If you tuned into the AFL season opener on Thursday night without knowing anything about footy, and were told that the two sides slugging it out were seen by many as being right in the mix for top four, you might be forgiven for thinking the standard of the competition was pretty low.
Particularly in the first half, before both Richmond and Carlton got used to the tempo of the real stuff, this was a tough watch. Neither side was able to find any cohesion moving forward, both teams frequently bit off more than they could chew off the boot trying their darnedest to attack, and a pair of defences that love being able to crowd back in numbers and defuse high balls ate up just about every forward foray that didn’t come at pace.
The game improved after half time, both sides settled down, and the game turned out to be a cracker; but even if it had, neither set of fans had anything to worry about from a scrappy start. These two teams and the way they played – kick-happy, high octane and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom, were always going to be susceptible to a bit of rust, especially with both applying heavy waves of pressure at every turn, particularly in their forward 50.
And both showed more than enough in the second half to suggest that, all things being equal, they’ll be in the premiership race up to their eyeballs.
In the end, a draw was probably fitting: neither side really did enough to break away from the other all night. Two evenly matched sides, and in the end, they just couldn’t be split.
What struck from virtually the first moments of this game was just that: how similar these two sides looked.
Compared to this time 12 months ago, where the Tigers were an outfit always looking to compensate for a dodgy midfield and the Blues one looking to maximise the power of theirs, you could have switched the guernseys around for a lot of the first quarter and a fan with full-blown face dyslexia would have struggled to tell the difference.
Taking the ball through the centre with gusto whenever they turned the ball over, the Blues’ plan made sense: get the ball to Harry McKay and Charlie Curnow as quickly as they could, then profit.
The problem was the Tigers knew exactly what the Blues were trying to do, and set themselves up beautifully to ensure it never got to that pair without a fight.
The result was a number of kicks forward that would have looked menacing had they, y’know, been anywhere near Curnow or McKay. Instead, Noah Balta, or Nathan Broad, or Jayden Short, would mark in acres of space – no not Blake Acres, unit of measurement acres – and look to turn the tables straight away.
The Blues’ best passage came when they took the foot ever so slightly off the pedal, composed themselves, and looked to gain ground slowly and meticulously. The result was a careful but risk-free build-up to the edge of 50, a long hopeful ball in, and a tremendous Silvagni mark.
The commentators gushed over the play, but I can see why the Blues would be keen to move the ball quicker than that in most instances, especially against a side like Richmond they’d back themselves to dominate aerially. You’ll notice in the clip that Toby Nankervis is caught in no man’s land, anticipating a kick to the edge of 50 rather than a deeper one right to the pocket.
As a result, what would normally happen in that situation – the two Tiger defenders engage their opponents, leaving space for the big ruckman to fly in and pluck a simple uncontested mark – doesn’t eventuate. I’m not sure you can credit the Blues for that as much as question why Nank was so slow to react to that long ball in.
At the other end, the Blues’ quarter time lead was built by nothing more than defensive grit – and a bit of wasteful Tigers kicking. With the pressure palpable inside 50, but the results so uninspiring, it was, as one Twitter wit noted, a fitting if unwanted tribute to Jason Castagna.
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By quarter time, the Tigers had turned the ball over a remarkable 16 times in their forward half – but here’s where the Blues indirectly benefitted from the speed of their ball movement. So quick were they trying to move the ball (and, for large parts, so aimlessly) that a lot of their defensive structure, and numbers behind the ball, were still in place; so when the Tigers won the footy back, there wasn’t the open space ahead of them that a turnover usually brings.
That at least explains some of the 9.1 per cent kicking efficiency inside attacking 50 that the Tigers brought to the first break. The other explanation is simpler: they kicked like they’d never seen a footy before.
The Tigers will improve that in time – mostly on Thursday night, they did it by just getting the ball in the hands of Daniel Rioli, clearly best afield in my book.
Rioli’s move to half-back in the last few years has been a masterstroke: I’m not sure there’s a player in the AFL who’s a better kick and quicker than he is. Countless times he steamrolled his way down a wing or right up the guts, unleashed a bullet pass that a leading teammate didn’t have to break stride to receive, kept on running and received the one-two to drive the ball in further.
With 17 kicks among his 27 disposals, he went at 92 per cent efficiency, while gaining a game-high 681 metres for the Tigers. Some stats can lie. These ones don’t.
