There's a reason for the title. To explain it a little history lesson needs to be conducted. At the end of the 1997 season then Richmond coach Jeff Gieschen decided that what the Tigers most needed was an impressive young ruckman. There was a tall South Australian kid called Brad Ottens in the draft, however he was widely tipped to go earlier than Richmond's first draft pick.

Melbourne, who had draft pick #1, had already picked up Fremantle ruckman Jeff White to add to their Irish Brownlow medallist Jim Stynes, so were likely to use the pick on winger Travis Johnstone, rather than Ottens. That still left him at #2. Richmond traded serviceable and popular tagger Chris Bond plus draft pick #15 to Fremantle for their #2 pick and used it on Ottens.

Ottens impressed people right from the start, helping to turn the first round game against Essendon in 1998 in Richmond's favour. He played about half the games that season and had Richmond fans salivating about his potential. 1999 saw Ottens, along with many other youngsters at Richmond, suffer under Gieschen's decidedly odd selection policies. In 2000 under Danny Frawley Ottens began to develop both in the ruck and as a useful forward. In tandem with Matthew Richardson in 2001 he was one big reason as to why the Tigers finished 4th on the ladder and why they made the Preliminary Final. That was when the trouble began.

Being a South Australian and out of contract the two SA clubs made a big play for him and Richmond was forced to pay him well above what he was really worth just to keep him for the next 3 years. They said they were paying him on potential. Unfortunately that was all it was, his 2002 season was disappointing and blighted by a number of annoying injuries, prior to the 2003 season his pre season was interrupted by a bizarre accident when he impaled himself on a garden stake putting up a hammock at home, then a back injury saw him out until the middle of the season. It took him until the end of that season to get his form back. 2004 was horrible for everyone and Ottens, whilst he won hitouts, did not do it to Richmond's advantage and rarely kicked goals. When contract time came around he was offered a deal that was far more indicative of his true worth, rather than what he may become. Up until that point he had told anyone who would listen that he wanted to stay at Richmond. All of a sudden when the money came into play he announced that he wanted to go to Geelong to 'further his career', this can be interpreted realistically as 'Geelong have offered me more money so I don't want to stay at Richmond'. Richmond squeezed Geelong hard and the Cats traded Brent Moloney to Melbourne for the Demons draft pick #12 and gave that along with their first selection #16 to the Tigers. Richmond used those selections on midfielder Danny Meyer and the tall Adam Pattison respectively.

The whole Ottens affair left a nasty taste in the mouths of Richmond supporters and they were quite rightly upset. Brad Ottens became known as the Big Donut, due to the rather large whole his heart seemed to have in it, reference the term about a player lacking courage: 'a heart like a donut'. In honour of that the Punt Road End web forum named the Rd clash between Richmond and Geelong: Donut Day.

You would have to say that with 3 goals, a few nice marks, some good hitouts to the Cats advantage and a great tackle on Mark Coughlan that the first round went to Geelong and Ottens. If Brent Moloney follows up his Rd 1 form with the Demons into a great season, Meyer and Pattison turn out to be good players for Richmond and Ottens is affected by the fluctuations of form that have been the hallmark of his career, then they may have won the battle, but not the war. I can't review the game, it's simply too painful. Unless there are some massive form turnarounds very quickly Richmond will complete a winless season and cease to exist in the very near future.

Chris.

2. Darren Gaspar, after a dreadful 2004 where he was pretty much crucified trying to come back too early from a serious knee injury he looked to have regained both speed and agility, did a pretty good job overall and even drifted forward to kick a goal, kicking remains a worry.

3. Brett Deledio, put on a show in the first quarter and displayed all the reasons why he was the #1 draft pick, however as young blokes are wont to do faded out after that and was rarely sighted after the first 20 or so minutes.

5. Troy Simmonds, huge disappointment, ineffective both in the ruck and forward. Involved in one nice piece of play that resulted in a Richo goal, but that was it. Needs to lift.

6. Mark Chaffey, blanketed Cameron Ling well early in the first quarter, but he's new to tagging and it wasn't long before Ling's pace and fitness got the better of Chaff and Ling was the top possession getter and Best on Ground. Duncan Kellaway he is not.

7. Nathan Brown, wasted in the forward line for most of the game, but did not do anywhere near enough. Kicked a few goals from the midfield when it was all too late.

8. Tom Roach, inexplicably played in the backline, a position I doubt he's ever filled even in junior footy, and was all at sea. If they were going to play someone of his size in the backline they would have been better off picking Brett Hartigan, he's used to it and he does it well.

9. Wayne Campbell, he's said it's his last season and you can see why. May even be one season too many. Continually stopped and propped, directing traffic and that's in direct conflict with the new game plan.

11. Joel Bowden, not sure where he was playing, spent large periods of time on the bench for playing wide of his opponent, obviously also against the coaches instructions.

12. Matthew Richardson, gave it his all, covered a lot of ground, still managed to kick 3 goals and at least gave the forward line one target.

13. Trent Knobel, big and painfully slow. Got his share of hitouts, but the team don't know how to rove to him.

15. Kayne Pettifer, yes he got 3 goals, two of them from soft frees and one from a nice bit of crumbing. He's simply not up to AFL standard and will spend most of this season playing for Coburg.

17. Kane Johnson, used mostly in the backline and found it hard to exert much influence, would have preferred to see him in the midfield where he at least has a presence.

20. Ray Hall, had a go and along with Gaspar was probably our best defender. Broke even with Ottens in my opinion, should have been more aggressive, though.

21. Shane Tuck, the only midfielder with any presence at all, proved that last year's selection committee were clueless.

23. Daniel Jackson, ouch! What was he even doing there? It seemed that he didn't know either. Far and away his worst performance, I hope we haven't wasted a lot of superlatives on this kid.

24. Mark Coughlan, has lost pace and looked rusty. They say he's still recovering from oesteitis pubis. I'm very concerned that we've got another Mark Merenda here, a promising player who was destroyed by osteitis pubis.

27. Andy Krakouer, kicked a brilliant goal in the first two minutes and then disappeared for the rest of the game. That has always been his problem: consistency. Not just from game to game, but from quarter to quarter. Getting just a little bit sick of his disappearing act.

31. Chris Hyde, had a go, got a lot of the ball early, but disposal let him down. Probably should have swapped positions with Chaffey. He may not have stopped Ling, but the annoying redhead would have found life a lot touhger for the full four quarters.

32. Greg Tivendale, this guy is on autopilot, just cruised around with seemingly not a care in the world and obviously no idea that he actually had an opponent, either that or the bloke he was on had a contagious disease, because Tivendale didn't want to go anywhere near him. Regularly missed targets too. There was call to trade him at the end of last season, we should have heeded it, it's unlikely he'll be worth much at the end of this one.

34. Mark Graham, the ex Hawk was not the worst of them. Showed a bit of much needed aggro and presented well in the unfamiliar position of forward.

35. Chris Newman, played a good game on Gary Ablett. Ablett was not without influence, but it would have been a lot worse without Newman.

39. Andy Kellaway, sad to say it, but it's time to say goodbye Andy. Too slow, not that he had any pace to begin with, disposal was worse than usual and his opponent gave him a bath.