Big additions help Tigers eye AFL finalsSam Lienert
Wide World of Sports
Wed Mar 13 2013There are some strong contenders for the moment that killed Richmond's AFL season last year.
The Karmichael Hunt goal-after-the-siren that sealed a horror loss to Gold Coast in Cairns in round 16 is an obvious nomination.
Carlton's Brock McLean floating through a fluky long-range effort to inflict another last-gasp defeat a fortnight later deserves mention.
But it's perhaps a moment that slipped by unnoticed in the pre-season - Ty Vickery injuring his shoulder - that proved the biggest blow.
The forward-ruckman struggled through the first half of the season before more shoulder damage ended his year prematurely.
If the Tigers are to break the league's longest ongoing finals drought, stretching back to 2001, the 22-year-old 54-gamer looms as enormously important.
Ruckman Ivan Maric was the recruit of the year last season and Jack Riewoldt the Coleman Medallist.
But both will benefit enormously if Vickery regains the form and fitness which helped him to 36 goals while taking ruck stints in 2011.
"There's certainly players in sides that are important just even when they step on the field," Richmond coach Damien Hardwick told AAP.
"Ty is that to us.
"He provides Jack with a foil up forward but more importantly also he provides a good secondary ruck option with Ivan."
Vickery's absence and a dearth of other worthwhile ruck options meant the Tigers had to pretty much ruck Maric into the ground last year, Hardwick admits.
He was rested just once, but it proved disastrous.
Angus Graham, since traded to Adelaide, played his only AFL game of the year, without distinction, and the Tigers lost to the Suns.
Richmond have rookie-listed ex-Geelong big man Orren Stephenson to add ruck insurance this year.
The return of Vickery won't be the only crucial addition.
Squeezed between the agonising Gold Coast and Carlton defeats, the Tigers also sustained a four-point loss to North Melbourne last year, when Kangaroos star Drew Petrie tore the game apart with five last-term goals.
It exposed the Tigers' lack of key defensive depth.
That makes ex-Port Adelaide key backman Troy Chaplin this year's most important Tiger recruit.
If Dylan Grimes, whose past two seasons have been ruined by severe hamstring injuries, can benefit as much as the club believes he will from off-season surgery, it will be similarly beneficial.
Ben Griffiths and David Astbury, two more young big men coming off injury-blighted early careers, provide more backline depth.
AFL-experienced recruits, Aaron Edwards (from North Melbourne) and Chris Knights (Adelaide) add attacking options, with Edwards to help ease what Hardwick admits has been an over-reliance on Riewoldt.
A talented midfield doesn't need much bolstering, although draftee Nick Vlastuin looks capable of quickly slotting in.
New captain Trent Cotchin, runner-up in last year's Brownlow Medal, fellow All Australian Brett Deledio and Shane Tuck are all coming off excellent seasons.
Hardwick expects even more from Cotchin this year, with improved midfield depth freeing him to do more damage on the outside of packs and up forward.
The coach is also tipping a big year from Dustin Martin, who has increased his fitness while the off-field disciplinary concerns that cost him a club suspension last year are seemingly in hand.
It's hard to be too bullish about Richmond's finals prospects, given their history of disappointing over the past three decades.
But with no notable off-season player losses, many players young enough to improve, none old enough to look like tailing off and smart recruiting, Hardwick believes they have created a list capable of ending the drought.
"We're coming into an opportunity," he said.
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