What a difference a week makes.

This time last week Richmond supporters everywhere were excited about what the 2009 season would bring… come 10pm Thursday night I felt like I had been a bad boy at Christmas time and Santa had left be a lump of coal.

So we look forward to round two Geelong.

This game is going to be lambs to the slaughter lets take a little look at some resent history with Geelong.

In the last four games Richmond has lost to Geelong a combined 594 points to 274! This includes the 35.9 (222) to 9.10 (65) annihilation of the tigers at the Telstra Dome in 2007.

Put simply this is mission impossible so I have placed a call to Tom Cruise to enquire about the services of Ethan Hunt to see if he will come out of retirement to save our skins. Falling short of that I will call MacGyver give him a football, twenty-two players and a paper clip and see what he can do.

Onto sports betting, as noted on an earlier post the prices you could get for Richmond winning the premiership were $23 now less than a week later the Tigers are out to $51! You can also get $8.25 for Richmond to beat Geelong this week and as much as $12 on betfair.

Save your money Kids.

Where do I start?

Let’s start off with why oh why does Richmond play a possession game style when we clearly have the worst hand and foot skills in the competition. Let’s just kick it long and straight, at least when we turn it over it might be 50 meters further away from our opponent’s goal.

That being said Daniel Jackson did a half way decent job on Chris Judd, I also thought Mitch Morton and Nathan Foley did a good job as did Andrew Raines and Ben Cousins before they got hurt.

Terry Wallace is now fully aware if the Tigers are not headed for September action he could be fired mid season. I don’t want to see that but you don’t have to look back far into Richmond’s coaching carousel to see they have no problem give a coach the boot mid-season.

There are far too many pretenders in the current Richmond side, Jay Schulz, Richard Tambling and Jordan McMahon just to name a few. Richmond still can’t tackle laying only 54 tackles to Carlton’s 82, but we bring most of these problems on ourselves by handballing to players under pressure and going backward more than we go forward.

It is going to a long week down at Punt Road, the only good thing is today is only Friday let’s hope by Monday something else has happened to drive Richmond off the back page.

Oh and if all that was not enough we face Geelong next week….

Footy's Back

Richmond will hit the MCG tonight in front of the largest crowed they will play in front of all year unless they make the Grand Final.

I am not going to break down the games as it is not what I do with this blog. I will get behind Mike Sheahan's comments of "Richmond is close to full strength; the Blues have four first-gamers. The Tigers should win." Well Mike that sounds good to me.

Victorian Labour Premier John Brumby has picked against us which I am very excited about being he is almost never right about anything.

TAB sportsbet have the Tigers at $2.10 underdogs which I will be taking.

Last thing before bounce down tonight, did anyone see Richmond captain Chris Newman's girlfriend Lauren Poulter on page 4 of the Herald Sun today....

If you didn't see it here it is!

Season opening MCG blockbuster sold out

Shove that up your jumper channel 10!

Due to the fact that game is now a sell out poor old channel 10 will not be able to screw with football fans for the first game of the year.

The Biggest Loser and Bondi Vet both outstanding shows (vomit) will not bee seen tomorrow night.

I know I speak for football fans everywhere when I say thank you.

It is almost here!

With the 2009 season kicking off tomorrow, here are my tips for the season.

Final Ladder Standings for 2009

1. Geelong
2. Hawthorn
3. St Kilda
4. Brisbane
5. Bulldogs
6. Adelaide
7. Carlton
8. Richmond
9. Collingwood
10. North Melbourne
11. Sydney
12. Fremantle
13. Essendon
14. Port Adelaide
15. Melbourne
16. West Coast

2009 Premiership : Geelong
2009 Coleman : Franklin
2009 Brownlow : Abblet

Do you Like to Gamble?

The Tigers have not been the best bet over the last 20 odd years but here are the latest markets for the Richmond Football Club for those of you who can’t help losing your money on the Tigers each season.

AFL PREMIERSHIP 2009

Richmond : $23.00
Fav, Geelong : $2.75

To Make the FINAL 8 2009

Richmond : $1.75
Fav, Geelong $1.04

To miss the FINAL 8 2009

Richmond : $2.05
Fav, Melbourne : $1.05

AFL WOODEN SPOON 2009

Richmond : $31.00
Fav, Melbourne : $2.30

BROWNLOW MEDAL 2009

Richmond : Ben COUSINS : $26.00
Fav, Geelong : Gray ABLETT JR : $7.00

COLEMAN MEDAL 2009

Richmond : Matthew RICHARDSON : $67.00
Fav, Carlton : Brendan FEVOLA : $2.40

Now I would not touch any of the above Richmond markets with a 20 foot pole.

