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Having seen their side throw away a top-four spot when they blew a 30-point quarter-time lead over Carlton in Round 21 last year, Tigers fans were left emotionally stunted as their side gave up the ghost a few weeks later, throwing away a six-goal advantage in an Elimination Final no less.
Life was never meant to be easy, but Tigers fans in 2013 seem destined to live in a special Navy Blue hell, the AFL equivalent of sitting through a Justin Bieber/1D marathon. The fact Richmond, a team that's finished ninth too many times to remember, was beaten by a ninth-placed side in their first final since 2001 was just an extra level of pain.
There was nowhere near the 94,690-strong Elimination Final crowd at the MCG on Thursday as the AFL inexplicably kow-towed to Channel 7 and played this match on a school night. But for the Tigers fans that showed up, it must have been hard to bear as they watched a 37-point lead in the second quarter slowly get whittled away.
To that point, the Blues had lacked intensity and their kicking effectiveness was going at 44 percent. But midway through the second term, one sniffed a turning of the tide as Carlton upped the ante and after half-time, the Blues went for broke.
The pressure came hard as a nest of Navy Blue jumpers waited to ambush every single Tiger that dared go near the ball. Dale Thomas wound back the clock to 2011 as he shut Trent Cotchin out of the contest while Jarrad Waite tore through packs like shrapnel even if his poor goal-kicking cost the Blues dearly in the end.
As the pressure rose, the ghosts of past failures re-emerged in the Richmond psyche. Instead of taking risks and moving the ball with pace and skill, the Tigers went into themselves, playing a desperate defensive, hold-on-at-all costs kind of footy that just couldn't cope with wave after wave of Carlton attacks.
As Bryce Gibbs pulled a dribbler from a place that rarely sees sunshine and Troy Menzel snapped truly to make it a one-point game, you could almost hear Richmond hearts breaking. Waite then had the chance to give his side the lead but when he screwed his attempt wide, it was even-stevens at the G, 19 minutes into the final term.
This time the Tigers responded and maybe in that response found the key to going beyond the first week of September in 2014. But, that being said, if Carlton had kicked straight – the Blues booted 3.7 in the final term to go with two out-on-the-fulls – this could have been a very, very different article.
"It was a real problem area last year," Chris Newman told SEN when asked about Richmond's run-on struggles. "We faded out of games and inevitably it cost us the game. I think what we need to do is get a little bit of control back of the football."
The stats back up Newman's assessment even if coach Damien Hardwick declared in a pre-season Twitter hang-out that the Tigers were good at containing opposition momentum.
Last year, in all but one of Richmond's losses, they gave up a serious run-on. The exception was their one-point loss to Freo.
Round 4: Loss to Collingwood – Richmond conceded 12 consecutive scoring shots, including eight goals, to the Magpies during the third quarter.
Round 6: Loss to Geelong – Either side of three-quarter time the Tigers conceded 11 out of 12 scoring shots as the Cats scored five goals to one and finished up 44-point winners.
Round 9: Loss to Essendon – Conceded eight goals to one to Essendon either side of half-time in a 29-point loss.
Round 18: Loss to Sydney – Conceded six unanswered goals either side of three-quarter time in a 47-point loss
Round 21: Loss to Carlton – Leading by 30 at quarter time, Richmond conceded seven of the next eight goals as the Blues took the lead just after half-time
Elimination Final – Leading by 32 points early in the third term, Richmond conceded six of the next seven goals.
Even in victory, sometimes there's just no stopping a Carlton run-on as the Tigers allowed the Blues to score five unanswered goals in the final quarter of their Round 1 clash, even though they held on for a four-point win. That's seven games from last year where Richmond conceded at least five goals and only kicked, at best, one goal in response.
This time, though, the Tigers found a way to hit back, even if it meant coach Damien Hardwick storming down from the coach's box to the boundary to give his side a spray before sprinting back up again.
"We were out on our feet there, no doubt," Hardwick said.
"We probably tended to go a little bit too long down the line and it's not our real style of play and we just couldn't seem to find a free target at stages.
"The other one was that I think in the last quarter, the contested ball … it was all red. We couldn't get our hands on the ball.
"I was probably losing a little bit of composure up in the box as well," he added, saying the run to the boundary gave him the 'minute's venting time' that he needed.
"(I was) just trying to get our players back to getting them to play the way we wanted to play.
"For whatever reason we were winning the ball but we were just blasting it straight back to the opposition, which is very unlike us.
"The pressure of Carlton was good but sometimes it's a bit more perceived more so than the actual pressure they put on so just to get that message across and then to take the big hike back upstairs.
"For guys to come back … I thought Chris Newman was huge in that last stanza and there were a couple of others, Cotchin stood up as well so it was just great to win that game, a close game."
Hardwick also singled out Ben Griffiths for praise as the 203cm giant held his nerve with two big marks and composed clearances in the desperate final stages, the second of which led to Dustin Martin kicking the sealer with eight seconds remaining.
But for all the composure and heart shown by Richmond in the game's final moments, the fact they became so rattled by the Blues pressure and their game plan went out the window must be a concern.
They got away with it this time by settling down and winning some hard contests but for the sake of all Tigers fans out there, here's hoping Richmond have learnt the lessons of last night's great escape.