Tigers list their mistakesJake Niall
May 15, 2011
Cleve Hughes, Jarrad Oakley-Nichols and Travis Casserly. Photo: John DoneganTHE draft was designed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. But, in the quarter century since this cornerstone of AFL socialism was introduced, one club has consistently defied it.
It's not Geelong, which has won very often over the past five years and been the major beneficiary of the anomalous father-son rule. It's not West Coast, Essendon, Collingwood or Sydney, each of which has had its peaks and troughs, in accordance with the AFL's grand design.
The Richmond Football Club is the only club that's remained impervious to this system for spreading the wealth of talent. While one can make a case for Fremantle as a defier of the draft's physics (what goes up must go down and vice-versa), the nouveau Dockers have still played in more finals series in their 16 completed seasons than the Tigers have in 25.
Collingwood and the Saints are haunted by grand finals defeats, the Doggies by the failure to reach a grand final. The nightmare on Punt Road, however, stems from that one day in November, not September.
Seasoned Richmond fans shudder at the thought of Richard Lounder and Anthony Banik, botched No.1 selections in the formative early days of the draft (1987 and 1989), when, to be fair, it was still heavily compromised by recruiting zones, and wasn't the sole means of player distribution and exchange.
More recently, Aaron Fiora and Richard Tambling, picks three and four in strong drafts (1999 and 2004), have headed the litany of recruiting turkeys, along with Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls (pick No.8 ) from the national draft wipeout of 2005. Terry Wallace was arguably doomed from the outset by the fateful 2004 draft, in which five selections in the first 20 yielded only one player still on the club's list, No.1 pick Brett Deledio.
But the worst trauma for Richmond folk is those they didn't pick. The names called out immediately after Fiora and Tambling, famously, were Matthew Pavlich and Lance “Buddy” Franklin.
Recruiting blunders are Richmond's war stories, the common thread in the club's struggles since the 1982 grand final. Indeed, it was a recruiting war with Collingwood in the early and mid-1980s that triggered the Tigers' freefall from powerhouse to poor house, plunging the club into long-term debt. Some club insiders with a knowledge of the past reckon the effects of that episode still linger, debt having been a near-permanent part of the Richmond condition.
Today, as the Tigers strive for the once-in-a-blue-moon scenario of a fourth consecutive win, they are enjoying the unfamiliar fruits of recruiting success, of a recruiting philosophy that Damien Hardwick summarised as “good kicks and character”.
“Damien's first wish for recruiting was that they have good kicks and character,” said Richmond football operations chief Craig Cameron, who arrived at the club in 2008 as list manager and has presided over a huge increase in recruiting resources. Hawthorn, where Alastair Clarkson cut his coaching teeth, had placed a premium on kicking ability under Clarkson.
The Richmond recovery has been led by astute selections and list management. “Recruiting is number one,” Richmond president Gary March said of the factors contributing to the team's sudden, somewhat unexpected improvement. ”But don't underestimate development.”
A playing list widely rated the competition's worst just 12 months ago (when this writer suggested they lobby for AFL draft help) still has plenty of holes, but its strengths — pace, an emerging midfield, a gun key forward and the four pillars of Jack Riewoldt, Dustin Martin, Trent Cotchin and Brett Deledio — are becoming increasingly evident.
The recovery has gathered pace since Hardwick's appointment, but it actually began three years earlier, when recruiting boss Francis Jackson went full-time. The Tigers have nailed their first choices since 2006, drafting Riewoldt, Cotchin, Tyrone Vickery, Martin and Reece Conca, the latter having played every game to date, performing at a level club insiders say is comparable to the precocious Martin in his first season (last year).
Their second choice from last year, Jake Bachelor, has played six of seven games this season and shown promise. Their third pick, Brad Helbig, has managed four games. Dylan Grimes, a sinewy tall defender picked in the pre-season draft of last year, is showing an aptitute for disciplined spoiling after he was pushed around by leviathan key forwards Franklin and Travis Cloke earlier this year.
Accustomed to ridicule for those it overlooked, the Tigers have found themselves in the unfamiliar position of hearing supporters of rivals ask the question, “why didn't we pick him?” Jack Riewoldt, No. 13 in 2006, is seen as one who got away from several clubs, while Martin has been better performed, at this early stage, than either of his numerical betters at Melbourne, Tom Scully or Jack Trengove. For the Tigers, the recruiting boot is finally on the other foot.
Luck plays a large part in recruiting, since your choice is limited by what's left — Melbourne enabled Richmond's decision to draft Martin, just as Hawthorn and St Kilda handed Chris Judd to the Eagles in 2001. But Richmond's recruiting renaissance is no accident, the club having coughed up the dollars to employ a recruiting team of three full-timers, plus opposition analyst Blair Hartley, who focuses on AFL players and was instrumental in the acquisitions of Shaun Grigg from Carlton and Bachar Houli from the Bombers.
