Richmond Tigers beat Adelaide Crows in the AFL Grand Final 2017
IT was unbelievable. It was extraordinary. It was so good. It was also exactly what Richmond has been doing all year. And now the Tigers are AFL premiers.
IT summed up Richmond perfectly.
A Shaun Grigg mongrel punt floated forward to a one-on-one which involved Dustin Martin.
We all know what that means.
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The Brownlow Medallist wins that contest, in fact he almost took a miraculous mark, and then takes off, delivering a perfect handball to Jason Castagna.
And the little man did what all those little men in the Richmond forward line have been doing all year, he kicked the goal to win his club the premiership.
The fact there was still another quarter to go in the Grand Final says everything about how good Richmond had been and how bad Adelaide were.
Castagna’s goal took the margin to 33 points at the 20-minute mark of the third quarter.
They’d kicked nine of the past 10 goals, starting back at the start of the second quarter through Jack Riewoldt.
Adelaide’s only goal in that time was at the 14-minute mark of the third quarter from Taylor Walker.
Their much-hyped forward line had buckled thanks to Alex Rance and his pressure-addicted mates.
The second quarter had actually been history making for the Crows as it was the first time they’d failed to kick a goal in a quarter of football against Richmond.
None of what had transpired was surprising.
We’d seen it all year from the Tigers so why was it that so many thought they couldn’t bring it when it mattered most.
Their game plan has been simple and certainly wasn’t a secret.
It was essentially kick it long to Riewoldt and then converge in numbers around the area where there was only one instruction — pressure.
Tackle, harass, bump, smother. Just generally make the opposition poop their pants and that’s exactly what the Crows defenders did.
At this point it’s probably worth noting that Richmond was ranked 18th for pressure in the AFL 12 months ago. On Saturday it won them a flag.
But it wasn’t just the forward line who lived and breathed this ethos, every player brought the same attitude which is why they won their first premiership since 1980.
Richmond had heroes everywhere.
There were a couple of obvious one’s in Martin and Rance.
Every time Martin went near the ball there was an elevated heart rate for every Adelaide player as well as everyone in the stands.
His aura is at a level rarely seen and one particular moment late in the second quarter was pivotal and right out of the Tigers 2017 playbook.
After controlling the second quarter they’d finally got their noses in front after youngster Jack Graham kicked what then had been the biggest goal of his short career at the 25-minute mark.
The next centre bounce was when the dream play came.
Dion Prestia, who’d been everywhere, got another centre clearance with his quick wobbling punt floating into a wide open forward line where two players stood.
One was Martin, the other was Luke Brown.
Again, we all know how that ended.
Martin comfortably got the young Crow out of the way and marked the ball on his chest. He then went back and drilled the goal from 30 metres to extend the lead to 10 points.
At the other end Rance was impenetrable. His game isn’t judged on kicks, marks and handballs, it’s about the spoils, the deft touches, the physicality and basically just his presence.
Now to the lesser names.
Not many people knew who Jack Graham was a couple of months ago. He was the youngest player on the ground at 19 and played like a 200-game 29-year-old.
Three goals told only part of the story as he also played a shutdown role on Rory Sloane who’d been the Crows best in the first half.
Graham kicked two goals in the third quarter rampage — both classy set shots — while the Crows star only touched the ball twice.
Bachar Houli has had a tough year for a variety of reasons but he was one of the key movers early, kicking a crucial first-quarter goal and then proceeding to collect 20 plus possessions.
Prestia was enormous, Shane Edwards dynamic at times, Josh Caddy looked dangerous all day, Grigg just kept getting in the right place a lot while Nick Vlastuin recovered from a horrible start to have an impact.
Riewoldt took two hangers and controlled the first quarter in particularly despite kicking three behinds while captain Trent Cotchin may have been down on numbers but not in effort or inspiration for his teammates.
As for Adelaide they came in as the best scoring team in the competition who smacked GWS and Geelong on their home deck through the finals.
But they’d never faced anything like the Richmond pressure.
There were some early positive signs from Sloane, Rory Laird and Matt Crouch but they soon got overwhelmed as their support cast failed to show up.
In the end it was 48 points.
It was unbelievable.
It was extraordinary.
It was so good.
It was also exactly what Richmond had been doing all year.
RICHMOND 2.3 6.4 11.8 16.12 (108) ADELAIDE 4.2 4.7 5.10 8.12 (60)
Goals: Richmond: J Graham 3 D Martin 2 J Riewoldt 2 J Townsend 2 B Houli D Butler D Prestia J Caddy J Castagna K Lambert S Grigg
Adelaide: R Sloane 2 T Walker 2 B Crouch C Cameron E Betts H Greenwood
Best: Richmond: Martin, Houli, Rance, Prestia, Edwards, Graham, Riewoldt, Grigg
Adelaide: M Crouch, Jacobs, Laird, Sloane, B Crouch
Umpires: Shaun Ryan, Matt Stevic, Simon Meredith.
Official Crowd: 100,021 at MCG
VOTES
3 - Dustin Martin (Richmond)
It just had to be him, didn’t it? The best way to sum up the Brownlow Medallist’s 29 possessions - 22 contested - is that every time he went near the ball something very good happened. Two goals was the icing on top of a dominant performance.
2 - Bachar Houli (Richmond)
When Richmond were under pressure early, it was Houli who shone out. His run from half-back was dynamic, his spirit infectious, his first quarter goal team-lifting and all of his 25 disposals telling.
1 - Alex Rance (Richmond)
Has there been a better 11 disposal game in a Grand Final? His spoils, desperate lunges, goal-saving acts were simply inspiring for his team.
Originally published as Richmond Tigers beat Adelaide Crows in the AFL Grand Final 2017