AFL 2022 Richmond v Fremantle: All the latest news and reaction from the round 19 match
Richmond coach Damien Hardwick is right – his side needs to climb ‘a mountain’ to make the finals. But there is still hope after Friday night’s draw. Here’s what it means.
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There is still a clear path for Richmond to play finals this season, with the two points the Tigers picked up from Friday night’s clash with Fremantle potentially being as good as four.
Richmond failed to register a score from either of two marks inside-50 in the final 120 seconds of the match against the Dockers, with the resulting draw coming hot on the heels of dying-seconds losses to Gold Coast and North Melbourne in the previous two weeks.
Damien Hardwick’s side will sit two points outside the top-eight at the end of Round 19 if either the Western Bulldogs upset Melbourne on Saturday night or St Kilda takes down West Coast in Perth on Sunday.
However, just three more wins from their last four games could still see the team which has won three premierships in the past five years make the September cut.
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The Tigers face a crunch clash with top-four side Brisbane at the MCG next Sunday – but won their most recent encounter against the Lions by 20 points on the Gold Coast in Round 18 last year.
They then face bottom-eight sides Port Adelaide, Hawthorn and Essendon in the final three rounds.
If Richmond wins at least three more matches, it would finish the season with 50 premiership points.
At least one of the Western Bulldogs or St Kilda – who are both currently on 36 premiership points – would have to win four of their last five matches to reach 52 points and dislodge the Tigers in that scenario.
After Melbourne on Saturday night, the Bulldogs face Geelong (GMHBA Stadium), Fremantle (Marvel Stadium), GWS (Marvel Stadium) and Hawthorn (UTAS Stadium) to finish the year.
After West Coast on Sunday, the Saints face games against Hawthorn (Marvel Stadium), Geelong (GMHBA Stadium), Brisbane (Marvel Stadium) and Sydney (Marvel Stadium).
Richmond has been doing a lot right in recent weeks – without getting the results.
It has logged more inside-50s than its opponents each of the past three weeks, even if it doesn’t have a win to show for those efforts.
Key forward Tom Lynch – who hurt his hamstring in the first quarter of the Gold Coast game in Round 17 – is expected to return against the Lions next week, which should improve the connection between the midfield and forward line.
While Friday night’s draw stung for all involved, there is still a finals pulse at Punt Road.
“It’s a mountain,” Hardwick said on Friday night.
“There’s a summit out there and we don’t know which way it’s going to take us. The climb is the climb. What we do know is that our best footy I reckon will challenge sides. I think if we just get it right at the right time, get our personnel back, we can go well.
“They know that, the players. They can feel it. It mightn’t be showing a little bit on the scoreboard but they’ve got a general feeling about how we’re playing and how we’re operating.”
A loss to the Dockers would have just about wiped out the Tigers’ climb to the summit and would have brought some joy to Bulldogs and Saints fans.
But the season’s first draw keeps some hope alive for Hardwick and his players.
Noah didn’t: Balta on that late mishap
Richmond key forward Noah Balta says he did not hear the umpire’s “play on” call after the Tigers squandered two opportunities to hit the scoreboard in the final seconds of a dramatic draw against Fremantle.
With scores level, Balta took a mark 40m out almost directly in front with exactly two minutes left on the clock.
He had not started his run up 30 seconds later, when the umpire called “play on” and Fremantle’s Michael Frederick ran in and smothered the ball off Balta’s boot.
“I didn’t,” Balta said post-game when asked if he heard the play on call.
“I just saw a couple of Freo boys just running at me, and, yeah, unfortunately, what do you do? That’s the game of footy. It’s why we love the game. We like to play in close games like this. And you know, unlucky it’s a draw, but who cares?
“Jack Riewoldt told me, “Take your 30 (seconds)”. Then, I see heaps of players running at me. I thought, I guess it’s play on.”
Balta’s mishap was followed up by Noah Cumberland playing on after marking on the siren 50m from goal on a slight angle.
Cumberland was consoled by teammates after the siren sounded and he had realised his mistake in just his fourth AFL game.
“The last 60 seconds you can look at individually, but the reality is Noah gave himself a chance to win the game,” Richmond coach Damien Hardwick said.
“The clock expired but he put himself in the right position like last week, you learn from it.
“We had ample opportunities. We had two shots effectively to try and win the game. We got zero points for them.
