LESS than a month ago, Richmond blew a 40-point lead against the Suns. On Sunday, the shoe was on the other foot, with the Tigers clawing their way back from a 42-point deficit to register a crucial victory against Brisbane to keep their finals aspirations alive.
Richmond trailed by 36 points at half-time, before piling on 10 goals to three from that point, to secure a famous victory in Shane Edwards’ 300th game.
The Tigers are ninth, just two points behind eighth-placed St Kilda, ahead of a date with Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night, followed by Hawthorn and Essendon, both at the MCG.
TIGERS V LIONS Full match details and stats
"I thought our boys were incredibly brave, the way they came back; 38 points down against a rampaging Brisbane… it showed the character and, probably in fairness, how much they love Shane Edwards," Damien Hardwick said.
"I thought the significance of this event might have probably overwhelmed us a little bit at the start, but credit where it's due. I thought Dylan (Grimes) and 'Nank' (Toby Nankervis) got them back on task and delivered the result we were all hoping for.
"It was Richmond beating Richmond in the first half. We had some really poor errors that gifted them some goals, we gave away five or six goals from free kicks again, which we've got to get better at. We knew that we had to get our pressure up to speed, we'd be hard to beat.
"We've been through some tough weeks, no question. What this means, well, we can only wait and see."
Co-captain Grimes was subbed out early in the second half with a hamstring injury.
"I don't want to speculate, but it's not great. We hope it's not too severe, we've got our fingers crossed at this stage," Hardwick explained.
Chris Fagan conceded the defeat makes Brisbane's hopes of securing a double chance that much harder.
"They had a lot to play for as did we; we were trying to cement ourselves into the top four, now we're in a battle," Fagan said.
"There was no lack of effort on our side."
The Lions are now winless in their past 11 outings at the MCG, with their most recent victory at the 'G coming in Round 21, 2014.
"I don’t believe in the MCG monkey, it's something that everybody else is talking about. My personal view is that we just haven't won here because we haven't been good enough whenever we've played here, which hasn't been very often, I might add. I think that was our third time in three years" Fagan said.
"It was our best performance at the MCG for quite some time and I would have thought anyone watching the game would have thought it was a fantastic game of football. We were in it all the way until the end," Fagan said.
"The ground is no excuse; our football team has won at just about every venue in the country over the last three or four years. The MCG is just another one of those venues.
"Richmond had a really strong team in tonight, probably outside of Dustin (Martin), that's their best side."
The Lions went into the game without Brandon Starcevich (quad). Fagan said they opted not to risk the reliable defender, who was earmarked for Shai Bolton who was arguably best afield
Brisbane also lost Zac Bailey before half-time after he copped a hit to the chest.
"Losing Bailey hurt us, with a bit of run, then Keidean Coleman kept cramping up in the last quarter and Jarrod Berry hurt his ankle, so we were a bit out on our feet in the second half. And that's not to take anything away from Richmond, but from our point of view they're three pretty important running players and in the end they weren't functioning in a tight finish," Fagan said.
He admitted the decision to have Darcy Fort as the Lions' medi-sub was an error.
"That's a fair observation, in hindsight it was the wrong decision to have Darcy as the medi-sub," Fagan said.
"In reflection, we would have been better off to have a running player in that role, for sure."
The coach wouldn't elaborate on why they went with Fort when asked the question, but said "we have our reasons" and "they’re good reasons".
The Lions host Carlton on Sunday.
