The Tigers really are a bunch of good blokes, fair play to them

Richmond captain Trent Cotchin sent a message to his team’s “haters” on and off the field after a truly classy act went under the radar.

The good guys.

Richmond had been telling us all year — now we have to believe them.

The Tigers became the hated in 2020 as accusations of arrogance and thuggery saw the Cinderella Tigers painted as the bad guys.

When it mattered most, with the stakes at their highest and with the team being squeezed to breaking point, the Tigers showed their true class.

As Tigers stars Jack Riewold and Trent Cotchin have said all year, it was staring us in the face the entire time.

Now, after a Grand Final of the highest quality, the Tigers get to say, we told you so.

Not because of their on-field success, but because of how their class of the highest order shone through when they were under siege.

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The Tigers have been rightly praised for taking time out from their victory celebrations following a 12.9 (81) to 7.8 (50) win to stage an honour guard for Cats champion Gary Ablett as he walked off the field for the final time — but it was the way they treated him on the field that best shows what the Tigers are made of.

Thanks for the memories, Gaz. #AFLGF pic.twitter.com/AVGpRHcB8e

— AFL (@AFL) October 24, 2020

The Tigers were under the pump in the first half on the back of five straight goals to Geelong.

They were desperate and on the verge of losing the match before the half time siren.

Still their class held firm.

With Ablett returning in the first quarter after he needed help walking off the ground to be treated for a shoulder injury, Richmond players had a wide open target to rub out one of the most damaging players on the opposition team.

One hip and shoulder through Ablett would have almost certainly ended his career, after he went down to the dressing room to receive treatment, speculated to be pain-killing injections by Channel 7 commentators.

However, the Tigers never once intentionally went after the Little Master in his state of weakness.

Jack Riewoldt and the Tigers are made of the right stuff.

The Tigers didn’t go out of their way to protect the Cats veteran, but the fact that they allowed Ablett to finish out the game when one proper bump would have ended it shows the sporting class that is at the very core of this Richmond team.

It’s one of the first things Cotchin was happy to talk about after the game.

“We continually got challenged this year,” he said.

“It’s probably the first time that we’ve had a lot of haters more so than lovers.

“I couldn’t be more proud of our players.”

It comes after a scandal-plagued year for the Tigers, headlined by Cotchin’s wife Brooke’s day spa quarantine breach, star forward Tom Lynch’s many cheap acts of on-field bullying and the infamous Surfers Paradise strip club fiasco involving two Richmond players.

Never has the Tigers culture been questioned like it has in 2020.

Despite this, those inside the club knew all along its class would shine through.

Geelong's Gary Ablett waves goodbye at the 2020 AFL Grand Final.

Richmond CEO Brendon Gale earlier on Grand Final day hit back at suggestions his club is “arrogant” in an interview on Fox Footy.

“I think our footy club has a really strong and well-developed sense of who we are and what makes us us, and that hasn’t changed,” Gale said.

“And we’ve had some mistakes this year and some own goals and we don’t walk away from that. But the way that’s been presented externally and I guess the popular narrative that’s been propagated in the media about us has, well, it’s been fictional. It’s just laughable. It’s not true.

“This view that we’re a club that’s choking in hubris, that we’re arrogant, that we’re out of control or that we are lacking leadership and et cetera, et cetera. It’s a convenient narrative for a reigning premier that’s had a couple of mistakes and all of a sudden, ‘here we go, we’re on a downward spiral’.

“We’re an extremely humble group, they’re extremely hungry, they’re driven, they’ve got high standards, they’re caring ... it hasn’t changed at all.”

Now the entire footy world has to agree.