the resistance on the mark – the stopping of the tide – was at best a raised arm.
But on Monday night, from the second quarter and thereafter, never have I seen a Richmond team honour the mark with such intensity. It was inspiring to watch; to see such pride in one’s performance.
Many others surely noticed. “It’s started with manning the mark,” said Fox Sports commentator, Danny Frawley, the most frugal of defenders, and a former Richmond coach, who was the last to take the club to finals. “They’re manning the mark aggressively. It started with Dustin Martin in that passage of play.”
As if on cue, I’d just written Martin’s name on my notepad for the same reason. Halfway through the second quarter, up 27 to 22, Shannon Hurn marked in the clear in their defensive 50, and Dustin Martin swings his arms about, dancing on the spot, owning the space. He makes Hurn think twice. He creates implied pressure. He displays a body language of ascendancy, easily read by all following the match.
Football, like any contact sport, is a game of inches, of territory, of marking a line in the sand and not letting your opponent over, or around, it. Since he arrived at Richmond last year, I have admired Steve Morris for the journey he took via West Adelaide to break into AFL football, for his hardness and fearlessness at the contest, for his team ethos, but mostly for the way he mans the mark.
Getting to the big league was no easy road for Morris, and more than any other, he looks as if he wants to suck the marrow out of the experience. He takes nothing for granted. As if ritual, always he is the last to leave the training track at Punt Road, having signed the last autograph. He doesn’t want this opportunity to end. He is a proud man, but nothing on the football field is beneath him. He stoops to conquer. He mans that mark – a humble task, a subservient pursuit – as if his very life depended on it. He never gives his opponent an inch; never gives a sucker a half-chance.
Shane Edwards and ‘Dusty’ are two others who man a mark with an urgency that often catches my eye. We supporters appreciate these shows of desperation, this willingness for the contest. We read their body language and it says they are trying their utmost, which is all we expect. So much of football is played in the mind, and here they tell their opponent: “You have the ball, but still you haven’t beaten me.” A challenge is set, even in this most mundane of duties.
Then, with 3.30 minutes to go in the last quarter on Monday night, the game long since won, Jake Batchelor does something remarkable. West Coast’s Andrew Embley marks the ball in space in their back pocket, near the point post. Jake sprints to the mark. Richmond is up 103 to 54, but he rushes that line as if the game were in the sway. He points to the mark, waves his arms manically, and jumps about like a jack-in-the-box.
Embley had no easy out. ‘Batch’ cramped his style. Embley chipped up the line to Adam Selwood, whereupon Jake scurried to a second mark, again pointing and waving and distracting and obstructing. Selwood handpassed to an overlapping Embley, who spilled his receive, prompting Jake to swoop twice on the loose ball, eventually causing a stoppage deep in our forward line.
Frawley interrupted his late-game ramble to acknowledge the deed. “Great pressure there from Richmond.”
When I opened the newspaper on Tuesday, both Steve Morris and Jake Batchelor’s names were at the bottom of Richmond’s statistics sheet. Yet for Batchelor, here was a series of pressure-acts that essentially made the play. He turned a contest in our favour. He helped dispossess West Coast of the ball. For this he was credited with no possession, nor a tackle, but his was a desire – an attention to detail, a pride in his work – that helped make that night such a pleasing spectacle.
**
Each week I receive emails from readers, all of which are appreciated and encourage my resolve. “The human stories are what makes footy magical,” wrote one supporter this week. “I’ve always said that if nothing else we are a club with a lot of soul, and that’s what you’re bringing out.”
It’s the spirit of the Tiger, an unspoken law of the jungle.
Last Saturday, at 6.23am, in response to my musing on family and Troy Chaplin and the Conca family [LINK], this arrived in my in-box: “5.14am in a Brisbane suburb. Cold night and pitch black outside. Have a cold and can’t sleep. Don’t want to wake my wife with constant coughing. Three young children will stir within the next hour. The middle one, Joel, whose birthday party it will be later today, is the one I’ve invested most Richmond indoctrination in.”
It was type-written from Ben Fenton-Smith, a Tiger to whom I promptly replied. In a follow-up email he told a story of belonging. “Earlier this year I had two days, mid-week, in Melbourne for work. Arriving at the airport I had a couple of free hours before a meeting in the city, so I had the cabbie drop me off at Punt Road. I couldn’t think of anywhere else in Melbourne to go. I walked around the oval by myself in the middle of the day. I hadn’t been there for a long time, even though I’m a long-standing member. Not sure what this means, but I guess it goes to show you how a footy club can give you a sense of home.”
The week before, Perth-based Richmond supporter, Leon Schirripa, sent me a lengthy email that chronicled long-distance love and heartbreak for the Tigers. “I fell for them at aged 11 (in 1987),” he wrote. “I would record each game and watch those tapes over and over again if they won, and end up knowing every word from the commentators, and every crowd noise and reaction. The game I watched the most was the 1988 win against Carlton by 17 points, when Peter Wilson did his cartwheel with blood streaming down his face, after the final siren.”
