A lot has been made of how he wants to go back to Adelaide. Personally, I'd book him a first class ticket outta here. He isn't an essential player. We could get another ruckman at a third of the price to do the same job without having hype surround him.
I'm not saying he is a useless player, but neither is he necessary to our team.
If I was Brad Ottens I'd probably want to go back to Adelaide too if I was getting the kind of support and development i was getting at Richmond. The problem isn't Ottens, it's how he is being developed that is the criminal act here. A champion is being ruined here by incompetent masters and if you think a ruckmen with a third of the price of Ottens is going to do any better you are kidding yourself because that new Ruckmen will still have the same incompetent coaches and will never turn into anything remotely successful. Ottens isn't the one that needs to be gotten rid of, the coaches are the targets that need to be shot from guns and only then will Ottens and others too will have the opportunity to forfill there full potential.
Rodge, then tell me why Ottens had a good year in 2001 under the admittedly incompetant Frawley? Why hadn't Frawley stunted his potential there?
Ottens strikes me as a confidence player, and if he was in a good team he'd probably be a star. But I don't think he is the type of player who burns with desire to turn the tables when things are going bad, as they are at Richmond. In my opinion, a player's character comes to the fore in troubled times, when everything is shot to schit. We are experiencing those times now, and Ottens hasn't stepped up at all. I don't think he is mentally strong enough to thrive in an environment where he has to make something happen rather than just rely on playing in a good team to kick start everything. He is too lackadaisical and lacks any killer instinct whatsoever.
If we improve as a team, I'm pretty sure we'd start seeing his form improve too. But seeing that we are probably going to be cellar dwellers for the next 3 years, i don't think we will get anything out of him in that time but the same limp wristed tap outs and taking the occasional good grab, as he is doing now.