But here is some Richmond value bets I do like, have a dollar or two on each.

1. Nathan FOLEY for Brownlow $201.00
2. Richmond and Melbourne Storm AFL - NRL Premiership Double $138.00
3. Trent COTCHIN for Brownlow $151.00

I make no Guarantees! I know as much about betting as the Labour Party knows about keeping a budget in surplus.

Good Luck!

Way to Funny, I had to post this

Kevin Sheedy

Todays Sports Poll from the Herald Sun online sports sections

Kevin Sheedy says the Tigers can win the flag this year. Do you agree?

Yes : 16%
No : 38%

The only thing I am suprised about with this poll is that the "No" responce is not higher!

Mike Sheanan's Top 50

Monday's Herald Sun greeted us with the annual Mike Sheahan Top 50 AFL players.

Here is the top 10

1. G.Ablett - Geelong
2. C.Judd - Carlton
3. L.Franklin - Hawthorn
4. D.Cox - West Coast
5. L.Hodge - Hawthorn
6. B.Fevola - Carlton
7. J.Brown - Brisbane
8. N.Riewoldt - St Kilda
9. M.Scarlett - Geelong
10. M.Pavlich - Fremantle

See the rest of the list here http://mp3.news.com.au/hwt/Top_fifty_AFL/index.html

Here is the Richmond players who made it

15. M.Richardson
41. B.Deledio

That's it, not that I really expected any others to make it maybe Foley.

Since 1990 Mike Sheahan has been putting his list together and since 1990 we have been talking about it, SEN was full of fans ringing up and complaining their teams best players were left out...

Well who the hell cares the AFL wont give you a trophy for getting the most players into the list! It just give us something to talk about while we wait for next Thursday.

Richo Still Going Strong.

An article in the Herald Sun this week on Matthew Richardson made it clear he is the oldest player in AFL but is not done just yet.

Richo stated in the article he will be playing out the 2009 season and had not made a decision about playing on next season. He polled third in the Brownlow last season and had one of his best seasons of his career.

I know I speak for all Richmond supports when I say “Play On”. No one has given more to the Richmond Football club than Matthew Richardson over his 16 season with the Tigers both on and off the field.

Richardson has had his fair share of hatters over years and some of his on field antics did not help his reputation with Tiger and opposition fans alike but over the last few seasons Richo has cemented his place as one of the greatest tigers of all time, take a quick look at his record.

Games Played: 276 7th for RFC
Goals: 791 2nd for RFC
Club Leading Goal Kicker: 13 Times
Three time All Australian
Richmond Best and Fairest
Member of the Richmond Team of the Century
Life Member

The only place where Richardson falls short of the other Richmond greats is appearances and performances in finals, this of course is due to the fact our beloved Tigers have not made many appearances.

As Predicted

Well as I predicted in my last post Richmond was pumped by St. Kilda.

Now for the good news Polak got through and finished with six possessions.

The bad news Johnson's knee problem from the Collingwood game has required a knee arthroscopy at Epworth Hospital, he will be missing for a least 4 weeks.

Due to the fact the Tigers went into the match without 12 of our best 22 the score was no suprise.

St Kilda 4.1 8.3 12.6 16.13 (109)
Richmond 1.0 4.2 7.3 9.3 (57)

Polak's Back

After 8 months since being struck by a Melbourne tram defender Graham Polak will make his return to the to the Richmond Football Club.

Richmond tried to put Polak onto the senior rookie list late last season to try and make room for Ben Cousins and a draft pick, it really looks to me like the Tigers were trying to pull a shifty on the AFL.

It is good to see that Richmond tried to use the AFL rules to our full advantage even if the AFL did not go for it.

Polak has made a good recovery which all Richmond fans are happy about and if the AFL had gone for putting him on the rookie list he would not be playing this weekend but I guess it has all turned out ok, as we now have Cousins and Polak available be selection in 2009.

The Tigers are resting many of the team’s best players this weekend, namely Richardson, Brown, Cousins, Newman and Foley just to name a few so I would expect we will be smashed by St Kilda in Shepparton.