“There’s a number of things we didn’t do that well tonight. We can sit there and look at the last play but we made some errors that cost us goals the other way.”
The draw means Richmond could now be two points outside of the top-eight by the end of the round if either the Western Bulldogs or St Kilda score wins this weekend.
The Tigers still face a difficult run home, with matches to come against Brisbane, Port Adelaide, Hawthorn and Essendon as finals hopes fast fade.
“Win-loss primarily will be the thing we look at,” Hardwick said.
“But the reality is we’re playing a pretty dynamic good brand of footy that’s left us opportunities to win the game. We’re in the fight every game. We have rarely been out of it. So I’m happy with that aspect. What we have to get better at our execution inside 50.”
Tigers key forward Tom Lynch is expected to return from a hamstring injury for next Sunday’s clash with Brisbane.
Fremantle’s own finals preparations were also dealt a blow, with Nat Fyfe has suffered a fresh hamstring injury.
The two-time Brownlow Medal winner pulled up sore after running past a contest in the forward line in the opening minutes of the third quarter.
Fyfe immediately came from the field looking sore and went straight down to the Fremantle rooms.
He emerged about 10 minutes later with a bag of ice wrapped around his left hamstring.
Fyfe was playing just his sixth match back of the season at AFL level, having missed the first half of the year following off-season shoulder surgery and then back surgery in March.
Match report: Freo, Tigers cannot be separated in crazy finish
Fremantle’s bid for a double chance has taken a big hit with captain Nat Fyfe injuring his left hamstring as Richmond and Fremantle played out a draw that did neither side any favours in their respective bids for top-eight and top-four spots.
In what was just the second draw for Fremantle in 622 AFL games, Tigers youngster Noah Cumberland could have been the hero when he took a mark on the 50m line with seconds remaining.
But Cumberland played on as the siren went, consigning the two teams to a 7.10 (52) to 7.10 (52) draw.
It was eerily similar to what his teammate Jake Aarts did last week against North Melbourne when he played on closer to goal instead of taking the set shot and potentially winning the game for the Tigers.
Thirty seconds before Cumberland’s mark, Fremantle’s Jordan Clark laid a crucial tackle on Richmond’s Liam Baker streaming to goal in the pocket to stop a matchwinning scoring opportunity.
And with just 1:30 to go, Richmond had another chance to get their noses in front when Fremantle’s James Aish passed it to Andrew Brayshaw at the centre-half back position, but Brayshaw dropped the mark, allowing Baker to pounce and pass it to Noah Balta 55m out from goal.
However, the big Tiger took too long to take his shot on goal and was told to play on by the umpire, allowing Michael Frederick to smother his shot on goal.
Fremantle were also guilty of wasting opportunities in the final quarter as well. They started the fourth period by doing all the attacking, and had more run, but their forward delivery continued to be a huge issue as it had been for most of the night.
Shots on goal from Caleb Serong, Michael Walters and Will Brodie all failed to score while Griffin Logue missed a set shot from 45m out in front.
Richmond defended grimly and after Fremantle drew level, the Tigers got a goal against the run of play via Shai Bolton. Shortly after, Bailey Banfield responded with what would ultimately be the match-tying goal.
If the Bulldogs beat Melbourne or, more realistically, St Kilda beat West Coast, then the Tigers will find themselves outside the top eight.
Meanwhile, Fremantle will slip out of the top four this weekend if Collingwood defeats Essendon.
Fyfe hurt himself in the third quarter, putting the remainder of his home-and-away season under a cloud, although the Dockers will back themselves to cover his loss given they were 9-3 before he played his first game this year.
MAURICE MOWS DOWN COLYER
Richmond’s Maurice Rioli also got in on the heroics. With six minutes to go and scores level, Freo’s Travis Colyer was running along the wing but RIoli caught Colyer and pinged the former Bomber holding the ball, denying Freo a potential scoring opportunity.
PEARCE MAKES A MEAL OF IT
Fremantle defender Alex Pearce had an absolute shocker 19 minutes into the game when he attempted to kick the ball to a teammate deep in defence, but miskicked it horrendously, grubbering straight to Shai Bolton who said, ‘Thank you very much for the gift’, and sprinted into the open goal.
