What a disappointing couple of years it has been for the Tigers. As recently as 2023, they entered the season as one of the Premiership favourites with a number of the stars from their triple-flag dynasty still playing decent footy. That expectation quickly proved overly hopeful, and they ended up 10 games and finishing 13th. A similar season was expected this year as they attempted to regenerate their list without falling too far, but in Adem Yze’s first year as head coach they have proven unable to do that.
Granted, injuries have played a major part. The Tigers were hit hard on that front from basically the outset of the season, with talented young defender Josh Gibcus the first of five players to rupture his ACL. Tom Lynch, meanwhile, has missed basically the whole year, Jack Ross has missed a lot of time, so too has Maurice Rioli Jr, Dion Prestia and Noah Balta have both had extended stints on the sideline, and the list goes on. At times this year they had only a couple of spare players on their list once their 23 for the seniors were selected, and with many of the players absent a part of their best team, there was little that Yze could really do to keep them competitive.
But despite that, this season has exposed a lot of issues on the Tigers’ list, and while they have uncovered a few decent players here and there, there appears to be a lack of star power moving forward, and that is only set to get worse over the off-season with a couple of their best players set to head elsewhere.
The end result of this tumultuous season is likely to be a Wooden Spoon with just two wins, those coming – bizarrely – earlier in the year by five points against the Swans, and by eight points against the Crows. They have been competitive in plenty of games but are unable to play out the full four quarters, and if they end the season as they started it with a loss against former coach Damian Hardwick and the Gold Coast Suns, then they are guaranteed to finish with the least wins this year and win this market and the Wooden Spoon.
Given that they enter the final round at 2-20, it’s safe to say that a win is pretty unlikely, though it is not entirely out of the realms of possibility. The Tigers play the Suns, who have also had a(nother) disappointing year and have nothing to play for this weekend, and who, even with their season on the line, proved unable to perform away from home remotely like they do on the Gold Coast. If that trend continues then the Tigers aren’t without a chance in this game as they farewell a couple of stars. The Tigers can’t do any better than tying with the Kangaroos for wins, assuming the Roos lose their own game, so getting off the bottom of the ladder would require them to make up about 2.7% in Round 24. But that is quite doable, with that turnaround only needing around a five or six goal difference in the margin of a Tigers win and a Kangaroos loss. It’s unlikely, but the Tigers have a more winnable game in Round 24 than the Roos, and at $1.06 it certainly isn’t worth placing a bet on them to win the Wooden Spoon with one week to go in the season.
Bet on Richmond Tigers to finish the season with the least wins at $1.06 with PlayUp
The Kangaroos have not won more than four games in a season since 2019, and unfortunately that is not going to change in 2024. After tallying win totals of 3, 4, 2 and 3 over the past four years, they are set to win either 3 or 4 again this year and will, for the fifth year running, finish inside the bottom two.
But as grim as that might sound for the Kangaroos, it has not been all doom and gloom for them this season. Though they showed very limited signs of improvement in the first half of the season, they turned things around significantly in the back half and for a period of a few weeks looked like a substantially better team than what they have been for many years now.
Their best period of the season came when they beat the Eagles for their first win of the season in early June. They followed that up by losing by just a point to the Magpies – they inexplicably conceded a 54-point lead there, but that they got to that point was a big plus – the next week lost by just three points to the Demons, then 17 to the Bulldogs, before they beat the Suns the week after. They were a legitimately competitive side fro those five weeks, and though they haven’t been able to maintain that they have still put in plenty of solid performances since then.
There are some reasons for optimism which have been previously absent sneaking through, most notably in a midfield which has the makings of a very good one in the year to come. With the likes of Harry Sheezel, Luke Davies-Uniacke and George Wardlaw to name just a few floating around, Nick Larkey doing his thing up forward and Charlie Comben one of the finds of the season down back, there are an increasing number of positions on the field being filled by players with seemingly long futures ahead of them.
They racked up their third win of the season over the Tigers in Round 21, a result that will likely ensure that they just avoid the Wooden Spoon for the second year in a row. But it’s not a fait accompli just yet. They are a game and percentage ahead of the Tigers, and if they win in Round 24 they will be guaranteed a 17th place finish. But given that they play the Hawks, that seems unlikely. Hawthorn have been as good as anyone in the league for many months now and have plenty to play for, and it’s very hard to imagine a Kangaroos team coming off a 96-point loss to the Bulldogs going close to winning that one. If they do lose heavily, there is every chance that they will drop to last place if the Tigers get over the line against the Suns. Of course, that in itself is unlikely given that the Tigers have won only two games all season, but the Suns have been poor away from home so it’s not out of the realms of possibility.
With a game to go it seems far more likely than not that the Kangaroos will avoid the Wooden Spoon this season. But given that there are only two teams left in the race and the Tigers are almost at unbackable odds, the Kangaroos are the only team worth the tiniest of flutters in this market.
Bet on North Melbourne Kangaroos to finish the season with the least wins at $8.00 with PlayUp
.svg "Unibet")
