AFL 2023 season opener: Richmond and Carlton draw – as it happened

Hello everybody and welcome to live coverage of Richmond v Carlton on the opening night of the 2023 AFL Premiership season. The opening bounce at the Melbourne Cricket Ground is 7.20 pm AEDT.

Footy’s back; if it ever truly went away? Almost six months on from Geelong’s catwalk to the 2022 flag the 18 challengers are back to do it all again. And as has become traditional, the curtain is raised by the Tigers and Blues on a balmy Thursday night at the G.

Both sides arrive with high ambitions. Richmond won their third flag in four years as recently as 2020, and the offseason recruitment of Jacob Hopper and Tim Taranto demonstrates a belief that the premiership window remains open at Punt Road. However, after consecutive mid-table finishes and eight players already in their 30s, it is a delicate balancing act in Tigerland.

Following an injury-interrupted 2022 Dustin Martin is back in the starting line-up and ready to return to his Brownlow Medal winning form. “He has had a great pre-season,” according to Damien Hardwick. Martin is set for a different role this year with the Tigers now stacked in midfield and more in need of his game-breaking talent further towards goal. “It will be a slightly different role for him,” Hardwick said. “He has normally gone between midfield and forward. This year he will probably be more forward, less mid. What we do know, I think from a Richmond point of view, and an AFL community point of view is that we just love having him back, and we look forward to him having his best season because he is the sort of guy you come and watch play.”

The lot of a Bluebagger over the past couple of decades has been nothing but misery, but after so much darkness, the dawn could finally be approaching. Michael Voss’s first year as head coach began promisingly, and an 8-2 record after ten rounds set the Blues up for a first crack at September since 2013. But a sequence of four wins and 12 defeats exposed the work that still needed to be done at Ikon Park.

On form, the spine of the team rivals all comers, the product of a group of players in their late 20s with over 100 first grade appearances under their belts (the likes of Jacob Weitering, Adam Saad, Sam Docherty, Patrick Cripps, and Jack Martin) and a tier behind them nearing similar milestones (I’m thinking of Jack Silvagni, Zac Fisher, Adam Cerra, Harry McKay, and Charlie Curnow) so the foundation feels solid. But around them things need to fall the right way, which means they can ill-afford the year-ending injury to Zac Williams and delayed season-start to Sam Walsh.

After tonight Carlton face the reigning premiers, before a trip to western Sydney. Failure to earn at least one win from these three tricky encounters would heap pressure on Voss, and we know that tends not to end well for coaches at such a demanding club.

I’ll be back shortly with more build-up. In the meantime, feel free to send me an email or fly a tweet to @JPHowcroft.