Tag Archives: Richmond

Reasons to be cheerful in Melbourne…Take 2

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT has been floating around on cloud nine since last Saturday. Two near miraculous events occurred. The first, back to back premierships for MMT’s favourite AFL team, the rampaging Richmond Tigers. The second Jai Hindley took and briefly held the Maglia Rosa in the 2020 Giro d’Italia.

MMT will focus Giro result first. Eventually, Hindley finished second overall. Geoghegan-Hart from Team INEOS took 40 seconds off Hindley on the final stage’s time trial to cliche the title. The result was the best ever result for an Australian, surpassing Cadel Evan‘s third back in 2013. All the more remarkable, as it was the a 24-year-old’s third Grand Tour start and he had been riding as a domestique for team-mate Wilco Kelderman, in the midst of a pandemic. So to honour Jai Hindley, here’s a picture of the man himself, dressed up in Pink.

Here’s the man of the moment…Jai Hindley.

Before MMT moves on he should also point to the astonishing performances of two other Australians at the Giro, Rohan Dennis (INEOS Grenadiers) and Ben O’Connor (NTT Pro Cycling). Rohan Dennis practically towed Tao Geoghegan-Hart through the mountain stages of the last week and set up the Brit’s Giro victory. Ben O’Connor an unheralded West Australian, won the mountain stage 17. A big chapeau!! to both rouleurs.

Now the other reason, Richmond’s win in the 2020 Grand Final, was all the more surprising given the Geelong Cat’s 3 goal advantage in the second quarter. MMT had gave up that point and turned the telly off. MMT has been repremanded a number of times by team management (aka his wife) for loud and ‘blue’ language that might wake the team’s junior members.

Opps this photo may have been ‘acquired’ from somewhere else 😉

So near 3/4 quarter time, MMT looks at the AFL app on this mobile phone and discovers, much to his disbelief, that the Tigers are now 2 points up…WTF…you beauty. Of course, the man of the moment was Dustin Martin, who kicked 4 goals on his way to a 3rd Norm Smith medal. In years to come the pundits will talk about how good this guy is. And to think the Tiges very nearly traded him to the Giants back in 2016. MMT thinks the Tiges dodged a bullet. Martin may be the million dollar man at Richmond, but few would argue that he’s not worth it.

Anyhooo…MMTis getting all misty eyed about the Tiges and its good time to sign off. One more thing….MMT has completed 9,000km in year for the first time…woo hoo 😉

Until next time, keep safe, ride safe and go Tiges,

MMT

Reasons to be cheerful in Melbourne…at last

Dear Rouleurs,

Whilst winter has been utterly dreary with no trips to the MCG and in last 2 months serious restrictions on movement, both due to stage 4 lock down, Team MMT’s mood has significantly improved. October has brought warmer weather and daylight savings has kicked in producing pleasant evenings to boot. But its two major events that have occurred this week that that has put a literal spring in MMT’s step.

The first occurred on Friday night, with MMT’s beloved Tigers went toe to toe with a hostile Port Adelaide on their home ground in front of a full house of Port supporters and …won…unf#%kbelievable. Even if the Cats roll the Tiges next Saturday, that game and the mental strength it took to win will be long remembered by Tiges fans everwhere. So here is it the MMT appropriated AFL graphic of the path to the Finals.

Its been a very weird year…period but this result is bewildering. Both Grand Finalists have:

=>been playing away from home for over 100 days in their respective hubs.

=>lost their initial Qualifying Final.

=>beaten the hometown team on their own ground in front of their supporters.

That is very odd, even in a year when lots of bad and odd things have been occurring. Which brings MMT to the other wonderful event of this week, today’s easing of Stage 4 Restrictions, in particular the one that was starting to drive MMT a bit nuts, the 5km radius restriction. MMT wrote about this a while back and has done some where upwards of 500km in his 5km radius.

So when this changed from this….

MMT’s Tour de 5km Radius. When daily exercise was set at 1 hour this meant tooling around Albert Park Lake. When this was lifted to 2 hours it meant he could ride to Williamstown. Alas MMT is yet to fugure out how to ride his beloved Trek Domane on water.

To this…

Hallelujah!!! MMT can ride to Mordialloc, Altona and Meadow Heights again with no daytime exercise time restrictions…woo hoo. I’m so looking forward to a cruise to Blackrock tomorrow.

Damn, normal road cycling has resumed in Melbourne for MMT. Unfortunately the same can not be said for cycling in European where COVID-19 is rampaging in devastating second wave. In seems unlikley that the Giro d’Italia 2020 will finish in Milan, and the classics have taken hit with both the Paris-Roubaix and Amstel Gold being cancelled. Let’s hope a vaccine is close to being released to the world’s population. This year has just been awful.

Until next time, ride safe and Go Tiges

MMT

Oh we’re from Tigerland….Premiers 2019

Dear Rouleurs and Tigers fans,

Its been a huge 2 weeks since MMT’s last blog. The Tiges rolled the Cats in the Preliminary Final and then destroyed the GWS Giants in the Grand Final. To quote one of MMT’s favourite Vinnie Jone’s lines from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, ‘Its been emotional…’ Saturday’s Giant killing spree meant that the Grand Final was all but over by the 10 minute mark of the third quarter. What followed was an unbridged celebration of Tiger football, where the opposition was left to play the role of witches hats in Richmond training drill. MMT could go on, on, on, on….

MMT had a tough week leading into the Grand Final. For starters, he caught the late season Melbourne flu and was down for the count all of that week. Further, due to his incompetence, completely missed the Ticketek ballot widow for club members and didn’t have a Grand Final ticket. The a series of very fortunate events occurred. First, GWS Giants knocked Collingwood out of the finals race and in the process forced another 10,000 or so club tickets to be released. Second, the gods of Ticketek on Tuesday, 12.15pm, gifted MMT a decent ticket to the big dance. You bloody beauty……

Any how, here’s a photo of the victorious Richmond team, the 2019 AFL Premiers.

Finally, speaking of Collingwood, MMT heard a cracking Pies joke the other day –

Question: Do you know what’s the difference between a pyromaniac and the Collingwood football club?

Answer: A pyromaniac doesn’t waste 22 matches. Boom, boom.

After the 2018 Preliminary Final aka Tiger Ambush , MMT thinks the Pies deserve a bit of trash talk.

Until next time, Go Tiges

MMT

Still not really thinking about cycling

Dear Rouleurs, or really should I say fellow Tiges Fans,

The big game Richmond vs Geelong is on at the G at 7.50pm. MMT is very, very nervous. Last time, these teams played, Geelong treated an under strength Richmond team like witches hats at a training session, as it went on 67pt rampage. This time its Geelong that looks like its a bit underdone with some key players out. So with that in mind, MMT isn’t really thinking about work or cycling, hence this blog.

Collingwood blew Richmond off the park by half time, to be 40 odd points up, in last year’s preliminary final. MMT was about 10 metres away from the Collingwood Fan Club at the city end. MMT had to bear the agony of watching Joffa put on his gold ‘pies are gonna win this jacket’ before half time. That really sucked…..

Any how here’s something liberated/plagiarised from today’s Herald-Sun.

MMT wishes his boss was elsewhere. That way he slip off to the gym and then home. Given MMT’s level of distraction its unlikely that anything useful will get done today.