Whether or not Richmond are well and truly back will probably be deciphered in the coming weeks. For the most part of the season, they have been incredibly flip-flop. Their wins have been okay, but have lost a couple of games in bad fashion. But in the case of Wednesday night, they looked like they were back to their best football.
There is no questioning that they were the better team on Wednesday night. You can easily argue that they should have been more than 40-odd points the better of the Western Bulldogs at full time. But when the game was in the balance, the Tiges pressed, harassed and forced so many turnovers on the Bulldogs and turned what was a strong 20-point quarter-time lead to commanding 40 points at three quarter time. From there, that was game, set and match - Richmond
It’s the trademark pressure that the Tigers possess that sees them break opposition on the turnover, and that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday night. The Bulldogs looked slow, they looked fumbly in the early goings and they struggled to hit targets both by hand and foot. On the defensive transition, they got opened up badly.
Without trying to take gloss off Richmond’s performance, this trend that the Bulldogs have is becoming concerning. When the game is on their terms, they look nearly flawless. However, if they get pressed and a bit of attention is put on them, the standards drop as quickly as Taylor Swift dropping a new album during self-isolation. It happened in round one eons ago against Collingwood. It happened against the Saints round two, it happened against Carlton and it happened again against the Tigers.
You can also argue that they should’ve lost to the Gold Coast last week, but a combination of good defence and the Suns missing opportunities themselves spared them a defeat, which is nice of the footy gods for a change.
But the facts remain that the gap between the Bulldogs’ best and worst football is completely mind-boggling. It’s easy to point the finger towards the Bulldogs’ younger brigade and to a point it can be agreed upon, but the counter-argument for that is that Richmond were playing 10 players that had played 30 games or less, so as far as I’m concerned, that excuse can piss right off.
There shouldn’t be an excuse for a lack of effort in that first quarter. There wasn’t much composure when the ball was in hand, which can be understood as Richmond’s pressure was first-rate, however once the ball was turned over, no one was running back defensively - every Bulldog was trailing their direct opponent 10-15 metres, which is a telltale sign that it was going to be an awful night.
Whether or not that win against the Suns took the wind out of their sails or not won’t be disclosed to the public eye, but the overall look of team was that they were feeling a bit flat and off the pace pretty much from the get-go. Losing Matt Suckling in the opening 10-15 minutes certainly doesn’t help the cause either.
But it’s a credit to the Tigers because when they get their groove, they are amongst some of the best in the league. I mentioned in the preview that Dustin Martin starred in Richmond’s second half last week, well he starred for pretty much all four quarters on Wednesday night. The gap between him and the second best on ground is a fair margin. His 26 disposals, three goals, four clearances, eight inside 50s and nine score involvements indicated that he was well and truly back to his best form after a sketchy start to the year.
The re-addition of Trent Cotchin back in the team made that midfield walk a bit taller. It saw the likes of Shai Bolton - who was already in good form mind you - play another blinder without getting as much attention as he should’ve, Jack Ross play a nice little game and make Marlion Pickett look like he was back on the Grand Final stage.
As much as I didn’t want to hear the Channel Seven crew talk Noah Balta up as the new Alex Rance, I heard it. Look, he’s been in superb touch the past few weeks and again he was brilliant on Wednesday, but I’m not hearing a bar of this compairson talk. Nine of his 15 disposals were intercepts, as well as three intercept marks and five rebound 50s and played most of his time on Josh Bruce to a positive effect - Bruce got his two goals, but one of them came late, and he didn't get much else in.
Balta's work enabled the likes of Dylan Grimes, as much as I don’t like him staging like a jerk, to play a very damn good defender's game and needed to be with the injury to Nick Vlastuin, who is basically his partner-in-crime in intercept defending. 18 disposals, six marks, eight intercepts, that's a fine game indeed.
Plenty of other players to highlight from Richmond: Jayden Short on the wing played an incredible game, with many of his kicks actually hitting targets with precision. Jake Aarts was dangerous up forward kicking a career-high three goals in what is his fifth career game, Liam Baker and Derek Eggmolesse-Smith showed plenty again down back, as did Nathan Broad. Whilst Kane Lambert as well I thought was strong after being tagged out of last week by GWS’ Matt De Boer.
From the Doggies, well I'm not exactly spoiled for choice in terms of good players, as I thought more than half the team were disappointing and should give Bevo something to think about for Monday’s game with Port Adelaide.
I would say something about Billy Gowers, but everyone else on social media has erupted and had their two cents on him, so perhaps I’ll just leave that one to you guys. But I will say that Billy if you’re reading this, stay the hell off of social media for at least two weeks. You’re welcome. It's easy to hang it on him - zero touches and three clangers in a half of footy is telling. But there were at least another 10 or 11 that also played terribly that you should consider.
Just to name few, Marcus Bontempelli hacked a lot of his kicks and that shot before the half-time siren was pretty indicative of his evening. Jackson Trengove as a late inclusion didn’t exactly add much to the team and was well beaten in almost every ruck contest. Easton Wood couldn’t buy himself a mark in the first half, Alex Keath had his colours lowered by Tom Lynch, Tim English was negated by Ivan Soldo, Ed Richards couldn’t get near it, Patrick Lipinski played probably his worst game ever and Hayden Crozier was made accountable - too many passengers.
But if we are to talk positives, Jack Macrae in his 150th game was everywhere. 37 disposals, four clearances, four inside 50s, seven score involvements and four tackles. He looked like one of maybe a handful of players who looked like they wanted to generate some offense and give a flying fig about the game. Such a shame there weren't many others who looked up to it.
I also thought Caleb Daniel playing his 100th game looked like he wanted to do something with the footy going forward - he’s having an excellent year in the defence and overall, it's been a very solid 100 games so far in his career. Bailey Williams also continued to play some brilliant football in the defensive half of the ground. He’s another I reckon who could hold his head up high.
Bailey Smith was a bit jittery with the football early, but got better as the game progressed and was probably one of the better players. Tom Liberatore didn’t get a lot of it early but worked himself into the game as it progressed and Mitch Wallis was probably the most dangerous forward of the evening, kicking three goals from just seven disposals and five marks, another couple of him and about another half-dozen of Jack Macrae's and it would've been a better game to write about.
There probably weren’t many others for mine that stood out, it was a very poor night if you wearing the red, white and blue and a very frustrating night if you were supporting them.
Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge said a couple of interesting things post-game. He acknowledges that the boys haven’t been at their best and that there’s no significant chemistry between the group, which is fascinating to hear.
However, he also says that the playing group must move on from this game pretty quickly. They play Port Adelaide and Brisbane in the next two weeks and both currently occupy the top two spots on the ladder. I’m just hoping that Wednesday night was just a wake-up call or an off-night, otherwise it might get worse for the Dogs before it gets better.
Western Bulldogs 1.1 3.5 4.7 7.7.49 Richmond 4.3 10.4 11.10 13.12.90
Goals
Western Bulldogs: Wallis 3, Bruce 2, Vandermeer 2 Richmond: Aarts 3, Martin 3, Castagna 2, Lynch 2, Chol, Pickett, Riewoldt
Alex Docherty's Best
Western Bulldogs: Macrae, Daniel, Williams, Wallis, Smith, Liberatore Richmond: Martin, Balta, Short, Bolton, Grimes, Lambert, Cotchin
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