They weren’t thrashed. And they weren’t disgraced. But Richmond’s loss to North Melbourne on the weekend was a cripplingly tedious affair, the sort of day where you wonder whether any progress has been made at all. Games between bottom sides, as the Tigers’ win over West Coast in May demonstrated, can be as entertaining as a top-four clash. But Sunday’s game was blighted by cynical coaching, uncontested marks and a certain futility. A few of Richmond’s older players seemed to have checked out, the forwards barely got a look in and most of their best young talent were watching from the stands.
A team would normally be pilloried for a performance like that. A coach with nine wins from 60 would normally be out the door. But it’s been tempered by their drip feed of injuries, which has featured most body parts and vital organs – hips, feet, knees, collarbones, throats, groins, brains, ligaments and tendons. The nature of the injuries and the protean timelines have only added to the frustration. Tom Lynch lost the use of his voice box and had to undergo speech therapy to rediscover his vocal projection, Josh Smillie was sent to Philadelphia to reprogram his body, and Sam Lalor is still nursing what’s not entirely convincingly referred to as a “partial Achilles tear”.
