Richmond trio on brink of joining elite clubThe Australian
September 28, 2017
GREG DENHAM
Senior Sports Writer MelbourneBy Saturday night three Richmond players could join an elite club by becoming premiership players in their first season with a new team.
Ruckman Toby Nankervis, 23, is the youngest and most inexperienced of the trio, having played just 12 games with Sydney in two seasons before signing with the Tigers on a three-year deal last October.
Teammate Dion Prestia was recruited at the same time after 95 games with Gold Coast, as was Josh Caddy, who had played the same number of matches with Geelong.
All three were identified to fill a need at Punt Road, particularly Nankervis in light of the long-term back injury to Shaun Hampson. Prestia would complement a midfield that already contained stars Trent Cotchin and Dustin Martin, while Caddy added a goalkicking ability to go with his midfield roles.
Richmond general manager of football operations Neil Balme told The Australian Nankervis was a priority last year after playing just eight games for the Swans in 2016 due to their stockpile of ruckmen ahead of him in the pecking order — Sam Naismith, Kurt Tippett and Callum Sinclair.
“He’s a good, competitive kid who wasn’t getting much of an opportunity with the Swans,” Balme said. “There wasn’t a lot of hassle with his recruitment.”
Hawthorn defender James Frawley became the 14th player since 2000 to be presented with a premiership medal in his first season with a new club in 2015. He switched clubs from Melbourne after choosing the Hawks over Geelong and Fremantle.
Premiership teams throw up some remarkable stories and the Hawks’ three-peat provided some of the best. Just when Buddy Franklin was considered the most likely to be the 13th player to achieve the feat in 2014 in his first year with the Swans, up jumped Hawks ruckman Ben McEvoy in his first season away from St Kilda.
McEvoy replaced the unlucky Jonathon Ceglar in the grand final despite not playing at senior level for six weeks.
The previous year former Western Bulldogs defender Brian Lake joined the Hawks in the twilight of his career. Not only did he win a flag in the first of his three years with Hawthorn and a Norm Smith Medal to boot for his best-afield effort against the Dockers, but he won flags in all three years with Hawthorn.
In the first of the Hawks’ three-in-a-row flags, midfielder Jonathan Simpkin created a fairytale like no other when he earned a premiership medal 12 months after being discarded by Geelong. In a rare achievement, Simpkin got the call-up after playing in a VFL premiership six days earlier for the Hawks’ affiliate club Box Hill.
Mitch Morton joined the exclusive club in 2012 in his first year for third club Sydney after playing for West Coast and then Richmond. His two-goal grand final performance helped the Swans to a 10-point win over Hawthorn.
In 2010 Luke Ball got in on the act when he helped guide Collingwood to a premiership in their replay win over St Kilda in his first season away from the Saints, where he was their captain for two seasons.
Even more remarkably, ruckman Darren Jolly achieved the feat twice, at Sydney and Collingwood. In 2005 in his first season since leaving Melbourne, he was part of Sydney breaking a 72-year premiership drought in the Swans’ four-point win over West Coast. And in 2010 in his first year at Collingwood, he was a key player in the Pies’ 15th flag.
In what has proved to be a brilliant off-season for Tigers list manager Blair Hartley since their 13th-placed finish last year, Nankervis was snapped up after the Tigers traded away the overall 45th selection in last year’s national draft. The Swans used that pick to select Victorian teenager Jack Maibaum, who is yet to play a senior game.
Nankervis has played every game this season, bar one, when he was suspended for the loss against the Bulldogs in round seven. The Richmond ruckman was found guilty of carelessly striking Adelaide’s David Mackay in the head in the previous round. It will be interesting to see if Mackay holds a grudge when the pair meet on Saturday in the first clash between the two clubs since.
Nankervis’s stamina has allowed him to operate almost alone all year in the ruck with brief rests, but that has not worried him in the slightest. “That’s when I play my best footy … I love that responsibility, fulfilling my role for the team, which is what I try and do every week,” he said this week. “I want to put in a big contest in the ruck and then get after it on the ground. It’s pretty simple for me.”
The Tigers ruckman is credited this year with 565 hit-outs. Next best in their grand final line-up is forward Jack Riewoldt with 12.
Nankervis will go head to head with in-form Adelaide big man Sam Jacobs in the grand final, where he will concede height but not weight to the Crows ruckman. Nankervis is three centimetres shorter, but 4kg heavier.
“He’s an elite tap ruckman but he’s also good around the ground,” Nankervis said. “He can take a good mark, he can go forward and kick a goal and his follow-up work is pretty awesome as well. He’s got so many strings to his bow.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/afl/richmond-trio-on-brink-of-joining-elite-club/news-story/3943d0603f863456fe2c98c01f92c167
