Don’t lose hope Adelaide Crows and Richmond fans after the injuries to Alex Rance and Tom Doedee — one player doesn’t make a team
You can still win the premiership. That’s Warren Tredrea’s message to Adelaide and Richmond fans after the dreaded footy gods claimed star defenders Tom Doedee and Alex Rance in Round 1.
Warren Tredrea
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You can still win the premiership. That’s my message to Adelaide and Richmond fans after the dreaded footy gods claimed star defenders Tom Doedee and Alex Rance to serious knee injuries.
Sure, both clubs’ premiership aspirations have taken a hit after losing their best intercept defenders but one man doesn’t make a team.
Don’t get me wrong — they will be hard to replace — but no one is irreplaceable, no matter how bright their star shines.
It begs the question: how can these two teams mount a decent premiership challenge when their line-ups are clearly weaker after only one round?
And as gut-wrenching as it is seeing any player go down with the dreaded ACL curse, all hasn’t be lost.
The answer is simple. The team that is selected to take to the field each week must, as a collective, pick up the slack.
The first step is for all the players, coaches and support staff to throw as much support around both Alex and Tom as possible. Text messages, phone calls, cooked dinners and a free teammate taxi service is the best was to show they are still loved, because injury life can be lonely and depressing.
Once they’re taken care of, the focus must immediately turn to Round 2 and the next man up.
The strength of any football club is its ability to compete week in week out no matter the challenges they face though adversity. How they overcome these challenges will determine how they’ll fare in 2019. Everyone in footy circles is questioning Richmond and Adelaide’s premiership credentials but inside the clubs, it won’t be the case.
Call it blind faith or self-belief but professional sportspeople always believe they can win, no matter the circumstances and the size of the task at hand.
Football stops for no one. A fresh challenge awaits this weekend.
Alongside Dustin Martin, Rance is Richmond’s most important player. He can play both as a lock-down defender on the opposition’s best forward, playing both tall or small, or as a free defender launching scoring thrusts from deep in defence.
The same goes for Doedee. Adelaide rued the loss of Jake Lever’s defection to Melbourne at the end of 2017. The Crows expected to experience some pain but enter Doedee — and many are now saying he’s a better player. We can’t forget football is a team game and the best-performed teams win, not individuals.
History is littered with teams that have overcome huge obstacles to win premierships. There’s no need to look any further than when Brownlow Medallist Gary Ablett Jr departed Geelong for the sunny Gold Coast and dual-premiership coach Mark “Bomber” Thompson pulled up stumps soon after.
The Cats’ premiership dynasty was supposedly over. Enter Chris Scott and a renewed game plan, and Geelong overpowered premier Collingwood to claim the 2011 flag.
We will never forget Eagle Andrew Gaff’s end to season 2018, suspended for a king hit on Docker Andrew Brayshaw. West Coast’s outside run was expected to die. It didn’t happen. The Eagles also lost Brad Sheppard to a season-ending hamstring injury, yet players remained focused on the team to claim their fourth premiership without two of their best-performed players.
I was a part of a Power team that lost All-Australian ball magnet Josh Francou to his second knee recon in two years on the eve of the 2004 season. Only weeks later, skipper Matthew Primus suffered the same fate.
Up stepped our engine room, led by Roger James and Peter Burgoyne. Brendon Lade and Dean Brogan combined to form arguably the best one-two ruck combo in AFL — and the rest was history.
This season was pitched as the seasons for redemption for Richmond and Adelaide — and it can still be. Both teams still possess some of the most talented players in the competition, who if they want it bad enough, can still climb the mountain. I learnt one thing in football: opportunity is everything and someone will always be willing to take it when it presents itself.
Rance and Doedee’s injuries have once again highlighted nothing is guaranteed in football.
Premiership team are built on team belief, team hard work and team camaraderie — not individuals.
Warren Tredrea is Channel 9 sports presenter and can be heard on FIVEaa
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