Robbo: Will Joe Daniher’s football fairy tale have a happy ending for Essendon? And who can stop rampaging Richmond?
It might have been a throwaway line in his post-game interview, but comeback king Joe Daniher may have given Bombers fans their biggest hope yet that he could be at the club next season. Mark Robinson reports.
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The light shone brightly on Joe Daniher and even brighter on Richmond last night in what was cracking start to the Footy Frenzy 2.0.
The Tigers have delivered statements this season, but none of them were as absolute as Thursday night’s defeat of West Coast.
The Tigers don’t have gears. They play go football. It’s unrelenting and ominous.
We must be approaching September … sorry, October.
In Adelaide, Daniher’s Bombers put the frenzy into the Frenzy with a bewildering and stunning turnaround in the second half.
You had to see to believe it and you also had to see Daniher prance and dance and smile to believe fairy tales in football are still the most beautiful aspect of the game.
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It was a kind-of first-game feel for Joey after he had missed so much footy and, in the end, and fittingly for the fairytale, it was Daniher who kicked the goal which ended Hawthorn’s evening.
He kicked three goals and, in the post-match, spoke in a manner which ever so slightly had Bombers fans believing a future at the club was possible and not, 12 months ago, seemingly impossible.
He told Fox Footy the style of football in the first half – which can safely be described putrid – was “not going to hold up for our footy club”.
He added: “ … to keep moving forward with this footy club’.’
Maybe it’s a stretch to cling to so little, but make no mistake, Bombers officials would have noted the positivity about “us’’ and “the future”.
They remain in finals contention, the Bombers, but two quarters of frantic, handball-happy and what looked like paralysis by this new process, followed by a high-pressure, slick and midfield-dominant second half, makes them so unpredictable.
So much rests on their ability to apply pressure to win the ball back and then distribute, which was their identity in the second half.
This wasn’t Jekyll and Hyde from the Bombers, this was rabbits in the headlights and then a bull at a gate.
The game stats were like an unmade jigsaw puzzle.
Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson would probably be bemused by the result.
How can they lead by 36 points at the half and lose by 16? In 32 minutes of football?
It wasn’t so crazy at Metricon.
These premiership wannabes, Richmond and West Coast, played system versus system.
The Tigers want controlled chaos. The Eagles want control. And they love pressure.
At halftime, the pressure index was 195 to 193 to Richmond and they led 32-26 on the scoreboard.
In the second half at Adelaide Oval, the Bombers recorded 194 to Hawthorn’s 177.
The points is, both the Tigers and Eagles were evenly matched and unrelenting with the pursuit of the ball and man.
But even with a match-up of the titans, one of them wilts.
On Thursday night it was the Eagles, and unquestionably their greatness at home compared to their greatness on the road will be on the agenda.
They lost Josh Kennedy (concussion) in the first quarter, but the Tigers lost Dylan Grimes (hamstring) in the second quarter.
That’s not even stevens because Kennedy kicks goals.
Talking of beautiful, Dustin Martin’s goal from the boundary fence in the third quarter was artful.
It gave the Tigers a two-goal lead and in a match of moments, it WAS the moment.
The next goal to Jason Castagna and the next Ivan Soldo and then the next to Tony Nankervis made it too difficult for the Eagles.
The Tigers’ smalls separated the game, and their relentless pressure, and that’s when Richmond plays its best football.
Next time you watch a Richmond game, pause and count the tacklers around the ball. There’s one, then two and three. They gang tackle for kicks. The second goal of last quarter, to Noah Balta, came after a gang assault on an Eagles player.
The second half pressure numbers were 215 to 187 Richmond’s way,
Combined, they went at 2015, their highest pressure rating of the season.
Let’s not waffle about where the money is being laid to determine the premiership favourites.
Richmond showed last night they will be difficult to beat.
So, too, will Geelong when you deep-dive on their ability to deny the opposition.
The rest of them are a length behind with a furlong to run.
That doesn’t mean they can’t be run down, but somehow teams have to figure out a way to absorb Richmond’s chaos.
The Tigers thrive on it. They live in it. They love it.
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