The start of the streak vs Richmond

[bergholt]

The first game in this current streak against Richmond was Round 19, 2003. It was a Saturday night at Docklands and it marked almost exactly the start of this current golden age.

In Round 18, the week before, we were sitting 11th but beat 5th placed West Coast by 10 goals at home. In the two weeks after, Round 20 we beat Carlton by 15 goals in our last game at Princes Park and Round 21 we beat the Dogs by 10 goals. We finished eleventh but in good form, and went on to win the first 10 the next year in one of the most enjoyable periods of footy I can remember.

Around the end of 2003, the G-Train was just hitting his stride - 27 goals in five games - after moving forward permanently with Luke Penny taking his spot at full back. He kicked 103.39 the next year. Nicky Dal Santo, after a patchy debut season the year before, locked himself into the senior team from Round 15, averaging 19 touches a game in just his second year. (This is when we started seeing those sublime baulks.) Luke Ball was starting to make a mark at the end of his first season in the senior side. A guy named Nick Riewoldt was 21 and starting to show a lot. And most importantly, Lenny Hayes was just starting to hit his straps as an elite midfielder, averaging 25 touches a game in 2003 after 20 the year before and 15 the year before that.

The team looked something like:

FB: Baker, Penny, Hudghton
HB: Blake, Maguire, Voss
C: Hayes, Powell, Jones
HF: Dal Santo, Riewoldt, Hamill
FF: Montagna, Gehrig, X Clarke
R: Koschitzke, Harvey, Thompson
IC: Ball, Goddard, Burke, L Fisher

After being four goals up at half time, we kicked seven in the third and six in the last to win by 80 points. Gehrig kicked 4.2 and took the 3 Brownlow votes, Harvs had 22 touches for 2 votes and a lion-hearted bloke called Aaron Hamill got a vote, despite getting only 13 touches and conceding 5 frees. Riewoldt also kicked 4, Goddard and X kicked 3 each. Dal and Lenny had 27 and 26 touches respectively.

This was definitely the start of something. Let's hope tonight doesn't mark the end of that same thing.

[Little Dozer]

Good game that one, I recall a Richmond player roughing Riewoldt up. He went off then came back on and took some big marks and kicked truly.

[rymax]

Was also the last game of one Nathan Burke as I recall.

[thequarry]

Yep, Burke's last game.

It was also Heritage Round and spurred the return of the candy stripe jumper in the three seasons following:

[rexy]

Was a great side that we took in to 2004, was devoid of a genuine ruckman and a little slow though! Sound familiar, both have continued to trouble us for the next decade. Was that the night that Burke handed the number 3 over to X? From memory X kicked a great goal from 50 after a head fake and step around his opponent, Goddard would have been only 18. Cant help but wonder still if we did the right thing delisting Goose though?

[stevie]

I have this game on video! Great to watch

[Spinner]

Love how ever since GT said 'we are a better team' after that last loss against Richmond - We have been for a decade.

At the time I think Frawley laughed it off, as you would after just winning, even if you knew it.




Bit like Chapman saying Geelong were a better team....

[rexy]

Love how ever since GT said 'we are a better team' after that last loss against Richmond - We have been for a decade.

At the time I think Frawley laughed it off, as you would after just winning, even if you knew it.




Bit like Chapman saying Geelong were a better team....

A bit the same, Geelong just a bit better than us, Us quite a bit better than Tigers though! Made some big statements Grant, didnt he also say that Scott West wouldnt be able to clean Luke Balls boots or something to that degree?

[perfectionist]

The first game in this current streak against Richmond was Round 19, 2003. It was a Saturday night at Docklands and it marked almost exactly the start of this current golden age.

In Round 18, the week before, we were sitting 11th but beat 5th placed West Coast by 10 goals at home. In the two weeks after, Round 20 we beat Carlton by 15 goals in our last game at Princes Park and Round 21 we beat the Dogs by 10 goals. We finished eleventh but in good form, and went on to win the first 10 the next year in one of the most enjoyable periods of footy I can remember.

Around the end of 2003, the G-Train was just hitting his stride - 27 goals in five games - after moving forward permanently with Luke Penny taking his spot at full back. He kicked 103.39 the next year. Nicky Dal Santo, after a patchy debut season the year before, locked himself into the senior team from Round 15, averaging 19 touches a game in just his second year. (This is when we started seeing those sublime baulks.) Luke Ball was starting to make a mark at the end of his first season in the senior side. A guy named Nick Riewoldt was 21 and starting to show a lot. And most importantly, Lenny Hayes was just starting to hit his straps as an elite midfielder, averaging 25 touches a game in 2003 after 20 the year before and 15 the year before that.

