Trade winds blow strongest at Punt Road Rohan Connolly
The Age
March 14, 2014 - 3:51PM As the final quarter of Richmond’s practice match against Essendon wound down at Punt Road last week, there seemed to be a recurring theme.
Shaun Grigg and Bachar Houli were two of the Tigers’ three most prolific ball-winners. New recruit Matt Thomas was fourth. Another off-season pick-up, Shaun Hampson, was strong in the ruck, and redhead Todd Banfield busy up forward.
Suddenly, No.15 swooped on the ball and very efficiently slotted another goal. A score of casual watchers glanced down at their team sheets to check for the accompanying name and collectively had their memories jogged by the skill of forgotten man Chris Knights.
Six Tigers, all of them having launched their AFL careers elsewhere. But that’s not even half of the ''foreign legion” at coach Damien Hardwick’s disposal this season. Richmond has 13 senior or rookie-listed players on its books - just on 30 per cent of its entire playing list - who have played at other AFL clubs.
Troy Chaplin, Aaron Edwards, Nathan Gordon, Ivan Maric, Anthony Miles, Ricky Petterd and Orren Stephenson round out the ring-ins, making the Tigers the official leaders of the AFL’s used-model market. And when they take on Gold Coast on Saturday night to open their season, many will be playing key roles.
Certainly former Blue Grigg and former Bomber Houli, both coming off consecutive top 10 best-and-fairest finishes. And Chaplin, recently voted into the club’s leadership group, alongside another recycled player, former Crow Maric.
The latter’s injury is a major loss, but one the Tigers hope to cushion a little with another former Blue in Hampson, who is making his official debut in yellow-and-black. Thomas, meanwhile, is being tipped to get the critical run-with role on Gary Ablett against the Suns.
Richmond has for two years filled the bulk of its rookie list with senior/experienced players. In the 2012 draft period, it was Petterd, Stephenson and the now-retired Sam Lonergan. Last year’s drafts delivered Thomas, Banfield and Miles.
“We’ve decided to go down the path of protection [for the senior list] with our rookie picks,” says Richmond football manager Dan Richardson. “And we’ve held on to our earlier picks [in the national draft], but been prepared to trade middle picks to acquire players from other clubs based on need.
“I think clubs are realising - and Sydney has been terrific at it - that if you restrict yourself to rebuilding only through the national draft, history says it takes six years on average. I think as a competition we’ve become a bit impatient with that, and want to see improvement at a more rapid rate.”
St Kilda is second on the trade-in list with a dozen players on its books who have played senior AFL football elsewhere, with Greater Western Sydney, thanks to the recent influx of Heath Shaw, Shane Mumford, Josh Hunt and Dylan Addison, coming in third with 10.
At the other end of the scale is Essendon (four), while Geelong has just three – Josh Caddy, Jared Rivers and Hamish McIntosh.
The Cats have been able to eschew the recycled route over their greatest era thanks to the tremendous success of their drafting between 1999 and 2002, which delivered a crop of champions that was the foundation of their three premierships over five seasons between 2007-11.
But Caddy, Rivers and McIntosh all arrived during the 2012 trade and draft period, and Geelong recruiting and list manager Stephen Wells says that’s unlikely to be a one-off for the Cats.
“We’re all gearing ourselves for the impact free agency will have in years to come, and it’s highly likely there will be more people changing clubs,” he says. “It definitely hasn’t been a deliberate strategy [to stick with their own]. Our total player payments have been pretty tight, and we’ve wanted to keep the players we’ve already had, but we’re open to recruits from other AFL clubs all the time.”
Every club would love to breed the sort of dynasty Wells was able to help deliver the Cats, concedes Richardson. “But let’s face it, Richmond had some relatively poor drafts for a while, and when that happens, you don’t necessarily get the chance to bring a whole group of players through.
“There’s always risks in recruiting. It’s never going to be an exact science, whether you draft an 18-year-old or a player who has been on another list before. But if you’re clear on the sort of role you want a player to fill and you do the sort of character analysis our list manager Blair Hartley does, I think there’s a pretty good chance of a player from another club being a good player for your team.”
For Richmond romantics, there’s certainly a back to the future feel about it all. The likes of Ian Stewart, Paul Sproule, Robbie McGhie and Stephen Rae all arrived from other clubs to help land a couple of famous flags in the early 1970s.
How sweet it would be for the Tiger army were their latest foreign legion to play a pivotal role in winning another long-awaited premiership four decades on.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/trade-winds-blow-strongest-at-punt-road-20140314-hvioq.html
