Round 1: Richmond v Carlton – New look teams; same looking scoreline

by Josh Barnstable

Ever since Max Rooke grubbered through that final goal of the 2009 Grand Final to put the final nail in the St Kilda coffin, I’ve been waiting for this moment. Not knowing at the time what date this game would be played on, but I knew, like everybody else, that the first game of the 2010 Season would be between rivals Richmond and Carlton. Finally, after almost six months of waiting, that day has arrived.

With Matthew Richardson donning the suit instead of the yellow and black, the Tigers look a completely different outfit compared to this time last year. Gone are Richo, Bowden, Schulz, Coughlan, Brown, Pettifer, Oakley-Nicholls, Hughes and Raines, with youngsters including Farmer, Martin, Nason, Roberts, Taylor, Astbury, Griffiths and Dea coming into the squad. But the biggest change was the old raspy voiced Terry Wallace being sacked, with former Port Adelaide and Essendon defender and tough nut Damien Hardwick taking the role as coach of the Richmond Football Club. How many years until he has little hair to pull out?

The Blues also have their worries, with Brendan Fevola now gone from this line-up after that infamous incident at last year’s Brownlow Medal. After being traded to Brisbane, Carlton received Lachie Henderson in return. Fair trade? We’ll find out.

The 2010 AFL Season started with a bang, and out of the middle the Blues hit Jarrad Waite on the chest, returning for his first match since Round 9 last year. He slotted the first goal of the year, a feat he has now achieved two times in a row. Henderson took a good grab and slotted a nice goal, and Marc Murphy kicked a great goal on the run from 50. Setanta O’hAilpin gathered and snapped a terrific goal to give Carlton a 23 point lead, and Brock McLean made the most of his opportunities, snapping a clever goal to make the margin 28 points and you could start to see the stress taking its toll on Hardwick. The Tigers bounced back with a goal to Tom Hislop, but Chris Yarran replied with a running goal, impressing the crowd. The Tigers turned it on though, kicking goals through Jack Riewoldt, Brett Deledio and Mitch Morton to cut the lead to 10 points. A dubious mark late in the quarter to Eddie Betts saw his first go through, Carlton leading by 17 points at quarter time, 7.1 to 4.2.

The second quarter started and a great snap goal by Murphy saw the Blues out to a 23 point lead. This was stretched to 39 points after goals to Betts off the ground in the goalsquare, a running goal to Yarran and great composure by Yarran to kick to Bryce Gibbs, who slotted his first. The Tigers answered again with Adam Thomson and Riewoldt kicking quick goals, before Morton goaled after the siren to slash the margin to 19 at the main break, 11.1 to 7.6.

The second half began and a goal to Waite, followed by a third to Betts (complete with a weird celebration) saw Carlton out by 33 points. Ben Nason showed his worth with a nice running goal, but O’hAilpin gathered and kicked a massive goal from outside 50. Ben Cousins replied with a good goal from a set shot, and the Blues went into the last break up by 29 points, 14.7 to 9.8.

The final term started and Gibbs got things off with a good mark and goal, followed by Kade Simpson slotting an impressive goal on the wrong side for a lefty. Yarran snapped a tired goal, and O’hAilpin put the final nail in the Richmond coffin, taking advantage of a napping Kelvin Moore and slotting his third. A chance for his fourth after the final siren went astray; the Blues won nonetheless, 18.12.120 to 9.10.64.

I was wrong, I thought Carlton would have no options for goal without Fev, but it seems they are more than capable of kicking a winning score. When Chris Judd and Brad Fisher come back into the line-up, this side will get more imposing. But can we really gain any information from this match tonight? After all, they were playing Richmond. But one thing is for sure: Footy’s back.

Richmond 4.2—7.6—9.8—9.10.64

Carlton 7.1—11.1—14.7—18.12.120

Goalkickers:

Richmond-Morton 2, Riewoldt 2, Hislop, Nason, Cousins, Deledio, Thomson

Carlton-Yarran 3, Betts 3, O’hAilpin 3, Gibbs 2, Murphy 2, Waite 2, McLean, Henderson, Simpson

Best:

Richmond-Jackson, Deledio, Thomson, Nason, Riewoldt, Hislop

Carlton-Carrazzo, Betts, Houlihan, Murphy, Gibbs, Kreuzer, Thornton, McLean, Simpson, Russell

Crowd:

72,010 at the MCG

Votes:

3: Andrew Carrazzo (C)

2: Eddie Betts (C)

1: Daniel Jackson (R)

Comments

  1. The only thing I gained from last nights game was that both Carlton and Richmond

    will finish out of the 8.

  2. Steve Healy says

    Very nice work JB, just about your best piece yet.

    Really excited about the footy, its hard to get THAT excited when its a school night like last night, but im just really excited.