Remarkably, the man who heads up recruiting, ex-Richmond and South Melbourne defender Jackson, was calling out the since-discarded names of Oakley-Nicholls, Cleve Hughes and Travis Casserly in the 2005 strike out. Then, Jackson was working as a teacher at Brighton Grammar and was a very part-time recruiter at Richmond, which spent only a five figure sum on recruiting at a time when Collingwood was investing more than 15 times that amount on finding talent. Jackson was the recruiting department, though football director Greg Miller compensated for the club's scant resources by doing much of the leg work.
“We saw the issue as as one of resources and were confident in Francis,” said Cameron, who came to Richmond initially as list manager for the 2008 season and was recruiting boss at Melbourne for a decade. Cameron estimated that the recruiting budget had increased at least tenfold since 2005.
Forced to choose where to spend scarce dollars, the Tigers opted to cut player payments in 2009 to pay for the increase in recruiting and development; in that year, they added two full-timers to the recruiting team. Whereas Melbourne focused exclusively on “debt demolition”, the Tigers have made their pitch to well-heeled supporters mainly about funding football to a premiership level. Today, it is an easy sell.
“The decision was we needed to be properly structured and funded to handle the number of recruits coming in,” Cameron said of the post-2009 period, when the Tigers discarded a staggering 14 players from their senior and rookie lists, bravely loading up on picks in a non-premium draft which was slightly diluted by Gold Coast concessions. “And to do that we needed to reduce our player payments at that stage.”
Cameron said Hardwick's “kicks and character” motto was “reflected right through the draft”. Players taken at the back-end, such as Ben Nason and Jeromey Webberly, are considered decent kicks. Martin is an exceptionally long and accurate kick, while the draft class of 2010 — Conca, Bachelor, Helbig and 2009's Ben Griffiths — are all proficient by foot.
On the character question, there has been one notable occasion when the Tigers stepped outside of their own guidelines — when they drafted the talented but troubled Troy Taylor, the Northern Territory lad who proved unable to cope with football's rigors and his own personal demons. It may well prove a teaching moment for the club. Fortunately, the Taylor experiment cost Richmond only pick No.?51 in 2009, not a first or second rounder.
The Richmond tribe is excited by the blossoming of Martin, Cotchin et al. In terms of progress, Richmond might be comparable to Carlton a couple of years ago, when the Blues — with a similar midfield bias in their early choices — began to rise with the draft's natural tide, as No.?1 picks coalesced with Judd. Yet, it's only when former unheralded rookies such as Michael Jamison and Jeff Garlett have shone that they've had the look of an imminent contender.
For the far more tortured Tigers, who've seen five minutes of September sunshine — two finals series — since the Pies fired the first shots in the recruiting wars at the end of 1982, there's a sense of realism about where they stand. Cameron acknowledges the playing list still has plenty of potholes that require repair. To a degree, all they've done of late is let the system work for them, without stuffing up.
“No one here is getting ahead of themselves,” said Cameron. “Everyone at the club understands we're a long way off where we need to be but we're taking steps to resource the football area, to build a list that can contend.”
Richmond's latent legions are at the ready. Build it and they will come.
The Tiger's tale: first round draft choicesYear pick player Games for Richmond
1986 4 Richard Anderson 0
1987 1 Richard Lounder 4
1988 5 Chris Naish 143
1989 1 Anthony Banik 49
1990 4 traded for Terry Keays (Coll) 25
1991 3 traded for Steven O'Dwyer (Melb) 5
1992 7 Wayne Hernaman 20
Metropolitan zones abolished in 1992,it brings less compromised drafts
1993 3 Justin Murphy 12 (a further 173 at Carlton, Geelong and Essendon)
1993 6 traded with Jeff Hogg, for Paul Broderick, Michael Gale
Broderick 169
Gale 91
1994 11 Damien Ryan 30
1995 16 traded for Ben Holland (Fitz) 125
1996 16 Pat Steinfort 0
1997 2 Brad Ottens (pick from Freo, for Chris Bond, pick 21) 129
1998 8 traded for Rory Hilton (Brisbane Lions) 82
1999 3 Aaron Fiora 78
2000 9 Kayne Pettifer 113
2001 17 traded with Nick Daffy for Greg Stafford (Sydney) 74
2002 2 traded for Kane Johnson and pick 12 = Jay Schulz
(Jason Torney also traded and pick 18 secured)
Johnson 116
Schulz 71
2003 6 traded for Nathan Brown (WB) 82
2004 1 Brett Deledio 135
2004 4 Richard Tambling 108
2004 12 Danny Meyer (pick acquired from Geelong for Brad Ottens) 12
2004 16 Adam Pattison (pick acquired from Geelong for Brad Ottens) 61
2005 8 Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls 13
2006 13 Jack Riewoldt 75
2007 2 Trent Cotchin 49
2008 8 Tyrone Vickery 30
2009 3 Dustin Martin 28
2010 6 Reece Conca 7
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