Richmond done for AFL Season 2024: Stick a Fork in them

It is time to stick a fork in the Richmond Tigers for the AFL Season 2024 after just two wins from their opening 13 games, as even an unlikely 10 wins straight would not mathematically be enough to qualify for September.

Despite their gallant away win over the Adelaide Crows in Adelaide and Dusty's 300th game, the Richmond Tigers’ finals aspirations are as done as a dog’s dinner.

Richmond came into the 2024 season with high hopes, having been a solid middle-six side since their last flag in 2020, with a couple of recent finals appearances.

However, the weight of retirements and injury attrition has seen the Tigers become anchored to the second bottom rung of the AFL ladder.

In spite of a decent number of Flag veterans remaining on the list, the best has gone past several of them and injuries to key players such as Tom Lynch, whose back-ended deal is costing something in the the order of $1.5 million, have cruelled them this year.

A couple of gutsy wins against more fancied sides have been swamped by several near misses and some heavy defeats have knocked them out of contention.

In the offseason, the Tigers offered a lifeline to ex-Swan Sam Naismith, only for him to suffer yet another ACL injury, while developing key position player Josh Gibcus is also out for the year.

They did bring in a pair of promising talls through the Mid-Season Rookie Draft, but those players are more or less VFL project players who may take some time to debut.

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Where did it all go wrong for the Tigers?

AFL Rd 12 - Geelong v Richmond

First-year coach Adem Yze must have been re-evaluating his career move as the Tigers were down 74 to 11 at halftime in his very first match, yet he managed to get his team to deliver a credible second half.

It has been about the small wins for Yze as he has coached close games and drubbings, all the while playing the kids and trying new ideas out to help the club navigate their rebuild.

Mykelti Lefau has been a revelation this year, giving the forward line a spark in Lynch’s absence until his season-ending injury, while Kane McAuliffe has also debuted.

The party has been over at Tigerland for a while since their all-conquering dynasty ended, punctuated by coach Damien Hardwick’s departure an

Jack Riewoldt and Trent Cotchin were always going to be hard to replace and the Tigers’ play for Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper left them without the chips to load up in the 2023 trade period.

Richmond must now head into the 2024 trade and draft period with a view to the future, as several players come out of contract and others are starting to get restless.

Dustin Martin is the player most likely to leave, with his own massively back-ended contract expiring in October, while others have been linked to moves interstate.

They can’t keep them all, but they can’t lose them all either, so there will be conversations going on right now as to what that looks like.

The Tigers have shown that they can match it with sides well above them on the ladder, so more wins will come, it’s just that they won’t win anywhere near enough and it will mostly be about getting games into the youth.

So Richmond is done, with the list looking wobbly for the future.