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2007 Blog: Shattered

February 5, 2007 12:32 am
By Chris Greenway

I had intended to cover Richmond’s draft selections in the November 2006 draft here, but news today changed all that.

Some years ago Richmond drafted a kid called Mark Coughlan from WA. Many people still remember that the young man looked far from impressed at being drafted by the Tigers, when it emerged that the pick used on Coughlan could have been instead used to select former Premiership player David Cloke’s son Jason, who starred in his rookie year, criticism was widespread.

Coughlan was okay early on, but not spectacular, a tough, slowish midfielder. 2003 was his breakout year, he shone in a poor side and even won the Jack Dyer medal. Struck down by osteitis pubis he spent most of 2004 on the bench. He struggled through 2005, but played most games and showed glimpses of his 2003 best. In 2006 Cogs looked like he was back, 30+ possessions against Fremantle was proof of that, then the following week he did his knee. It was blow, but everyone was convinced that he would recover and dominate in the future.

All the news about the pre season was good. Coughlan had recovered and was starring on the track, due to make a return to the big time in Round 1. He did his knee again. The 2007 season is over for Mark before it has even begun. I’m shattered, this is devastating news for the club and the player. I had high hopes for Coughlan, I said at the time the only thing that could prevent him from becoming a great player was injury and it looks like just that has done this to him.

1. Tough news, without a doubt. And that it is probably an injury outside of footy makes it a harder pill to swallow. Who steps up to fill the void?

Comment by Becky — February 5, 2007 @ 7:37 am

2. And lookee there! Now we have an answer!

Tiger cub stars in intra-club

6:38:26 PM Wed 7 February, 2007
Paul Gough in Wonthaggi
Sportal for afl.com.au
Richmond may have unearthed a replacement for injured star midfielder Mark Coughlan after first-year draftee Shayne Edwards made a huge impression in the Tigers’ opening intra-club match of 2007 at Wonthaggi on Wednesday.

Comment by Becky — February 8, 2007 @ 1:27 pm

1. Becky, It’s nice to have an article like that about young Edwards, but you need to remember that this is a draftee we’re talking about, and a skinny one at that. He’s an 18 yo in a game peopled by battle hardened veterans. In a few years he may be as good as or even better than Coughlan, but short term he won’t be the answer.

Comment by tigerland — February 10, 2007 @ 11:28 pm

2007 Blog: Drafting

February 17, 2007 8:58 pm
By Chris Greenway

Draft day in November of 2006 was a big one for the Tigers. There had been a lot of talk about the wisdom, or lack thereof, in trading pick 8 to the Dockers for pick 13 and Graham Polak. The events at the National Draft would show whether it had been the right decision or the wrong one.

Prior to the Polak deal Richmond recruiting manager had targeted Jack Riewoldt (cousin of St Kilda champion Nick) with pick 8 and did not believe that he would still be there at pick 13. As luck had it young Jack was still available at 13 and Richmond snapped him up. By all accounts he is a tallish key position prospect with plenty of years ahead of him hopefully in the Richmond forward line.

The Tigers 2nd pick was used on Shane Edwards. A skinny midfielder with polished skills. There were shades of Aaron Fiora in the trade which was worrying. However he has already stamped himself in the intraclubs and training sessions as a hard worker and an intelligent if slightly raw midfielder.

The next pick took Daniel Connors. From what little I have seen of this young man he is exciting and skilled, not overly quick, but not slow and with a good football brain. He could wind up being the most valued pick from this draft in the future.

Carl Peterson was next, an idigenous player from WA. Great leap and could be a real surprise packet and an excitement machine.

Andrew Collins was the Tigers last selection. Aside from having the same name as a former Hawthorn player, who now coaches Richmond’s VFL afilliate Coburg I don’t know anything about him.