Leon has his name on a supporters’ board in the Maurice Rioli Room, and has booked tickets to the Hall of Fame night. Since 1987, and a game against Brisbane at Carrara that Richmond lost by 35 points, he has seen the Tigers play only 15 times; for 11 losses and four wins. In his email, he has catalogued each game, with the ground, the opposition and the result. His last three games – before Monday night – were a loss at Cazaly Stadium to Gold Coast by two points, a four point loss to North Melbourne at the MCG (“the day I proposed to my girlfriend”), and the one-point loss to Fremantle early this year.
“I will also be attending the W.C. Eagles game with my partner as well as the match in Melbourne against Adelaide,” wrote Leon. For him, his table of results and happiness, it’s trending upward. The worm has turned.
Then at 12.41am (AEST) on Tuesday, I received an email from Luke McNiece that read:
“I’m a 3rd generation Tiger, born at Bethesda Hospital in Richmond in the premiership year of 1967, and moved to Perth in 1975. I was lucky enough that Dad took me to the ’74 grand final as a kid while we were still living in Melbourne and we flew back in 1980 to see the Tiges’ big win over the Pies. I didn’t have a ticket to get in but my cousins who were in the Cheer Squad somehow smuggled a ticket or a pass-out to me and I sat in the second row with them behind the goals at the city end. This is such a vivid memory for me.
I have managed to bring my two sons aged 18 and 17 up to be Tigers too – a challenging feat in Perth and given the tough times we have been through. We were in Melbourne last week for the Dreamtime game and this is the first time the boys have seen the Tigers two weeks in a row.
I was at Subi Oval tonight (I can’t call it Paterson’s Stadium!) and was so happy to sit next to my boys for the game. The Cheer Squad behind the goals was in great form – firing up the song with about 5 minutes to go and the game well in the bag.
We always go when the Tigers are in town and it felt like such a long time since we have been able to sing the song together after the game.
As someone who doesn’t get to see the boys play live often, and having been through the lean times we have, it was special to sit through the last half knowing we had the game under control and looking forward to belting out the best theme song in the AFL. Very, very satisfying when the final siren sounded.”
Words like these, sentiments like this, they need to be shared.
**
I watched the game on Monday night with my partner, restless on the couch with her pregnancy nearing full-term, a cup of green tea, and block of chocolate. My expectations were not great. Football writer Greg Baum – a Collingwood man, for the record – had emailed in the afternoon, asking about our chances. “Slim,” was my one-word reply. It is not that I didn’t believe; it is because in football – as with any piecemeal work – you are as good only as your last job. And our last job, against Jobe and his boys, was not good.
My partner is an historian, an academic who specialises in African American culture, and who last week took particular interest in the racial stereotypes inflamed by Eddie McGuire on radio. She is new to football. Previously, my partner has accepted my fascination with it and the unexplainable joy that comes from such an illogical game, and my illogical club that’s found so many illogical ways to disappoint over the years. In years gone, I could not count how many times after a delayed interstate broadcast I’ve crept into bed sometime after two in the morning, my heart broken.
This season is different. Having returned recently to Melbourne, my partner has agreed openly to support my support for my team. Last year I had felt adrift in this city I hadn’t called home for 14 years. I have wanted reason to believe – a way to belong – and for this am thankful my football club has granted an opportunity to express and share these thoughts of a follower. What is football, but a collection of shared memories, a gathering of stories, a commingling of ideas?
My partner, keen also to tap roots into this football-crazy town, has become a Tiger. She’s researched the game’s rules, studied up on the players, reads often the Club’s website, talks of ‘Dimma’ as if he were a work colleague, and this Wednesday morning in bed – apropos of nothing – told me that Dustin Martin shares the same number as Royce Hart.
Monday night was the first time it was the two of us, only, watching the game, together on the couch. It was two hours of tenderness. I count my blessings that life has turned out this way.
Adding enjoyment to the evening was her observations of the players – many of them no older than her students – and the run of the play. All of us read a game of football differently, finding different aspects to appreciate, and while it shouldn’t surprise me, I am astonished by how clearly and aptly she articulates what she sees. She is a learned woman, and academics in Melbourne have a rich history with football.
On Monday night she tags Josh Kennedy’s set-shot kicking style “unorthodox”, comments on Matty White’s first-quarter contributions (“he’s a little champion, that guy”), and continues her appreciation for Richmond’s current No. 4. “I do enjoy watching Dustin Martin run,” she says with mischief in the third quarter. “He’s got that lovely, wide open chest.”
**
My notes on the game are full of ticks and boxes drawn around players’ names. A coded narrative of the second quarter, for instance, reads partly like this:
* Stevie Morris – the team’s first contested mark? (in defensive 50).
* Shane Edwards – first mark inside 50 ??
* 15.50 – Edwards handpass, Vickery lead, Vlastuin goal “he looks like a 100-80 gamer”
* Dustin Martin – man the mark
* Riewoldt swings around, handpasses (pleasing to watch) à Foley’s pass ??
Foley again
Vlastuin “a new hero is born”
Matty White
Dea – really assured
Newie off the left
See Trout in the crowd ??
