Old man Richo keeps rolling
richmondfc.com.au
By Tony Greenberg
Richmond champion Matthew Richardson will enter his 17th season of AFL football in 2009 as the oldest player in the competition.
Richardson, who debuted with the Tigers in 1993, turns 34 on March 19 next year, making him the league’s oldest player by a couple of months, ahead of Essendon defender Dustin Fletcher, who’ll turn 34 in May.
The recent retirements of Shane Crawford, Robert Harvey, Scott Burns, Scott West, Shane Wakelin and Peter Everitt means ‘Richo’ has now assumed the mantle of AFL football’s “eldest statesman”.
Richo also is in line to reach another couple of major milestones in 2009 . . .
If he plays 19 games, he will break the competition’s record for the most games in the No. 12 guernsey, which, ironically, is held by another Tigerland icon – Jack Titus (294 games).
And, Richo is just nine goals away from becoming only the 11th player in VFL/AFL history to crack the 800-goal barrier.
But he still has a fair way to go to break Titus’ long-standing record for the most goals scored by a league player wearing the No. 12 guernsey . . . Titus kicked 970 goals in his 294 games, which also makes him No. 1 on Richmond’s all-time goalkicking list.
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