Why Richmond and Adelaide hate each other (or at least dislike the other team a little bit)

ON GRAND Final day it’s no surprise the two teams have a serious dislike for each other. But do they? We’ve dug out the history books to find eight reasons for bad blood between the Tigers and Crows.

IT USUALLY isn’t hard to find a reason to hate your Grand Final opponent.

Richmond’s two finals rivals have been Geelong — which took Brad Ottens and turned him into a triple-premiership ruckman and have had the wood on the Tigers for 20 years — and upstart GWS, which rubbed in its huge recruiting advantages by adding another No.1 pick to its list in the form of Richmond favourite Brett Deledio.

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Adelaide had an even bigger grudge against the same two teams. The Giants poached Phil Davis and there was the small matter of a P Dangerfield who left the Crows to become a Cat.

In Grand Final week, we get the biggest grudge match of all. Right?

As it turns out, the Crows and Tigers don’t have a whole lot of history.

They have never met in a final and the players who have swapped clubs haven’t caused too much angst; Richmond fans were happy to see Richard Tambling extend his career out of the shadow of the Lance Franklin draft disaster.

But if you scratch below the surface, there are some reasons for Tiger fans to hate the Crows, and vice-versa. Or at least dislike them a little bit.

Jake King and Jared Petrenko disagree.

JAKE KING DOBBING CONTROVERSY

In 2010 the Tigers small forward was suspended for two matches for a sling tackle on Adelaide’s Andy Otten. That doesn’t sound too controversial until you realise King was only cited by the match review panel after a Crows’ inquiry into the league on Monday to ask whey the incident hadn’t been part of the normal Monday video review.

King appealed the ban and lost even though video evidence was inconclusive and one of Adelaide’s two medical reports said it couldn’t be determined whether Ottens’ concussion was caused by King’s tackle.

Luckily the same men weren’t judging Trent Cotchin’s fate this week.

BRETT CHALMERS DRAFT DRAMA

You have to turn the clock back to 1989 for this bit of shenanigans.

The Tigers used their last pick in that year’s draft (103) to select the talented South Australian. But he told them he wasn’t moving and kept playing in the SANFL, wasting a spot on Richmond’s list.

Three years later the Tigers’ hold on him expired and they tried to trade him to Collingwood, but no deal could be made and the Pies recruited Chalmers with pick 10 in the draft. It later emerged he had contacted other clubs asking them not to draft him, resulting in fines and a ban on him playing for the Pies for three years.

He ended up at Adelaide, where he played 50 games before adding another 25 for Port Adelaide. He is now better known as the father of Olympic gold medallist Kyle Chalmers.

Former Tigers list manager Cameron Schwab revealed a decade ago that another trade option canvassed at one stage was for Richmond to trade Chalmers to the Crows for a talented 17-year-old named Mark Ricciuto.

Brett Chalmers could have been a Tiger.

Tony Modra made a habit of terrorising Richmond.

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MODRA MAULING

Richmond fans who entered 1993 with any hope of improving on the previous year’s 13th-placed finish had that quickly extinguished on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the MCG.

A young forward named Tony Modra announced himself with 10 goals from 16 kicks as the Crows went on a scoring rampage, kicking 28.10 (178) in a 94-point hammering.

Modra went even better in the return meeting, booting 13.4 against the Tigers in Round 16.

PLOUGH’S A GENIUS

The Tigers had three wins from seven games and were coming off a 118-point loss to Sydney when they faced Neil Craig’s seemingly invincible Crowbots in Round 8, 2006.

Somehow Terry Wallace manufactured one of his great coaching wins, as brothers Joel and Patrick Bowden played keepings-off all day to frustrate Adelaide in a low-scoring boilover at what was then known as Telstra Dome.

‘PATHETIC PITTMAN’

Malcolm Blight’s bizarre public shaming of his ruckman David Pittman is a famous footy story, but what is often forgotten is the assessment came after a Crows’ loss to Richmond.

The Tigers’ 28-point win came in Blight’s second game as coach when Pittman did not trouble the statisticians bar for five hitouts, beaten by ruck combo Brendon Gale and Justin Charles.

Blight was fuming in his post-match interview with Neil Kerley, declaring Pittman had turned in “the most pathetic effort from a ruckman I’ve seen in my entire life in footy — he has to live with that”.

Crows players say it was a defining moment for the team that won a premiership six months later.

Kayne Pettifer takes a spectacular grab in Richmond’s upset win against the Crows in 2006.

KANE JOHNSON

Johnson grew up in Melbourne a diehard Richmond supporter but was snapped up by Adelaide in the 1995 draft before the Tigers had a pick.

He won two flags at the Crows and at the end of 2002 he was traded to the Tigers for Jason Torney and a bunch of draft picks. He went on to captain the Tigers and win the 2006 Jack Dyer Medal ... so hard to hold too much of a grudge.

Other high-profile players to have switched between the two teams include Angus Graham and Clay Sampson.

JUMPER CLASH

It isn’t really Adelaide’s fault that Richmond will play in a clash jumper on Saturday, but the AFL did give them first option to choose their traditional strip. They could have done the right thing by KB and played in an alternative jumper.

STATE-OF-ORIGIN

We might be clutching at straws a bit here but State-of-Origin is unlikely to return, in the men’s competition at least, so this could be as close as we get to the glory days of the Big V versus SA.

Revive the spirit of Dunstall and Lockett playing together at the MCG, Kernahan booting 10 against the Vics as a 20-year-old, and stick it right up em!

Ted Whitten celebrates with Tony Lockett after Victoria’s big win against South Australia in 1989.