Posted on June 23, 2008 | Category: Match Reports
Port Adelaide 19.9 (123)
Richmond 20.7 (127)
Richmond put on an electrifying first term, and was by far the better team for the first three quarters. The final quarter was a debacle, with Richmond putting the shutters down way too early, and were only rescued by best-on-ground Joelly Bowden’s “Leo-Barry-esque” mark in front of Motlop. A close win that should have been a convincing win - but hey: it’s a win at Football Park!
Hughes and Morton kicked 11 goals between them. You’d expect that sort of output to be spread out over about 3 games from these two, and it’s a sign that there are some of our players getting significantly better in the VFL. Cleve looked in trouble earlier in the season, struggling at times to put on a decent show in the reserves. But he’s now shown himself to be developing at a similar rate to players like Riewoldt who again showed he can take a great mark. Shane Tuck was also noteworthy, and looks like he might have played himself into some decent form again.
But let’s talk about Joel. I actually thought that Bowden was a little bit victimised in being named as a possible scapegoat for the Adelaide loss - for my mind he’s been playing much better footy since he came back from the VFL and it seemed as though he was just automatically lumped in with Tivendale and Pettifer. But the redemption is complete. 39 touches and 23 marks: and more importantly with lots of those well earned. And that mark. With 50 seconds left in the game, and Richmond up by 4 points the ball came in to 20m out from Port Adelaide’s goal. Backing back, with Motlop steaming in at him, Joelly stuck up his arms and at full stretch took a game saving mark, got the ball off to a teammate by foot, and the game was won. What a man!
When you kick 9 goals in the first quarter, you should have a pretty decent lead. This was the sort of shootout that Matthew Knights must be looking for in his Essendon games, because we attacked hard, but didn’t show a lot defensively. It certainly didn’t help that Luke McGuane has gone down with a hammy - to go with Will Thursfield who’s also on the sidelines with a similar injury. No doubt about it, there are some serious danger signs in the backline, and we desperately need to secure that up if we’re going to be able to man up on Big Fev.
Equally frustrating, is that the Tigers have little to no ability to play “tempo footy”. We can’t do it, and we try to do it way too often. I really do believe that we’d be a million times better off just trying to play the same kind of last quarter that we played in the previous three - hard, attacking footy. We let Port get back into this game, and it was only a whisker away from being added to the list of St.Kilda, Western Bulldogs, etc as games that we stole defeats in. The boys have got to stop doing it, and the instruction from the box needs to be a whole lot louder and clearer.
3 - Joel Bowden
2 - Cleve Hughes
1 - Shane Tuck
We were harder and better than they were. That’s a beautiful thing to be able to say. And that puts huge stakes on the next match against Carlton. GO TIGES!
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June 23rd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Supercoach: C.Cornes out, J.Bowden in: come back Joel, all is forgiven. And for 180 points, you can have my children too.
June 24th, 2008 at 8:48 am
I was staggered when I saw his stats.
How many of his possessions and marks were uncontested across half back?
June 24th, 2008 at 11:12 am
There was certainly an element of that, but he worked really hard for a number of his possessions too. And in a side that is renowned for turnovers, I found a stat in Kevin Sheedy’s “Supercoach” column in the Herald Sun interesting. Every single one of his 39 disposals was rated as “effective”. Now admittedly lots of those weren’t under pressure (he took a bunch of marks), but we have desperately needed that level of reliability in our disposals for a long time now. Lets hope it’s contagious!