In the end, the game came down, as close ones so often do, to a single contest, with 50 seconds left, in Richmond’s attacking 50. So let me introduce you to the bizarre, brilliant night of Lewis Young.
No one did more to hold the Tigers at bay early, and indeed throughout the match, than Lewis Young. In his second year as a Blue, the former Bulldog just keeps getting better, and it keeps getting even more bewildering that Luke Beveridge never gave him a run as the intercepting second tall defender he was born to be.
Excellent early on Jack Riewoldt, and doing that classic thing the great backs do in picking the perfect moment to sag off and assist another teammate locked in a contest, Young had eight intercept possessions by midway through the third quarter. Finishing up with eight marks, 20 disposals and just one goal from Riewoldt, I’d probably have only one or two players ahead of him on the field.
Quite genuinely, his one big mistake came in the last minute: under a high ball with under a minute left, Young found himself as essentially the loose man in defence. As Jacob Hopper kicks inside 50, he sees Jacob Weitering occupying Lynch, and backs him to hold him at bay long enough for an easy uncontested mark, like the one he’d taken in the goalsquare a few minutes earlier. Sitting a few metres on the other side, Mitch McGovern thinks the same.
McGovern stuffs up first – he, loose interceptor that he is, takes his eyes off his man, Tim Taranto, doesn’t even bother engaging with the smaller man, and follows the trajectory of the ball. Taranto, meanwhile, knows he’s not going to mark, so he does something really clever: he runs back with the flight, away from the expected landing zone of the ball, and plonks himself, just for a second, in between Lynch and Weitering.
It’s enough: Lynch now has a free run and jump at the ball, and neither Young or McGovern has realised it yet. All one needs to do is shuffle across, into the landing zone, and prevent Lynch from getting a clean run and jump.
Hopper’s kick is right down the throat of Young, who rocks onto the balls of his feet, steels himself, and prepares for a standing leap, a few metres off where the ball is going to land.
That’s his first, and biggest, mistake: if it was Steven May in that situation, he is filling that hot spot with every inch of his frame, ruling that space, and forcing Lynch to either jump over the top of him or give away a free kick trying.
Tom Lynch of the Tigers marks the ball. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
Young isn’t as big as May, and he knows if he puts himself in that drop zone normally, Lynch will bulldoze him out of the way. But maybe he’s selling himself short: late in the third quarter, he’d done superbly to neutralise a high ball sat on his and Lynch’s head one out inside 50, then scrambled back desperately to get a knee in the way of the Tiger’s quick snap at goal.
Maybe he could have done enough to neutralise that contest standing in the drop zone – all he needed was a fingertip on it. We’ll never know.
Young realises a split second before the ball arrives that they’re in trouble – McGovern is still watching the ball, as he should be (it doesn’t matter, his error has already come). Then he does what I imagine will be shown throughout the week as the Blues dissect the game with him: he braces for contact.
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say his major concern was giving away a free kick for prohibited contact. But for whatever reason, he’s flat-footed at the moment Lynch launches for the footy, and rather than stick a fist up, or get his body in the way, or launch himself, he loses his balance for a split second, and in that split second, Lynch has rocketed into the drop zone.
From there, it’s game over. McGovern is a split-second too late to arrive, his fist failing to find the ball as Lynch clunks the mark. Weitering can’t arrive in time, either; Taranto’s done his job, a one percenter worth every bit as much as his 32 often scrappy touches on the ball (he’ll get better at that, too).
Young, in the end, doesn’t even leave the ground; hands up in the air, half-heartedly hoping for the ball to plop in his hands. It looks seriously ugly, but while he has his share of the blame, it’s not entirely his fault, and shouldn’t detract from the whale of a game he had up until then.
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From 25 out, all but directly in front, Lynch was never going to miss the chance. The defining image of the game rests with him, holding the ball aloft, while all around him three big Blues are trying and failing to impact the contest.
In the end, the Blues might have got out of jail had Blake Acres taken an uncontested mark on the edge of 50 in the dying seconds – though, the dirty night he was having, I doubt he’d have made the distance from there. He might genuinely have missed his foot.
Maybe things would have been different had Lochie O’Brien not fumbled on the wing late, with Harry McKay in space further ahead; or Jesse Motlop had a bit more composure when going inside 50 to allow the Tigers that last rebound that ended in Lynch’s hands.
Ifs, buts, coconuts: you know the saying. It came down to one play; and the Blues, having given up a larger than usual 11 marks inside 50 for the night, had to pay full price.
Or… half price.
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