Tears of the Tigers faithful as their heroes triumph
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It took 37 years. It took the blink of an eye.
What had seemed for more than a generation such a struggle for the Richmond Football Club ended with a trouncing, the Tigers winning their 11th premiership by 48 points against the top-placed and more highly-favoured Adelaide.
The drought has broken – Richmond celebrate their grand final win over Adelaide. Photo: Justin McManus
It was only when small forward stalwart Dan Butler put Richmond 46 points in front into time-on that president Peggy O’Neal started to cry and only when Dustin Martin kicked his second three minutes later that CEO Brendon Gale followed suit.
On the boundary line the man who punctuated the dark years with his own unique and individual brilliance Matthew Richardson shed tears as well before finally handing over the baton to a new breed of champions when he handed Damien Hardwick and captain Trent Cotchin the cup.
Hardwick, the coach who resurrected his career over a pre-season of soul-searching described the 22 Tigers who stifled the Crows as “the love of my life,” jovially singling out just two individuals in “Mrs Hardwick who’s somewhere up in the stands” and Martin via his sponsor Puma.
No wonder he loves them, for this premiership was won by a team which played in Hardwick’s image and achieved by four quarters of defensive pressure that rewrote the accepted story of Adelaide and it’s so-called scoring dominance.
Martin became the first player in history to win a Brownlow and a Norm Smith Medal five days apart and, if the presenter James Hird was subjected to some mild early booing up on the dais then who better than dazzling Dusty to drown out any hint of dissent.
Martin bear-hugged Peggy O’Neal and all Tigers who came within his radius serving a special one for his old team-mate in the stands Jake King.
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Elsewhere Jack Riewoldt attacked his coach with a ferocity barely shown by the Crows during game time.
Later it seemed like a small community and not a football club joined arms in the room to belt out the song that for years has been celebrated but has never accompanied a genuine celebration since 1980.
And It was a team that played its premiership wearing black armbands in recognition and devastation for premiership hero of years past Merv Keane who has undergone recent and incomprehensible personal tragedy.
After the siren and the speeches, Cotchin led the winners to their cheer squad and seemed to physically climb into the supporters who have waited so long and so loudly for another flag.
Martin barely completed a victory lap before being begged for a second and then a third. The player of the 20th century Leigh Matthews said after Martin had been voted the year’s best player by his peers that no individual had enjoyed a better season in the game’s history.
And that was before the Brownlow, his three spectacular finals and before the Norm Smith.
If the tackles and the pressure and the numbers told the tale of this Grand Final – Richmond held Adelaide goalless in a quarter for the first time in 35 meetings and once it hit the lead late in the second quarter never really looked back – there were some unexpected heroics.
That lead was taken courtesy of the game’s youngest player, Jack Graham, 19, who finished with three and was lauded later by Hardwick.
The coach’s beloved lodger Daniel Rioli did not score a goal but he tackled and marked against bigger opponents because he like his team-mates wanted this premiership more and he even took on Sam Jacobs on occasion in the ruck.
Club talisman Jack Riewoldt – who joined The Killers back on stage when darkness fell after seven o’clock still wearing his canary yellow guernsey reserved his September best for last.
He put Richmond 40 points up at the two-minute mark but even then the so-called army could not quite ‘dare to dream as instructed by the club banner.
The drought seemed truly broken by nine-gamer Jacob Townsend when he kicked his second at the 18 minute mark.
Then the MCG stands erupted, stacked with more than 100,000 supporters heavily punctuated by yellow and black and who were heckling the Crows captain Taylor Walker towards the end.
Riewoldt summed up the surreal nature of the situation in which he and his club now find itself – one year after the coach stared into an abyss and Riewoldt himself thought he would never play in a premiership.
Instead he vowed to leave a legacy for future champions like Daniel Rioli, never believing that in 12 short months it would be him.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” said Riewoldt after the final siren.
“To be honest I don’t really know what to say. It hasn’t really sunk in.”
It truly seemed to sink in for Trent Cotchin’s team when Hardwick looked across to his men clad in non traditional jumpers which have now created a new team of heroes and told them how unique and special they were to him.
“You’re an incredible team that is now a premiership team.”
More bear hugs, more leaps of joy.
The premiership quarter – the third – in hindsight was put into train in the second term when for the first time in 2017 Adelaide failed to kick a goal in that stanza and Richmond piled on four to the Crows five points, three of them rushed.
Riewoldt, after three misses in the first quarter and a stirring high mark six minutes into the game, broke that drought four minutes after the break and 15 minutes later the rub of the green went the Tigers’ way too.
That was when Townsend put his team within two points with a 45-metre goal on an angle from a dubious free kick awarded against an indignant Jake Lever who had a few fingers on his jumper.
The Tigers hit the front in time on when the teenaged Graham, playing his fifth AFL game, kicked his first and Martin followed courtesy of Edwards and Cotchin out of the middle.
At the other end, Eddie Betts, who briefly lost the use of his arm courtesy of Dylan Grimes, had no such umpires’ luck within metres of Adelaide’s goal.
Rarely have the small forward guns Betts and Charlie Cameron had so little influence on a big occasion, a point underlined during Adelaide’s disastrous third quarter when Betts attacked on the run an inexplicably missed.
The Crows next goal did come until Grimes gave away a 50-metre penalty which ultimately led to Taylor Walker’s first set shot and goal.
But the captain could not live up to his pre-game National Anthem death stare on this occasion and he had little help from Adelaide’s other big forwards Josh Jenkins and Andy Otten.
Richmond skipper Cotchin jogged across to the losers to shake Walker’s hand as the latter despondently lifted himself from the turf.
“Too good,” said Big Tex of the Tigers and then to his own supporters the message was stark: “Thanks for travelling. Sorry we couldn’t get it done.”
Peggy O’Neal, the game’s first woman president, is now the AFL’s ground-breaking premiership president overseeing a flag after being challenged herself one year ago – a flag that has come 50 years to the day since the last Tigers flag drought was broken.
And strangely, it is the second time in a decade that the Tigers premiership player-turned football boss has been sacked by Collingwood only to move to another club and oversee a premiership in his first season in the new job.
Last time it was Geelong when the Cats broke their drought in 2007 but this time, said Neil Balme, was even more special.
“I’ve been in footy a fair while but your footy home is your footy home and I’m so happy to be here today.”
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