Both Grimes and Astbury will likely be handed the duties of guarding the opposition's best two forwards.If Rance is the game's best intercept defender, then the Tigers have a ready-made clone in Grimes.In his 10th season in the AFL, Grimes has steadily developed into one of the AFL's truly elite defensive players. Rance suffered a season-ending knee injury in Round 1 of the 2019 AFL season. I know my teammates love and care for me, so I'm very grateful for that.
With Richmond confirming the news that most feared about Alex Rance's knee injury, the attention now turns to how the pre-season flag favourites can rebound.
If the AFL's opening game Scrappy skills, low-scoring despite the new rules and — even allowing for a short lived Carlton fightback — an inevitably lopsided result.The Blues scored just one point in the first quarter. Alex Rance hobbles off the ground. With Rance out of the lineup, the question turns to who slides into the Tigers' vaunted back six.Of all the candidates, young defender Connor Menadue is probably the leading candidate to slot into the team along with Brandon Ellis.Menadue, who was named an emergency for the Tigers in Round 1, played just five AFL games in 2018, but in his fifth season is primed for a breakout. Tigers coach Damian Hardwick will hope that a strong off-season will have paid dividends for the youngster. It was a beautiful full moon last night, we get the win, fresh meat in the armour, there's plenty to celebrate. "I've had some amazing outreaches of love," Rance said. With the leader of the defence on the sidelines, the onus will fall on Dylan Grimes and David Astbury to step up in his absence. "Shattering is a little dramatic. We need them to act out their personal trauma to validate our melodramatic script and assumed importance of the moment.
We were promised players romping into space created by designated starting position, more technical infringements and even goal-post Snicko.But it turned out the most unusual moment was the sight of a brilliant footballer accepting without a hint of self-pity or remorse a diagnosis that has quite understandably crushed others.Maybe this wasn't surprising to those who know Rance — he is reportedly a committed Christian with a worldly outlook who has hinted more than once that he would walk away from the game at the peak of his career to explore life's other options.Regardless, Rance's injury, and the sanguine manner in which he accepted his fate, were the talking points of a season-opener that only lived up to its billing if you had observed the fixture that has had a habit of disappointing in recent years.This anticlimax was not that particularly surprising. "Then to have it taken away from you (in) round one, it is disappointing. "While Rance is undoubtedly one of the game's best defenders, as evidenced by his five consecutive All-Australian selections, Richmond's back six is far from a one-man band. With Richmond confirming the news that most feared about Alex Rance's knee injury, the attention now turns to how the pre-season flag favourites can rebound.Due to his elite ability to intercept the ball, Rance has become the lynchpin of the Tigers' back six, often kick-starting devastating counter-attacks which result in Tiger goals just seconds after opponents press. Liverpool midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will miss the Community Shield clash with FA Cup winners Arsenal due to a knee injury, the Premier League champions' manager Jurgen Klopp said …
102.1k Followers, 380 Following, 324 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Alex Rance (@alexrance) Rance was a premiership player, five time All-Australian, a one time All-Australian captain, a one-time winner of Richmond's best-and-fairest award and is widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders of his era. The winners wore the expressions of losers.
So did the losers.Only Alex Rance, the Richmond defender whose season had "I'm in a great team with a great culture so I don't have too much to be sad about," Rance told a TV boundary line reporter moments after the siren signalled Richmond's 33-point win over Carlton.The fact that Rance was on the boundary supporting his team, let alone sharing his thoughts with the TV interrogator, was poignant.We have a tendency to catastrophise these moments; to lose all sense of reason.In the footballing context, Rance is the pillar of the flag favourite's defence. "Your heart sinks because you've been through a lot with this guy, been through a journey," he said. (97) to 9. "Shattering is a little dramatic.
"He's obviously a champion of the game, he's one of the best full-backs I've ever seen. "I’m lucky to have the life I have.
"It really does show that there's a lot of family in footy, and as much as we're competitors and fierce rivals, there's still so much love.