Any media about this game revolved entirely around the return of Jason McCartney from life threatening injuries sustained in the terrorist bombing at Bali during the off season. The media built 'Saint' Jason up to the point where you could be forgiven for thinking that he was the greatest player to ever pull on a boot. The reality is somewhat different. McCartney is 'just' a player, he's what Jack Dyer would describe as a good ordinary player. He started his career off at Collingwood as one of the next big things, never lived up to it and was traded to Adelaide, scratched around there for a few years and was given to the Kangaroos. He's served them relatively well, but never a great player. In fact had the Bali incident not happened he would have been delisted, now he's the reason that they're going to be able to have the emotional impact to win one of the most important games of their season. Richmond tried to counter it with the surprise return of Brad Ottens from a back injury. Now Ottens return in no way compared with McCartney, except that Otto is a superstar, something that Jason McCartney never has and never will be.

The game itself took place on a cold, dark, wet wintry night. It was a shootout for the first half with Rodan, Krakouer and Richardson looking very dangerous for the Tigers. Rodan's good form continued for the half and Krakouer was deadly anywhere near goals. It tightened up in the second half and we kept playing hard. We had a three-point lead with only 4 minutes to go. They scored a goal and that was it, we tried to get it forward and we had more of the play for the entire quarter, but couldn't get the goals. Three lousy points! That's what we lost by. McCartney retired at the end of the match. I hate to say it, but I think the Roos knew how important this game was and that's why they played the McCartney card, courageous comeback be buggered! This was a ploy to win a game of football. To top it all off we lost Gaspar to a suspected ACL knee injury, probably the end of his season and pretty much Richmond's. Why do we give ourselves hope only to prove when the crunch comes that we're really not up to it?

Rodan had a very good game and was unlucky not be named amongst the best.