TOO-HIGH MIXED BAG
The re-emphasised head-high interpretation took four minutes to get its first test, when Fremantle defender Alex Pearce applied a heavy tackle to Richmond excitement machine Shai Bolton which appeared to be borderline too high, but Bolton did lower his body, and the umpire called play on. But in the third quarter, Bolton’s teammate Dylan Grimes was awarded a too-high free kick despite appearing to raise his arm when tackled by Dockers sub Travis Colyer 10m out from Freo’s goal.
SCOREBOARD
TIGERS 3.5, 5.8, 6.10, 7.10 (52)
DOCKERS 3.3, 5.5, 5.9, 7.10 (52)
LERNER’S BEST
Tigers: Vlastuin, Broad, Prestia, Bolton, Balta, Baker, Cotchin.
Dockers: Young, Brayshaw, Cox, Ryan, Brodie, Serong, Pearce.
GOALS
Tigers: Bolton 2, Cumberland, Riewoldt, Balta, McIntosh, Sonsie.
Dockers: Logue, Aish, Brodie, Fyfe, Walters, Taberner, Banfield.
INJURIES
Tigers: Miller (TBC).
Dockers: Fyfe (hamstring).
UMPIRES
Donlon, Gavine, Hosking
VENUE
Marvel Stadium
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
LERNER’S VOTES
3 Hayden Young (Fre)
2 Nick Vlastuin (Rich)
1 Andrew Brayshaw (Fre)
The Dusty question we’re all asking
By Jon Ralph
It is entirely possible given the secretive manner in which Dustin Martin does his business that he has played his last game at Richmond.
His latest injury setback — a tight hamstring at a Wednesday running session — means a best-case scenario that Martin gets back for a round 23 clash against Essendon.
A player once capable of playing through soft-tissue concerns had been well aware his round 16 hamstring tear was different as he struggled to progress through speed and strength progressions as simple as running at half pace.
His severely interrupted summer, which led into his mid-season break for personal issues, then a round 14 illness, in hindsight made Wednesday’s setback inevitable.
Richmond fitness boss Peter Burge told the Herald Sun on Friday afternoon the Tigers still hadn’t ruled out Martin returning late in the home-and-away season.
“He has had an aggravation, there is no doubt about that,” Burge said.
“It’s not significant, but it’s enough to add weeks to his preparation. We are planning for him to prepare in the last part of the year.”
Asked if he could still make it back for that final home-and-away game, Burge replied: “We are optimistic about that.”
As usual Martin has said nothing about his future and yet the chatter about him wanting a fresh start out of Victoria is persistent enough that nothing would truly shock.
For its part Richmond says it has told Martin he is contracted for two more years — at $1.3 million a season — and it expects him to honour that deal.
But Martin’s second hamstring injury of the season is also food for thought for any of the potential suitors who might be doing their due diligence on the triple Norm Smith Medallist.
Martin only turned 31 in late June, but despite his matchwinning prowess his sudden drop in durability and his unfathomably high contract value combine to make him a “chips-in” proposition.
Any list manager who trades for Martin — and it would require a trade — knows the epic downside if his injuries become the rule instead of the exception after a year in which he might play only eight games.
Sydney has spent the past five years attempting to draft its next-gen superstars – Chad Warner the latest of the procession line — and could not be more adamant it isn’t interested in Martin.
As chairman Andrew Pridham told News Corp a fortnight ago: “We have never had a discussion with him, or his management or Richmond”.
If the Swans wanted an all-in proposition, free agent Jordan De Goey is a much safer bet at only 26 and yet Sydney has already ruled out that scenario.
As for GWS, they are busy jettisoning inside midfielders who can play forward to save cap space with the Brodie Grundy-to-the-Giants story gathering steam.
GWS has always been capable of salary cap wizardry but moving a million bucks of cap space then bringing in most of Grundy’s wage then considering Dusty’s $1.3 million is surely beyond even the Giants.
So Martin will strip back his rehab by building his strength in the gym and Richmond will attempt to keep its finals hopes alive to give him another tilt at September heroics.
Until then so much is guesswork and yet there is one certainty in football.
If Martin can get back for an MCG elimination final against a Victorian foe like Collingwood or Carlton, he might be diminished from that all-conquering 2017 version.
But he will still scare the living daylights out of the opposition coach as he provides the AFL with the hottest ticket in town to kick off the 2022 finals series.
Originally published as AFL 2022 Richmond v Fremantle: All the latest news and reaction from the round 19 match
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