Adelaide V Richmond 07/08/2015 (Adelaide Oval)

Back to earth with a big thud after the euphoria of the win against the all conquering Hawks. In some seasons the win against Hawthorn would have been seen as an oddity. The underdog in the Tigers bites back and takes out the reigning Premiers, but Richmond have done that too many times this year (beat Fremantle in the West, came back from 32 points down against the Swans at the SCG, and there are others like the first win against Collingwood in donkey's years and beating Port over there when they were still contenders) for that to be the case realistically.

So which is Richmond in 2015? The side that beat those contenders and pretenders or the one that meekly surrendered to the Crows with most of it's better players all having an off night. I think it's the former, but then again I'm a lifelong fan.

When Brett Deledio couldn't take his spot due to a bad case of the flu, I knew we were in trouble.

A virus means this guy has a rare missed game.

Lids is like a talisman. The win loss ratio with and without him is extraordinary. It's skewed a bit by how durable he is. Up until the achilles injury last year, he'd played more than 100 consecutive games, he held the record for currently playing players, he may still have it actually. He did however kick 4 goals against the Hawks and he's generally good for at least one or two a game, not to mention how many he actually creates for others, or the fact that the opposition have to use a good player to man up against him. 

Our fantastic defence in 2015 has masked the fact that we don't kick many goals and when you take out scorers like Deledio and add them to the absence of Shane Edwards it hurts the side's chances.

However you don't expect a large chunk of the side to have an off night because one bloke is out. We lost in 2 areas that up until that night we were ranked #2 and #4 in the AFL for. So what happened?

I think it was this:

Lids missed because of it, and it's a credible explanation for why so many of his team mates simply weren't up to it on the night. You don't suddenly turn around form like that, not when it's been a largely season long thing. It did however put us in a dicey situation with finals fast approaching.

We're on 11 wins with an okay percentage. We have 3 very winnable games, which will give us 14 wins and even if our percentage is crap, no side who wins 14 games is going to miss out on finals. For some reason everyone sees the final game against North as a problem, yes we haven't beaten them since 2011, but we generally only play them once a year, and they're not a bogeyman. They are an average side with a below average coach and they can count themselves lucky if they end up in the 8 at the end of the season. Before we play them, though we have to win the games against 3 lower sides and that starts with the Gold Coast this weekend.

We've only beaten them once, but they're having the season from hell, they've never played us in Melbourne and I think plenty of the Richmond boys will be keen to take out their frustration on the Suns come Sunday. Lids will be back, too.

Hawthorn V Richmond - 31/07/2015 (MCG)

Again I'm not really going to talk about the game as such, but more something that struck me in the lead up, during it and after it. I will say that we won, courtesy of Brett Deledio's 4 goals (3 in the opening quarter) and I'm very happy about that.

Brett Deledio gets a Conca cuddle on Friday night.

The media talked up the Fremantle game. Being a traditional Big 4 club and having in excess of 70,000 members, does afford the Tigers a fair bit of coverage, but even when we play a top club we don't get looked at favourably. They did that with Fremantle and it wasn't until the start of the game and it was mentioned that it hit my why. It was 5th playing 1st. The result of the game had the ability to change the competition and the finals race.

We lost the game narrowly, but it didn't dampen down the bullish enthusiasm for the Tigers, even though we were playing the all conquering Hawks. Hawthorn are the reigning Premiers, they're going for a 'threepeat'. They've won their last 8 games in a row. Two of their victims have been fellow top 4 clubs in Fremantle and Sydney and they thumped both of them. Admittedly Richmond also own victories this season against those clubs, but they weren't as emphatic as what Hawthorn did to them. They were deservedly favourites, but there was still love for Richmond, even if they lost the game. They were being seen as legitimate. I can't ever remember this happening before.

It's hard to say exactly why now all of a sudden the Tigers are the 'real deal'. Maybe it's because they've made the finals for the last 2 years. Our two  finals appearances to 2013, in 1995 and 2001, were brief. They were exciting, but ultimately unsustainable. This time it's different, we've hung around and we've consistently improved and while we're still a work in progress, a lot has come together in 2015. We've won games against the likes of Fremantle and Sydney, we've come from behind, we've rolled over the top of teams, we've put together bursts which have sunk opponents. This was the sort of stuff we watched everyone else do to us. This is what good sides do, it's how they get though the home and away season and prepare for finals.

There's an air of expectation about the Tigers now. It's really cool to hear everyone, supporters of the club, supporters of other clubs, the media, players and coaches talk positively about the club and you can feel that fear. The fear the giant is waking up and is about to resume his rightful place at the top of the AFL tree.

We're in the top 8, we're locked in there. We were top 4 after beating Hawthorn, then Sydney won and knocked us down to 5, the Bulldogs had a big win over Essendon and that saw us 6th, but looking ahead I can see us winning our last 5 games and 16 wins would definitely get us top 5, maybe even top 4.

The Tiger is in town people, and he's hungry!