2013.
The moon is red. Foul tidings scour the air. It seems that Richmond's fortunes have been inversely linked to a number of swaggering, powerhouse clubs. If we go up, they must go down. El Nino like you've never seen, brother. Carlton - messiah undone. Essendon - the cancer of hubris. Gone meta. Adelaide - your coach is Christopher Walken. West Coast - skills wanted. North Melbourne - irrelevant anger.
Night of the wolverine, know what I mean?
2013 is the off year, the stillborn kings son. Or maybe the gods are agitated. RFC, a kraken kept in its deep sea penetentiary for too long. The comforting truths of AFL football come clattering down. Fans feast on the high emotion, their hidden contempt for a landscape grown too familiar. Everyone has blood on their faces when the lights are switched on.
Meanwhile, Richmond have made it to the finals.
So as the velvet curtain is drawn on September, what damage can this great, creaky old kraken inflict? Plenty. This season has seen cracks appearing everywhere, even in the established top 4 power bloc. Blood flows from the tap, not comfort. The gladiators enter the arena, but with a trepidation once alien. There is a sniper in the bottom half of the eight.
What makes Richmond the chaos ball? The coach killer, the ranting lunatic no one can predict let alone control?
The captain is getting busy. Building to September like he's seen it all before. Hunting packs cos he's the protag. Cannot be stopped at the moment, the nuclear core of our glittering mid.
Damien Hardwick is a magpie. We all knew he could dev, but we also know he steals, absorbs and executes version 2.0 of whatever failed the first time. He's chessmaster 2000, a relentless cyborgian cypher with intent to kill. Don't reckon he's a natural tactician. But he sure as hell knows how to adapt and improve. That much is known. 2013 is a plague if football locusts. What we thought were truths have become the rankest fallacy.
Captain, coach. We need a third to complete this unholy trinity. It is, obviously, the defence. Our gameplan depends on this unit being blood brother tight. Cos the ball is gonna come in quickly if the Berlin wall falls. A zone for the stout hearted, then. For the first time since 1982, a back six with height, nous, discipline and raw, stinking guts.
The chaos ball is in motion. The kraken can see white flesh on the surface. In 2013, anything can, and probably will, be deposited on the field like lovecraft's terror on the doorstep.
The epilogue to RFC's glorious fever dream is the elegant motion of a man on the cusp of Great Things. When all is said and done, when the season is a radioactive wasteland of spent emotion, think on the man feverishly pulling weights, his eyes determined dark pits. His name is McBean. He represents a new kind of hero. The old firm has been toppled. The footy gods now smile upon us.
