Richmond needs Dustin Martin at his best but Tigers superstar hasn’t started 2019 at usual level
Richmond needs Dustin Martin more than ever but the problem is, as MARK ROBINSON points out, the Tigers’ best player has lost his magic and there are some worrying signs.
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Richmond needs Dustin Martin more than ever.
The problem is, having lost bookends Alex Rance for the season and Jack Riewoldt for at least a month, Martin seemingly has lost his magic.
He was curtailed by his bogeyman, Collingwood’s Levi Greenwood, on Thursday night.
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He had 19 touches, but many were pedestrian and not the surging, match-breaking touches which generally underpins his performance.
He attempted a couple of miracle kicks, one a switch into middle, which missed its mark by several metres.
That’s unlike Martin.
Much will be asked of the 2017 Brownlow Medallist now that Rance and Riewoldt are out, and even more so this week with Dylan Grimes suspended for a match for lifting a forearm into the face of Jamie Elliott. The incident was unlike Grimes.
The frightful start to the season in terms of injury puts the spotlight on Richmond as a club and Martin as one its leaders.
The banged-up Tigers play Greater Western Sydney next weekend. Then it’s Port Adelaide away, Sydney at Marvel and Melbourne at the MCG on Anzac eve.
Martin looked a forlorn figure against the Magpies and when the game was wavering between the second and third quarters, the obvious question was: Where’s Dusty?
When the game ripped apart in the final 15 minutes, it begged another question: What’s happened to Dusty?
His stunning 2017 season probably won’t be repeated. His 2018 season had its mental challenges, as Martin has revealed, and his form tapered from superhuman to very good.
In Round 1 this year, he had 30 touches against Carlton. But now it gets harder.
Skipper Trent Cotchin lamented the tackling numbers against the Pies. Just 32 in total.
“I looked up in the last quarter and we hadn’t had too many tackles,’’ he said.
Martin had zero. In Round 1, he also had zero.
He’s never been a high-pressure player. In 2017, he laid 88 tackles in 25 games. In 2018, it was 48 in 23 games.
His pressure points were 37.4 in 2017. They are at 15.5 in 2019.
Of course, the explosive creators are always tagged, so they spend much of their time trying to find space and opportunity, rather than opponents with the ball.
Still, there has to be an improvement on zero tackles.
The tackling numbers were woeful on Thursday night because the Tigers were denied their pressure game, a tactic which probably will be adopted by other clubs this season.
They will stick to the “Richmond system’’, coach Damien Hardwick said in the post-match, but there will have to be adjustments. Maybe less spatial defence and more man-on-man, so a repeat of Collingwood’s high ball use won’t catch them out again.
Where Martin fits in to all this only time will tell. Richmond’s pressure has allowed Martin to play ballistic offence, which is his natural asset, but times are changing in football. What Richmond had over the competition for almost two years has been exposed and, in two of their past three games, nullified.
Does Hardwick ask Martin to defend more, or does he fix the system to allow Martin to continue to freewheel?
So, the challenge is on Martin over the coming period.
The bookends are gone, a restructure is needed at both ends and in the middle, seeing as Riewoldt was the second ruck, and that all equates to the remaining leaders needing to take control through these unusually turbulent times.
That means Martin has to find his mojo in defence and attack and quickly.
Originally published as Richmond needs Dustin Martin at his best but Tigers superstar hasn’t started 2019 at usual level
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