Following months of intense speculation about whether he’d been fit enough to play in the 2019 season-opener, the sense of relief for prized Richmond recruit Tom Lynch, after kicking three goals in the Tigers’ 33-point win against Carlton, was palpable.
Lynch clearly was a bit rusty, having not played any football since a Round 14, 2018 fixture with Gold Coast against Hawthorn in Launceston on Saturday, June 23.
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He subsequently had knee surgery in July to repair a damaged posterior cruciate ligament that he had been struggling with for the majority of the season.
Despite Lynch’s distinct lack of match practice, he still managed to be a valuable contributor for his new team with those three goals last night, and he’s only going to get better . . . much, much better.
“It was great to get up for Round 1 and play the first game. You train so hard over summer . . . everyone wants to play the first game. So it was good to get out there and play footy again,” Lynch told ‘Fox Footy’ post-match.
“The thing is, I didn’t know (if he was going to play Round 1). Everyone thinks I’m lying to them, but I didn’t know until two days out.
“So it’s good to get that over and done with now and just play footy.”
Understandably, the on-field synergy between Lynch and Richmond’s long-time gun key forward Jack Riewoldt is evolving and will take time to click.
“I’d like to work on it a bit more. Unfortunately, I haven’t done a heap of training over the last month. But Jack’s a really smart footballer and I think it will grow,” Lynch said.
“He’s great to play with and it worked well tonight . . . I think it will work better as we go along.”
In Lynch’s last game of AFL football with the Suns, against Hawthorn at University of Tasmania Stadium, Launceston, he played before a crowd of 9007.
The week before, in what was turned out to be his final appearance at Gold Coast’s home ground, Metricon Stadium, against Melbourne, the attendance figure was 10,181.
Last night’s crowd number was a huge 85,016, much to Lynch’s delight.
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“It’s unbelievable. It’s the home of footy, the MCG, and playing a Thursday night, it’s pretty surreal. It was definitely good fun,” he said.
“I’m pretty keen for a few more.
“Everyone wants to play at the MCG. I’ve only probably played 10 times before tonight and every time we played down here I was always excited . . . always look forward to MCG games.
“We play about 17 this year, so it’s going to be great.”
