Recruitment Zone: Panel show ep:2
Bingle presents: General Manager of football, Dan Richardson, talks to Nathan Brown about what happened with the Jack Trengove trade.
VIDEO:
http://www.richmondfc.com.au/video/2014-10-15/recruitment-zone-panel-show-ep2---------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary* I wouldn't say we've been quiet. The recruiting team is certainly still working really hard. Sometimes in trade week, I guess you don’t get the results that you work hard to achieve. I guess the Jack Trengove situation is a good example of that.
* Blair Hartley had had some discussions with Melbourne over the course of the year about Jack's situation. We got a call from Melbourne midway through the trade period about Jack and followed those discussions through. As any club does, you've got to do you due diligence from a medical perspective. Unfortunately for us, and probably more unfortunate for Jack, it became apparent from that that he was going to have some ongoing problems with his foot. As has been reported, I don't think it's major as has been reported. I think he has a great chance of overcoming it and he's a great character. I'm sure he'll work hard and get through it, but just from the point of view of the club giving up a first round draft pick to bring a player to your club, the risk was just a bit too high to take to be honest.
* Great credit should go to our Doc, who was very thorough, and Blair and our recruiting team. To think through those things really thoroughly. Doc, in particularly, and the people involved there have done a really good job for us on one hand and discovered something Jack would've perhaps found out ultimately but brought all that to a head.
* Winderlich non-deal ...... Jason and his manager approached us before the trade period started. As happens in this situation, once that sort of gains momentum and Essendon because aware of that, they had discussions with Jason, who was obviously their player, and obviously he made a decision to either retire or stay at Essendon rather than continue at another club. We respect that; it's fair enough. I'm all for players, if possible and it's changing in the current environment, to be one club players and that's what he decided to do.
* Blair and the recruiting team are still working hard but given the timing now, not a long time remaining, it's unlikely we'll do a trade. Which is fine. While it would’ve been great to bring in Jack, who fitted our strategy of bringing in a midfielder and increasing our depth there, but still retaining our draft picks would've been a great strategy for us. Given that’s fallen over, we’re happy as we’ve said all along to retain our draft picks and invest heavily in this year’s Draft.
* Re-signings - It’s pleasing because there’s obviously a few clubs having those issues with players. Touchwood, all our players seem to be happy and seem to want to be here and hopefully want to be part of the success that we’re building towards. That’s a great sign of confidence in what we’re doing as a club.
- Batch, has been offered a two year deal, his form in the later half of the year was reflective and well deserved from that end.
The other guys are still genuinely young:
- Dea has had some injury troubles and played some games this year but we still have some confidence that he can continue to develop.
- McDonough goes into his third year and showed some positive signs over the course of the year. Played across half-back but then up forward later in the year.
All those guys, including Matty Thomas and Petterd, will be going around for us another year. Both played a lot of AFL footy this year and we'd expect the same next year.
* Pick 12? Normally with your first round pick you go best available. At that pick we see most of the players we've got our eye on being midfield types. So on that basis, we'll satisfy that need as well. Yeah, we're excited by that pick, even though we did consider trading it and moving back out in the draft for the Trengove deal, we certainly excited by the type of player that not only we'll be able to get at pick 12 but in the later picks as well.
* 10 days for the trade period is about right. It's shortened from last year. You wouldn't want it to go any longer but you still need enough time when you talk about things like medicals that can take 3-4 days to see through it throughly then you don't want to be rushing it.