What a wonderful thing football is. Amid the joyous pandemonium of 90-odd-thousand long-suffering Tiger supporters a lone figure, Richmond’s No8, stood head in hands in the middle of the MCG and cried.
The juxtaposition of dissimilar elements is considered one of the principles of great art, and photographer Michael Willson achieves this beautifully, intensifying both the collective elation of the crowd and the cathartic release of one man, Jack Riewoldt.
The once irascible Richmond forward could also be considered a juxtaposition of dissimilar elements. There was a time when in a single afternoon, Riewoldt would play like a man asking to be both pitied and adored. He could not tolerate his own imperfection and despised it in team-mates and umpires. He’d gesture wildly (he fronted a media conference in 2011 for “flipping the bird”) and flare his nostrils in a way that made it easy to imagine cartoon steam curling out of his nose. He was not a phenom spoiled by success but by the lack of it.
In recent years, the emotional and sometimes petulant Riewoldt has matured and evolved his game to align with Damien Hardwick’s demand for a more even spread of goal kickers. The enfant terrible is now an elder statesman and sole marking target in a forward line that includes Daniel Rioli, Dan Butler and Jason Castagna.
“He’s a great leader and a great player and he’s become a really unselfish player. He’s got a young forward line around him, so I just think he needs to stand up given he’s the only key forward down there,” says Hardwick of Riewoldt.
The need to stand up is reflected by statistics that show when Richmond has kicked to a target inside 50 this season, nearly one in three of those has been Riewoldt. Only three forwards have been targeted at a higher rate, and only one of those was still playing in September.
While Riewoldt was one of the few Tigers to lower their colours on Saturday – he was badly outpointed by Phil Davis – he remained the major focal point of the forward line and is the club’s leading goal kicker for the year.
“Let’s not beat around the bush, I didn’t play very well yesterday,” Riewoldt said on Sunday. “My role is completely different to what it has been in the past. I like to think that I probably led from the front. I just tried to get those younger guys in the game.”
It is a role that can be exhaustive both physically and on the psyche. Every game he gets hammered at the contest, often by more than one opponent. He knows he must go and go again, not just to mark, but to bring the ball to ground and use his considerable football smarts to bring “those younger guys into the game”. It has been a feature of his game that has been as understated as it is significant.
Richmond’s last premiership full forward, Michael “Disco” Roach is in a better position than most to evaluate Riewoldt’s year, and he’s liked what he’s seen. Last week he told the The Mercury that he felt Riewoldt had been very underrated in what he’s done this year.
“To be the only key forward and be the leader of the forward line has been absolutely sensational,” Roach said. “I think other years he has got some pretty good praise, but this year he has been awesome.”
Towards the end of last season, a year where the club seemed destined to implode with the Focus on Football group running an unhinged “Make Richmond Great Again” campaign, Riewoldt’s admirers were harder to find, and he was floated in the sports pages as trade bait. Despite being contracted for a further two seasons, some considered the two-time Coleman medallist surplus to requirements after a poor season whose exclamation point came in a game against St Kilda where he touched the ball just nine times. But Riewoldt dismissed the speculation with the unique brand of discontent that has endeared him to football fans of all persuasions.
“At the moment it’s just click bait. Back in the good old days… they [journalists] were actually reporting the story, rather than lighting the fire under it and seeing if there’s any smoke there. You take it with a grain of salt and move on. As far as I’m concerned it’s yellow and black all the way.”
It’s been yellow and black since he was drafted in 2006, and only Shane Edwards has been at Punt Road as long. The Tigers finished last in Riewoldt’s first season and perpetuated a long-running football joke the following year when they finished ninth. They would finish no higher than 12th in the next four years, before losing three consecutive elimination finals, torturous all. Despite his commitment to the cause last year, after an eight-win season he could be forgiven for believing the last Saturday in September was not for him.
“It’s been 12 years and I’ve never played in a grand final before. I’ll be honest, at the end of last year, there were points when I thought [about if] I would ever represent this great football club on the greatest stage that we can play on.”
This Saturday, Riewoldt will finally represent his club at the MCG on grand final day for a shot at a dream that is both personal and of a people. What a wonderful thing football is.
