One-Eyed Richmond Forum
Football => Richmond Rant => Topic started by: one-eyed on October 23, 2025, 12:12:28 AM
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Every AFL club’s 2026 list chasm
Ben Cotton, Jack Jovanovski and Will Faulkner
Fox Sports
October 22nd, 2025
RICHMOND
List chasm: Two-way midfielder
Richmond’s midfield combinations were problematic all season, with Adem Yze’s coaching staff consistently looking to inject more pace into a core mix that was generally one-paced. Tim Taranto, Jacob Hopper and Dion Prestia attended the most centre bounces, and while Hopper is capable of exploding from stoppage, they all lack general speed and have the tendency to slouch in defensive transition. This year, Richmond ranked 17th for clearance differential, 17th for points from clearance differential, and 16th for contested possession differential. It shouldn’t shock anyone to say the Tigers would benefit greatly from a two-way midfielder after the club conceded the third-most goals to opposition midfielders this season. However, the longer-term future of Richmond’s engine room looks incredibly bright with Sam Lalor at the forefront, and expect dynamic livewire Taj Hotton to attend more centre bounces in year two.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2025-every-clubs-list-chasm-list-problems-and-weaknesses-analysis-areas-of-need-draft-delisted-free-agency-and-ssp-targets-latest-news/news-story/99f023d15c98362041d3cfde6b098d14
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The Elephant in the room is Nank's Ruck craft. He is a physical presence around the ground yes, but his tap work is a complete disaster and makes us second to the ball. For Richmond to improve we need another classy mid or two with speed yes, but we also need a Ruckman that can provide a hit out to advantage occasionally....
We cannot keep pretending that it's not an issue.
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Didn’t stop us winning 3 flags nor did it stop Brisbane or Geelong winning 3 of the last 4 flags…
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Didn’t stop us winning 3 flags nor did it stop Brisbane or Geelong winning 3 of the last 4 flags…
Soldo played in one of them and he did his role well. Nank was young and enthusiastic and was carried by an A+ midfield group around him.
Gawn is prob the goat.
Blicavs was a freak athletically.
McInerney pretty handy in the ruck.
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Blicavs wasn’t/isn’t even Geelongs main ruck.
Big O didn’t play in last years flag and was secondary ruck this year.
We Defs need to be actively looking for Nanks successor, no doubt about that, but rucks a very overrated position especially in terms of ‘tap work’. Much more important to have a mobile ruck who can compete at ground level and get around the ground to take intercept marks in defence and chip in with some goals up forward when resting.
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Generally agree TK but tap work does have its place. I've seen Nank actually deal with his opponent well and tap it straight to the opposition. It's excruciating.
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Generally agree TK but tap work does have its place. I've seen Nank actually deal with his opponent well and tap it straight to the opposition. It's excruciating.
Oh like the Brisbane EF when Oscar went down in Q1?
Should have been a sliding door moment but as a captain/ruck he royally R'd that up for the rest of the game. Utterly dismal.
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Generally agree TK but tap work does have its place. I've seen Nank actually deal with his opponent well and tap it straight to the opposition. It's excruciating.
100% would be ideal to have a ruck who is great at everything i.e. Gawn but there’s very few of those that come around. Can compensate for an avg tap ruckman with a great midfield which hopefully we’ll have sooner than later.
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Blicavs wasn’t/isn’t even Geelongs main ruck.
Big O didn’t play in last years flag and was secondary ruck this year.
We Defs need to be actively looking for Nanks successor, no doubt about that, but rucks a very overrated position especially in terms of ‘tap work’. Much more important to have a mobile ruck who can compete at ground level and get around the ground to take intercept marks in defence and chip in with some goals up forward when resting.
McInerney played 25 games last year. He has hardly missed a game the last 8 seasons. It's pretty handy having a big guy that can at least break even.
Blicavs isn't the first ruck but being a 200 odd cm unicorn that can get you hitouts is a big part of geelongs success.
People say just trade a 3rd for a 20/22 year old nankervis but it's not always that easy. Takes some skill and a lot of luck.
Everyone would be doing it and wed already have one of the list ready to go.
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Generally agree TK but tap work does have its place. I've seen Nank actually deal with his opponent well and tap it straight to the opposition. It's excruciating.
100% would be ideal to have a ruck who is great at everything i.e. Gawn but there’s very few of those that come around. Can compensate for an avg tap ruckman with a great midfield which hopefully we’ll have sooner than later.
Yeah but again. You need to find someone who is 6'9ish who is good enough to get to and play in a grand final.
We have seen with Naismith. Colina. Ryan And the rest of the duds it's not always that straight forward.
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There is a list chasm but its not what they are talking about.
Our list chasm is the players between our juniors and our vets.
In 2017 we had a spread of players going from 2006 - 2016 and 15 odd of them premiership players were spread thru the 23 - 29 age bracket.
In a couple of years time we wont have a good vets all retired and the mid tier need replacing.
Our dilemma is getting what kids we have into that mid tier and continue to build. How long will it take to get 15 players basically starting from this year to some where around 100 games and then get another 8 or so around 50 games.
When we won in 2017 our side averaged 104 games for every player. The average age was 25yr 43 days . Put that in perspective in 5 yrs time baring injury Lalor will be 23 and around 100 games. The 2017 side had 4 juniors Graham 19 , Rioli 20, Castagna and Butler 21. All others fell into the 23 thru 29 age bracket.
We had 11 players with 100 plus games anothe 4 with 50 plus games and only two had less than 20 games.
The beauty is we have openly embraced a full on rebuild time is actually our friend and there are no expectations we just have to make sure we stay the course and make sure over the next 3 or 4 drafts we load up with as much young talent as possible.
Embrace youth while we can because all too soon unrealistic expectations and stupid time frames will start to raise their ugly heads.
Finally on topic Nankervis i give three years maximum we have three years to find our next premiership ruckman and atm its not one of the listed rucks we have.All currently are hail mary's.
I think the way the ruck rules are going cdt is probably a perfect fit for us although we have a similar type in Sims, i think Sims more a kpf though and the hyphen more of a very athletic ruckman first and foremost. If he is there at our picks 3 or 4 i think we will take him.
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Scanned through your post crawski and most of it seems to make sense - particularly the age gap between youngest and oldest. We let 4 mid agers go last year which is where the problem really started .
Assuming this will start getting addressed end of next 3 seasons.