WAGGA painter Shaun Coote has taken his support of Richmond to another level ahead of Saturday’s AFL grand final.
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A self-confessed ‘long-suffering’ Richmond supporter, Coote spent a day painting his garage yellow and black in support of the Tigers this week.
Richmond will be out to win their first AFL premiership since 1980 when they take on Adelaide, or as Coote puts it, the Tigers are ‘36 years into a 37-year plan’.
“I told the kids at the start of this year that we’re 36 years into a 37 year plan,” Coote said with a grin.
“It’s all coming along beautifully.”
Coote spent a bit over a day painting his garage, then with the help of Dan Seddon from Signs Plus, put the finishing touches on with a Dustin Martin and Tigers logo graphic.
Coote has followed the Tigers all of his life and has travelled to watch six of Richmond’s last seven games on the way to a grand final.
“Against Geelong, when we were underdogs and we won, I thought it doesn’t get any better than this but it did,” he said.
“Geelong was 50-50 with the fans, but last week was 93,000 Tigers supporters. It was unbelievable.”
He and his two sons have secured tickets to the grand final and will head down on Thursday and attend Friday’s grand final parade.
He can’t wait but admits it has not been easy being a Richmond supporter.
“Long suffering. It’s hard to explain. Because there are so many of us, you never lose faith. But 36 years of pain’s a long time,” he said.
And with that history in mind, Coote is far from confident.
“I reckon we’re 40-60, but realistically we’re 50-50. They’ve been the form side all year.” he said.