2007 Blog: NAB Cup

February 22, 2007 9:46 pm
By Chris Greenway

And so it begins. The pre season competition currently known as the NAB Cup after the sponsor; The National Australia Bank, better known in these parts as the NAB, at least the trophy no longer looks like a giant wok the way it did when home loan company Wizard sponsored it and it also cuts down on the joke names of the Harry Potter Cup or the Gandalf Cup. My own preferred moniker for it is the Mickey Mouse Cup, due to the lack of seriousness with which a number of clubs treat it.

There a number of positives and negatives surrounding the pre season comp. It’s probably played way too early, February is not a time to play football, the weather is too hot and people have not had a chance to properly get used to the cricket season ending. There are other sports competing for attention: the basketball has its finals series happening, domestic cricket is still being played and it narrowly avoids overlapping the local soccer league finals. A number of people have suggested scrapping the pre season and extending the home and away season to 30 games so that every team plays each other twice. Personally I don’t think that would work, 30 weeks is too long for a home and away season, I’d rather scrap the pre season competition and just play a few practice games, which is what teams wind up doing anyway if they get knocked out early in the NAB Cup. It’s a knockout format, they did toy with a round robin a few years back, but that gave it even less meaning than it currently has.

It is a good chance for supporters to see their youngsters and rookies have a bit of a hitout in a competitive match, which is good for the young players and the supporters. They trial new rules and jazz the game up a little with fun touches like 9 points for any goal kicked from outside the 50 metre zone. They also use it to try and get as many umpires as possible involved with the game. One game this year will have 9 umpires able to make decisions (boundary and goal umpires), that is totally stupid. I swear the AFL will not be happy until they have more umpires than players on the field at any one time.

There’s 2 schools of thought about the importance of the NAB Cup. One says that a good showing will increase membership and sponsorship and give the team confidence heading into the season proper. I doubt this. Any supporter who is interested enough in the NAB Cup to pay any real attention to it is a diehard and more than likely already has a membership, sponsors don’t pay any attention to NAB Cup, they’re already signed by that point and they’ll look at home and away results at the end of the season when they want to sign again, not what happened in Feb and March. It is true that it should give the team confidence and augur well for the real season, but the pre season cup has become somewhat of a poisoned chalice of late with Carlton winning it and then taking the wooden spoon the same year in 2005, last years winner Geelong started the season on fire and then fell in a huge hole, going from Premiership contenders to missing out on the finals altogether.

I think Terry Wallace’s attitude can be summed up by what he did over the pre season training, started a competition amongst his players, guaranteeing the top 15 trainers a start in the NAB Cup opener against the Cats. You can bet team selection throughout the home and away season will not follow that model. My advice is to sit back, enjoy the game and pay little attention to the result, keep an eye on the young kids and wait for the real stuff in a month or so.

1. And now we have two more injuries in Richo and Krakouer. Ouch, and I mean that in more ways than one.

Comment by Becky — February 25, 2007 @ 10:09 pm

2007 Blog: First hitout

February 26, 2007 1:03 am
By Chris Greenway

Well what an underwhelming round the first stage of the NAB Cup was. With a couple of exceptions this was largely made up of full strength teams wanting to make an early impact against teams depleted either by circumstances or choice and not really caring about the result.

Playing Geelong in Geelong is never a fun thing to do and less fun when your ruck division is decimated. Any team that has to use Shane Tuck at centre bounces is in trouble. The result was a 43 point beating, although if Richmond had been less accurate it could have been much worse. To make matters worse Richo did a hamstring. The media have desperately tried to beat it up as serious, but it is really only a twinge and not likely to sideline the big fella for very long. The return of Chris Newman from a broken leg was good to see as was the form of Nathan Brown.

Going on this performance Browny is definitely back. New recruit Graham Polak was solid in defence and Richmond’s most effective key position player. Brett Deledio had his kicking boots on and his run through the centre at times was breathtaking. Richard Tambling was also promising, if he can fix up the disposal he’ll be a very dangerous player. Less heartening was the woeful performance of Darren Gaspar. I truly wish he had retired at the end of last season, that way he wouldn’t still be on the list. He’s too slow and his disposal is not of a high enough standard for senior AFL level, at the moment he is a liability.