Tom Lynch can thank Jordon Butts for preventing his Barry Hall moment, but he must change

Tom Lynch’s rap sheet keeps getting longer and there can be no more enabling of his behaviour, especially by the club that refused to condemn Noah Balta’s off-field assault, writes Josh Barnes.

Tom Lynch and Richmond will both need to prove to the football world they are past excuses and acknowledge his white line fever is a problem.

Lynch’s ugly round-arm to the head of Jordon Butts was an incident that belongs stuck on grainy VHS footage from the 1980s, not in the modern game.

Lynch is universally seen as a good man off the field, but he has tipped over the edge on it.

He apologised to teammates and understood the hit was a big mistake.

He hit the nail on the head when he told Channel 7 “it is not good enough as a leader”.

But he has already owned up to an error once this season after being suspended in round 1 for a late bump to the head to Carlton’s Tom De Koning, only to go to another level against Butts

He also pushed the boundary between clumsy and dirty when his foot clipped the face of fellow Crows defender Josh Worrell in another incident.

His coach Adem Yze said there was “no excuse” for Lynch’s hit on Butts.

But Yze then seemed to make excuses, noting the Tigers have to “help him” through off-ball attention.

There can be no enabling that behaviour.

This is the same club that didn’t condemn Noah Balta’s ugly off-field assault enough in the early part of the year and Yze often spoke too glowingly of his player in those weeks as well.

Just seven weeks ago, Tom Lynch swatted away any question of white line fever as revisionist history.

Now the Richmond veteran needs to rewrite his own history after a looming big ban and cut out the Mr Hyde of his split personality between on and off field.

Tom Lynch boots Josh Worrell in the face

Lynch told the Herald Sun in early May: “I have only been suspended for two weeks in my whole career”.

“I feel like people think it’s a lot more,” he said.

Now people will definitely think it’s a lot more, Tom.

Lynch was just lucky that Butts saw the swing coming and ducked away from the right round-arm to avoid being hit flush in the face.

It could have been Lynch’s Barry Hall moment.

Lynch can argue away that his past record isn’t that bad.

It wasn’t the first blow Lynch landed against his own side, with five free kicks given away in the first half when he didn’t actually touch the footy.

The red mist well and truly descended around the Tiger.

He was suspended as a Gold Coast player for round 1, 2015 after an incident with GWS defender Matt Buntine in a pre-season match, and rubbed out for one week this season after a poorly judged bump collected De Koning high.

Lynch has walked a tightrope plenty of times before though.

There was the clumsy collision with Bulldog Alex Keath last year that left Keath concussed.

Lynch was sent straight to the tribunal for that one, in which he braced and his left elbow hit Keath high, but successfully argued his way out of a suspension.

In August 2020, he swung a right fist into the breadbasket of Suns defender Sam Collins behind play, a whack he was lucky to only be fined for and created a relationship with Collins that can only generously be described as frosty.

lynch high shot

And three months later, in a semi-final against St Kilda, Lynch, again clumsily, fell onto Dougal Howard’s head twice when the Saint was on the deck, once with a knee.

There was no suspension there either, but it was another moment where Lynch’s cool was lost.

After this week Lynch can no longer point to the past as a guide that he is a fair player.

The big forward was on track for a huge career but his output as mirrored his team in its downward trajectory.

Since the Tigers last played in a final – in a 2022 season when Lynch bagged 63 goals and was a dominant force – he has played just 21 games and kicked 34 goals.

The Tigers have won just 15 games in that time.

For the club to turn itself around it will need leaders to guide the uber-talented young group that are learning the layout at Punt Rd in the right direction, and Lynch has to be a spearhead for that.

One of Richmond’s key veterans will miss a large chunk of the run home. Picture: Morgan Hancock/Getty Images

Even diminished from his peak, Lynch is so clearly the man to stop for opposition defenders that niggles will keep coming, and there will be plenty more days where his team loses and the big full-forward struggles to get a kick.

He just has to keep himself in check more.

And he can’t do that while punching blokes.

The forward should be handed a lengthy holiday by the tribunal, understand his problem stepping over the line on the field and really make amends for that apology.

We will see how sorry he really is when his on-field behaviour changes.