‘Not the job he signed up for’: Big ‘fear’ over Tigers coach as brutal rebuild laid bareWill Faulkner
Fox Sports
October 10th, 2024 As Richmond continue to manage the fallout of a mass premiership player exodus, concerns have been raised over the increasingly difficult task that coach Adem Yze now faces in 2025 and beyond.
Having taking the reins from three-time premiership coach Damien Hardwick this year, the Tigers managed just two wins in a year where the club was decimated by both injury and now a mass exodus of players retiring and requesting trades elsewhere.
And while there are no doubts over Yze’s prowess as a senior coach, the job at hand some believe may well be too much for any coach in his position.
Speaking on Fox Footy’s Trading Day, Glenn McFarlane expressed his fears over what the next couple of years may look like for Yze on the back of key playing departures.
“I fear for Adem Yze next year,” McFarlane begun by saying.
“They’re going to lose seven players; they’re losing the greatest player of all time (Dustin Martin), you’re losing a one-time captain in Dylan Grimes, you’re losing this year’s best-and-fairest winner (Daniel Rioli), your future captain in Liam Baker.
“This is not the job that Adem Yze signed on for.”
In addition to the quartet McFarlane flagged, the two-time premiership trio of Jack Graham (West Coast), Marlion Pickett (retired) and Shai Bolton (requested a trade to Fremantle) have established that they don’t want to be at Richmond in 2025.
The exodus comes after a frustrating year which saw the first-year coach dealt a run of injuries with players throughout all of 2024.
“He was stiff this year with injuries, that hurt him early on; coming in and all the injuries they had to senior players hurt the momentum for their season, they couldn’t recover from that,” Western Bulldogs great Brad Johnson added.
“If I was his management, I would be walking in the door and trying to get an appointment to talk about an extension.
“If we’re seriously looking at where they are at a football club now, he needs time to develop his list.
“He’s going to have all summer to put a game plan together with young kids and move forward; if that’s not showing something by half way (of next season), you’ll know whether this guy’s a good coach.” Trading Day panellist Scott Gullan added.
There is a world where Richmond own’s one-third of the top 24 picks in this year’s AFL draft, in what would be unprecedented with the exception of Gold Coast and GWS’ arrival into the competition.
RICHMOND’S 2024 DRAFT HAND (as of Thursday, October 8, 7am): Pick 1, 24, 32, 42, 43, 45, 51, 61, 70, 76
RICHMOND’S POTENTIAL 2024 DRAFT HAND: Pick 1, 6, 10, 14, 18, 20, 23, 24, 32, 42, 43, 45, 51, 61, 70, 76
“If you think about GWS and Gold Coast’s draft hands that they had at their peak (at their inception), that would be every bit better than any other club other than those two clubs,” McFarlane added.
For reference, GWS had 11 of the first 14 selections in the 2011 AFL draft, while Gold Coast had eight of the first 13 in 2010.
“With a draft hand like this, where he could have potentially four to five first-rounders of a draft that we’re all considering to be very good … you need three years then on top of that,” Johnson finished by saying.
“It’s tough to talk about where he’s at and where he’ll be in the future, because the (wins) won’t dictate his future unfortunately as a coach in the game; it’ll be more than that.”
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