Alex Rance leads the way in Richmond’s trademark values, so shouldn’t he be captain?JON RALPH
Herald Sun
September 14, 2016SEPARATE incidents across a remarkable weekend should make Richmond’s hierarchy think deeply as they navigate the path back to respectability.
After a season where the Tigers could have self-destructed, Neil Balme’s acquisition, Dion Prestia’s commitment and Focus of Footy’s ineptitude have dragged the Tigers back from the brink.
It doesn’t mean there aren’t massive decisions with real consequences ahead.
At Thursday’s Jack Dyer Medal count Alex Rance won the club’s Francis Bourke Award for the player who upholds the club’s trademarks values of “awareness, united, relentless and discipline”.
He accepted it for fourth time in a row and fifth time in six seasons on the same night he was unlucky to be beaten into second place in the best and fairest by Dustin Martin.
One of Balme’s first roles at Richmond is to consider the club’s player leadership model, so he is sure to consider the criteria for that award.
It makes fascinating reading given it seems to marry up with every principle an AFL captain should strive for.
Awareness is about a player’s ability to focus on teammates, disciplined and united is playing for the benefit of the team and relentless is about being bold in attacking the game.
If Rance is head and shoulders above the rest in helping others, carrying out the game plan and helping unite the team, why isn’t he Richmond’s captain?
Or at least Richmond’s co-captain for 2017, in concert with Trent Cotchin?
If clubs want their team to play in the mould of their captain, Rance is charismatic, inclusive and an on-field beast who plays aggressive, consistent win-at-all-costs football.
Last off-season so many pushed for Jack Riewoldt as the club’s captain, unaware he wasn’t in the five-man leadership group and by Richmond’s admission not that close to it either.
It is worth noting that one of Balme’s first steps when he arrived at Geelong late in 2007 was to make the decision to change the captain from Steven King to key defender Tom Harley.
Cotchin’s first two-thirds of the year were exceptional — playing courageously a week after a fractured cheekbone and the same week he spent time in hospital for an infection.
But if Balme is examining everything else in the football department might he find after four years as skipper, Cotchin is prepared to share the load or even lighten it by handing the mantle on?
Would giving him a year free of the myriad responsibilities of captaincy — or sharing them with Rance — actually help him be more productive when he crosses the line?
Across town on Sunday in the VFL Aaron Francis — Essendon’s No.6 pick from the 2015 draft — was again showing glimpses that he might end up the best of that amazing collection of talent.
He is just something else, with sure hands, a commanding presence and a bushy red beard that will give him a large slice of cult hero status in years to come.
The trick for Richmond is to get Dion Prestia without handing over the No.6 selection it currently holds.
Given Richmond’s draft history, giving up pick 6 for a 23-year-old highly accomplished midfielder is an extremely solid play with little risk.
Retaining that pick 6 and also getting Prestia would probably take a trade that would include a draft pick and one or more of Brett Deledio and Brandon Ellis.
Neither seem inclined to go north, but given Gold Coast wants midfielders, would they accept a second round compensation pick (for Tyrone Vickery) as well as Ellis and Reece Conca or first-round pick Ben Lennon? Or a combination of some of those assets?
In this year’s best-and-fairest Shane Edwards finished 12th, Nick Vlaustin ninth, Ellis equal seventh, Tyrone Vickery 18th and Ben Griffiths 20th.
None of those positions are enough to exclude those high draft picks from the trade table given Richmond’s year from hell.
The bleeding has been stemmed at Richmond, but what the club does next will instruct whether it contend for finals as its coach hopes or is a bottom-four side as Kevin Bartlett predicts.
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