Whenever his great Richmond sides were struggling, Damien Hardwick would get his runner on the line. “Get them to raise the fight!” he would scream. Tom Lynch’s meltdown against Adelaide wasn’t a case of following the coach’s instructions. It was the act of a frustrated man. His team was totally outclassed. He hadn’t touched the ball. He was being held. He was being double-teamed. He couldn’t buy a free kick. He’d lead to the right spot and the ball would go sailing over his head. He was trying to be a leader, trying to be a physical presence, trying to bring life to a dull game, and hope to a lost cause.
The Tigers’ spearhead ended up taking out his frustrations on the closest bloke in the vicinity, Jordan Butts. If his roundhouse had connected, Butts would have been on his way to the Epworth hospital and Lynch wouldn’t have played again this year. “I didn’t want to cause harm or anything like that,” he told Seven afterwards, not entirely convincingly. As it stands, Lynch is still looking at a hefty suspension.