The team looked something like:

FB: Baker, Penny, Hudghton
HB: Blake, Maguire, Voss
C: Hayes, Powell, Jones
HF: Dal Santo, Riewoldt, Hamill
FF: Montagna, Gehrig, X Clarke
R: Koschitzke, Harvey, Thompson
IC: Ball, Goddard, Burke, L Fisher

After being four goals up at half time, we kicked seven in the third and six in the last to win by 80 points. Gehrig kicked 4.2 and took the 3 Brownlow votes, Harvs had 22 touches for 2 votes and a lion-hearted bloke called Aaron Hamill got a vote, despite getting only 13 touches and conceding 5 frees. Riewoldt also kicked 4, Goddard and X kicked 3 each. Dal and Lenny had 27 and 26 touches respectively.

This was definitely the start of something. Let's hope tonight doesn't mark the end of that same thing.

Of course, we did lose the last game of the year to Geelong, the start of a bit of rivalry, with Geelong having the last laugh, three last laughs actually.

Also, according to our coach at the time, our streak should have started in round 4 of that year, when the Tigers beat us by 25 points. He commented after the game that, "We are better than Richmond" a rather unusual, yet honest, comment from a coach.

And finally, had that line up been available in the last three matches of the year or 2004 and/or 2005 (Milne replacing Burke), we would all be a lot more relaxed about this week's game.

[bergholt]

Was also the last game of one Nathan Burke as I recall.

yeah, right, i'd completely forgotten that! i loved that tough little fella.

such a massive group of young talent there. and that's with joey and bj still a little way from really coming into their own, s fisher not yet even close. conversely, l fisher, x clarke and maguire never gave us as much as we hoped. same with hamill and penny, i guess.

[perfectionist]

... l fisher, x clarke and maguire never gave us as much as we hoped. same with hamill and penny, i guess.

Hammy off the bone (twice I think), pcl and acl, broken leg, pcl and pcl. Clearly, it was their fault that they got injured.

[Legendary]

Great thread - great read.

Thank you.

Hard to imagine that it's been 9 years ... it really has been "sustained success" which we all talked about at the time. I would have loved to see us in the finals in 2003, we were 1 match behind where we needed to be to make the finals, but we were in better form than all but about 3 other teams in the competition in the second half of the year.


Fraser Gehrig - 103.39 in 2004 imagine those sort of figures now. You forget how reliable he was. What a forward line we had in 2004. At one time or another, Riewoldt, Milne, Hamill, Gehrig, Dal Santo, Montagna ... all All-Australian selections.

It was great footy, there was an enormous sense that Thomas & Butterss and the entire club had "built something", all those years of toil down the bottom since '99 were finally paying off, and you could sense that something special was coming. Great sense of ownership by the players and supporters during that period.

[bergholt]

... l fisher, x clarke and maguire never gave us as much as we hoped. same with hamill and penny, i guess.

Hammy off the bone (twice I think), pcl and acl, broken leg, pcl and pcl. Clearly, it was their fault that they got injured.

i wasn't blaming them! just making the point that a bit more luck with injuries could have seen us with a spectacular list, rather than just a very good one.

[perfectionist]

... l fisher, x clarke and maguire never gave us as much as we hoped. same with hamill and penny, i guess.

Hammy off the bone (twice I think), pcl and acl, broken leg, pcl and pcl. Clearly, it was their fault that they got injured.

i wasn't blaming them! just making the point that a bit more luck with injuries could have seen us with a spectacular list, rather than just a very good one.

Yep, you're right there. I remember watching Leigh Fisher in his second game the following week against Carlton (the Richmond game being his first), and thinking, gee who's this bloke. He could kick both sides, run and take an overhead mark. He was a perfect half back flanker. Alas, it was not to be. X had that flair and magic that makes people want to come to the footy. Matty Maguire had the momentum of a run away train through CHB and could kick 70 metres. Luke Penny was going to be "our" Dustin Fletcher. And Aaron Hamill - well - was Aaron Hamill.

[bergholt]

Yep, you're right there. I remember watching Leigh Fisher in his second game the following week against Carlton (the Richmond game being his first), and thinking, gee who's this bloke. He could kick both sides, run and take an overhead mark. He was a perfect half back flanker. Alas, it was not to be. X had that flair and magic that makes people want to come to the footy. Matty Maguire had the momentum of a run away train through CHB and could kick 70 metres. Luke Penny was going to be "our" Dustin Fletcher. And Aaron Hamill - well - was Aaron Hamill.

agree with all of that. leigh fisher was going to be great until he did that hammy. worth noting also that the current ages of these guys are:

hamill: 34
penny: 31
l fisher: 28
maguire: 28
x clarke: 28

hamill would be gone, maybe penny but the other three would likely still be first team players all else being equal. huge losses there.

[8856brother]

Good game that one, I recall a Richmond player roughing Riewoldt up. He went off then came back on and took some big marks and kicked truly.

Think you will find it was the current Richmond captain who knocked out Roo that day.

[stevie]

Good game that one, I recall a Richmond player roughing Riewoldt up. He went off then came back on and took some big marks and kicked truly.

Think you will find it was the current Richmond captain who knocked out Roo that day.

Nope, it was a flog named Fleming. Did nothing else in his short career

[Legendary]

Reminds me of a line from a Robert Jordan book ...

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend ... legend fades to myth ..."


We have come the full circle. Congratulations to Richmond.