    Nathan Brown and Dayne Beams are emergencies for Collingwood, Grima and Jones are as well for the Roos, which are all surprising. And Ivan Maric has not made the Adelaide team! Jonathon Griffin will be the ruckman!

  3. Thanks Healy. Go on MSN if you could.

    I’m pumped for the footy, I know what you mean about watching the footy on a school night, its hard to get into it.

    Surprised about Grima being an emergency, he was one of the revelations for North Melbourne last year. And good on Jon Griffin, hopefully he can impose himself against Sandilands and Clarke/Bradley.

  4. Brad Fisher to come back into the lineup? Not certain about that.

  5. Glad to see my dear wildman mentioned in the opening line :-)

    So sad to think that the Richo era has ended – I can’t bear to think about round 4, when Harls does his lap of honour.

    I’ll miss Richo, though – at the moment, it’s just like he’s out injured, I don’t think it will fully set in until late in the season.

    I really was hoping this would be a good game -_-

  6. It was a good first half, but yeah the second half was a fizzer. But it’s just so great to have the footy back.

    Just got back home from the practice match against Lancaster. Waaia lost 8.8.56 to 14.10.94 or something like that. We were only down by 10 points at the last break and were in front for almost all of it before that.

  7. We should rename Waaia the “Bombers” ;-p Sounds like another game we’ve heard of in the past 24 hours …

  8. Well that fits seeing as Waaia ARE the Bombers lol.

  9. LOL, what a coincidence ;-p If the comparisons hold up, you should be in for a good year. Essendon’s pressure last night was incredible. I was blown away.

  10. In fact we were laughing at the half time huddle today, because the other team wore blue with a yellow sash and were the Wombats, so we joked, asking each other if we had ever seen a blue and yellow wombat. But then we had to think, have we ever seen a red and black bomber?

  11. About to start my report for the match last night.

    You went to the game right Susie?

  12. LOL, good point ;-p

    Of course I did :-D

  13. What did you think of Duncan? I thought he was alright, but a lot of the time his teammates fed him the ball when in a tight situation. Maybe this was some sort of initiation? But out of the two debutants in Ben Howlett and Duncan, I think Howlett was better.

  14. It wasn’t so much an initiation as just the way the Bombers were playing last night. Chapman was wearing his opponent half the night, he couldn’t get any room to so much as breathe in the first half.

    Essendon played tight, but you didn’t notice so much with some of the senior players, as they know how to stand up to that kind of pressure. I think Duncan did really well for a kid in his first game up against that sort of pressure.

    At least he outscored Gumbleton on supercoach – I had them both in, but Gumby was just an emergency.

  15. Gumbleton played a shocker, I think he’ll be shipped off to the Gold Coast or Western Sydney if he doesn’t perform this season.

  16. Give him a break – Round One is no indication of the season ahead. It was also just about his first senior game in two years, wasn’t it?

  17. I know, I know, i’m just saying if he doesn’t have the season that Essendon fans have been waiting for, impatience will grow and you know what happens with that.

  18. Indeed – we’ve seen that happen so often before! He’ll be made the scapegoat of anything that goes wrong at the club:

    “We wouldn’t be having such-and-such a problem if Gumbleton was half as good as he is supposed to be”, etc. etc.

  19. Essendon should keep persevering with Gumby. Everyone has bad games, he could turn into a decent player yet.

  20. 19 – We’re not writing him off yet, like I said to Josh – it’s only Round One. Nothing can be read into the first game or two of a season, everyone is still settling in.

    But we were saying we hope, for his sake, he has a good season. Otherwise it’s off to one of the baby clubs.

  21. Listening to Melbourne v Hawthorn on ABC Radio. I was texing Healy before.

  22. My main interest in this game lies for Supercoach – Go Grimes, Trengove, Hodge and Shiels!

  23. Ludicrously, after Brad Green’s behind the Dees’ Betfair odds shortened from $4.80 to $3.70. Now after the Osborne goal the odds should go out again.

    I’m listening to SEN and following Gameday Live.

  24. 23: Lol, reminds me of a thing i became a fan of on Facebook:

    “How much is an Eminem?” “50 Cent” “What? That’s Ludacris!”

    I would be following Gameday Live but I don’t have much internet left.

  25. Brad Green’s down, getting stretchered off.

  26. My boys are working against each other – Hodge is being tagged by Grimes.

  27. Hey guys, played in a praccy today, we actually won. It was great to get some confidence up, the Hawks seem to be going well. Not very impressed with the tiges on thursday night, atleast it wasn’t 83 points.

  28. I LOVE MY SC CAPTAIN!!!!!!!!!!
    GO SAMMY MITCHELL,U CHAMPION U!!!
    :)

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