* Daniel Jackson forward pressure à turnover to Chris Newman à THE FINISHER
All aspects of the game were a joy to behold. Cotchin was superb. Alex Rance was terrific, and it was wonderful to see his confidence buoyed throughout the game. Nathan Foley’s short passing and dash opened play up for us. Tyrone Vickery always looks best on the lead, and he led well all night. We were tough in the middle. We defended staunchly in the first quarter, with our backs to the wall, then took chances when they arose. I am always relaxed when Shaun Grigg or Brett Deledio has the ball. When ‘Dusty’ gets the ball, my heart skips a beat.
A highlight of the night was watching Aaron Edwards’ debut. In the last quarter, after a strong contested mark, he hits up Vickery on the lead with a spearing pass. I write in my notebook: “Welcome Aaron Edwards”. After all those weeks and all those bags of goals playing for Coburg, and all that time waiting on the sidelines as an emergency, it’s a delight to see his confidence grow as the last quarter unfolds. His opportunity has come, and he dare not squander it.
Then near the halfway mark of the last quarter, comes his moment of initiation. Playing a first game for a new club is something, but kicking a first goal in that game is something else. That it came from such a committed tackle – he mauled Brad Sheppard, “PINGED HIM,” exclaimed Anthony Hudson in the commentary box – made the joy only sweeter.
In an earlier blog I have written about team celebrations after Nick Vlastuin’s first goal in AFL football, thinking these things important, and surmising that only three dour defenders (Morris, Rance, Chaplin) and Jake King did not physically embrace him after the feat. On Monday night, when Aaron Edwards kicks his first goal in Yellow and Black, the team goes 10 goals up, and it’s party time in front of the cheer squad. Pause the vision, and it can only put a smile on all Tiger faces. I love the message on a sign someone near the front row holds up: ‘TIGER MAGIC’.
In this order – White, Vickery, Deledio, Maric, Vlastuin, ‘Kingy’ (he bear hugs him, in a blur of tattoo sleeves), Foley, Newman, Rance, Batchelor, Chaplin, Morris, Cotchin, Riewoldt – all embrace him, before the camera cuts to replayed footage. I have no idea if this is a team decree, but I like it.
But from where I sat on our lounge room couch, Monday night’s highlight was the showing of Matt White. I never knew he had this game in him. He was superb. My notes from the first quarter are littered with his name. When the pressure was on, he was the one who raised his hand and took the game on. First it was his running goal from 50 metres, on an angle, to put us on the board. Then his long kick to the top of the square to create a second goal. And then a moment near the boundary – the game in a tense wrestle, with West Coast on the rise – when he picked up the ball, sought a tackle, and deliberately bundled both his pursuer and the ball over the line. It was the team play, the defensive play, the play that shut-down an uneasy situation.
Last year, when Matt White came on as a sub in the game at Etihad Stadium against West Coast, I had private reservations about his football abilities. Now I stand corrected, and am happy to say so. My opinions of him changed after the Fremantle game this year, were reaffirmed during the Dreamtime game, then on Monday night he was a revelation. I am thrilled for Matt White that he played such a game, and hope he plays many more like it. He was a blur of yellow boots, he was a beauty to watch.
**
Last week, I wrote about my father, an Essendon man, which reminded of a text I sent him at 4.45pm on May 26 last year, after Richmond’s romping win over Hawthorn, under rain clouds at the MCG. It was an afternoon to remember. With mostly Hawthorn-supporting friends, as I walked to a pub in Richmond to celebrate, I sent my father a message: “There is a god. His name is Hardwick”
His immediate response: “Essendon created many gods.”
What I liked about Damien Hardwick’s post game interview on Monday night was his steely resolve. David King wrote an astute article (‘Time to hit the Dimma switch’), published on the day of the game in the Herald Sun, discussing the tough and miserly mindset of our coach as a player. Hardwick, on the field, was a fighter, a scrapper, a hard man – one of those players you knew wouldn’t give an inch no matter the odds against him. As with Glenn Archer, I always reckon he played his best when the challenge was greatest.
And this is how he had the team prepared on Monday night.
What I like about his coaching this year is the caution he shows players with head injuries. They are subbed out and rested the following week. He upholds a duty of care, he respects their welfare. He knows it is only a game, but life is forever. As an extension of this, I like also the way he manages the playing time of his players, mindful of long-term goals ahead of instant gratification. He rests his oldest and youngest players, knowing their bodies are most susceptible to fatigue and injury. He has built around him a template for success.
I will never forget Damien Hardwick’s first year as coach, done mostly from the boundary, and his first win, as the heavens opened in Port Adelaide. I was visiting Melbourne with our newborn son, and listened to the game on a car radio, and remember it was a cold Saturday, and I cried as I held our baby and for the first time in his life shared with him the joy of singing the team song.
And I thought of Damien Hardwick recently when I read an article in The Age about the Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, which said this: “The late Allan Jeans once said that a man only discovered whether he could coach or not when he was in charge of a football team on the bottom”.
We’ve had our years of struggle. After Monday night, here comes our time to shine.
Tiger tiger, burning bright
or Twitter: @dugaldjellie
