Tigers not firm on pre-season pick
3:50:21 PM Tue 29 November, 2005
Tony Greenberg
richmondfc.com.au
Richmond is yet to finalise its plans for the AFL’s pre-season draft on December 13.
The Tigers, who passed on their fourth pick at last Saturday’s National Draft (selection 67 overall) may opt for a rookie ahead of a proven player in the pre-season draft, or they may not even participate.
“Our pre-season draft choice is still up in the air at the moment,” said the Club’s Director of Football Greg Miller.
“We may find a rookie that we think is worth taking as a pre-season pick – we may not. We may even go left field on that. It’s something we’re continuing to weigh up.
“We’re considering all possibilities . . . we’re not declaring who we’re taking, or if we’re taking anyone at all.
“As I said, it doesn’t exclude one of our rookies, who we think instead of waiting to take at choice five in the rookie draft, we could take at choice five in the pre-season draft . . .”
Richmond held a ‘rookie-search’ day at Punt Road last Sunday to help narrow its selection options at the rookie draft, which also will take place on December 13 (following the pre-season draft).
The Tigers put 35 young players through a series of programs, including strength, speed, endurance and ball work, under the watchful eye of coach Terry Wallace.
“With the knowledge that we already had of these boys, combined with what we learned from Sunday, we were able to reduce our list of draft possibilities down from 35 to about a dozen. They’ll form the basis of our rookie draft plans,” Miller said.
“Certainly, it won’t stop us from watching rookie prospects training at other clubs, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on the dozen we’ve pinpointed training with us over the next couple of weeks in the lead-up to the December 13 rookie draft.”
http://richmondfc.com.au/default.asp?pg=news&spg=display&articleid=238895