TRUE COST OF BOLD TIGERS TRADES BEGIN TO EMERGE AMID ‘END OF ERA’ FEARSBen Waterworth and Max Laughton
Foxsports
17 April 2023When Richmond traded away three first-round draft picks to acquire Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper on seven-year contracts at decent coin, the club’s message to fans seemed clear: We’re still in the premiership race.
Five rounds into the 2023 season and the Tigers’ win-loss record (1-3-1), on top of a lengthy injury list, suggest making finals this year might be a stretch. And the impact of the ex-Giants duo – despite their impressive numbers – continues to be heavily scrutinised.
Inside midfielders Hopper and Taranto were brought to the Tigers to address the club’s contested ball and clearance issues. While the duo are among Richmond’s top four players in both categories after five games, the Tigers remain a bottom-eight club for both contested possession and clearance differential.
Taranto (34 disposals) and Hopper (32) were among the Tigers’ top ball-winners on Friday night, but the Sydney Swans won the contested possession and clearance counts handsomely in their 44-point win.
“I just don’t feel that they hurt the opposition enough,” dual premiership Crow Mark Bickley declared on SEN’s Crunch Time.
“You pick up the stats sheet … I just don’t feel like you’re sitting there thinking ‘these guys are cutting apart them apart through the midfield. When (Swans star) Chad Warner gets it and he bursts away and he breaks lines, you feel like he’s hurting the opposition. I don’t say that about those other two.”
Coach Damien Hardwick suggested post-game he had bigger issues than Taranto and Hopper’s outputs.
“They’re going well, they’re using the ball well, gaining possession and winning contested ball like we want them to. But all the pieces are not quite gelling at the moment,” Hardwick told reporters.
“Some of that is selection-based, injury-based. But the fact of matter is we need to be playing better than what we are at the moment, so we’ll get to work on it and make sure we see a better result next week.”
To acquire Hopper and Taranto from the Giants, though, the Tigers had to give up significant draft capital.
They gave away Picks 12 and 19 – the former selection was ultimately part of the four-team mega trade that helped the Giants selected Aaron Cadman at Pick 1, while Pick 19 was essentially used to draft exciting utility Max Gruzewski – for Taranto, while they parted with their own 2023 first-round selection and Pick 31 of the 2022 draft for Hopper.
After one Richmond win from five rounds, that 2023 first-rounder is Pick 4. Whether Hopper, in particular, was worth such a high draft pick, as well as a mid-second-round selection, is up for debate – especially because the top-end of this year’s talent crop is rated higher by recruiters compared to recent past draft classes.
Yes the Tigers could still flip their fortunes over their remaining 18 home and away matches. But if they don’t, they could fall victim to the risks of playing the futures market.
“There’s a reason the Giants kept Tom Green and let these two go,” five-time premiership Hawk Dermott Brereton told Crunch Time.
“I think they’re tremendous players … but neither of them truly run the lines.
“The Giants viewed their pecking order as Tom Green No. 1 – and he’s the last on the scene – then Hopper then Taranto. That’s no slight on them … they just thought: ‘We’ve got three blokes to do the one job. Let’s keep the one we think is the best and he’s the youngest.’”
Port Adelaide premiership player Kane Cornes declared on Friday night the loss to the Swans “felt like the end of an era” for the Tigers.
“I was really perplexed by the moves that they made in the off-season. It was a significant risk and a risk I think is really going to damage the future of the football club,” Cornes told AFL Nation.
“It’s not going to be Damien Hardwick’s problem – because the likelihood of him being there for over 20 years is unlikely when these Hopper and Taranto deals expire (in seven years’ time) – but right now with Richmond’s ladder position, the pick for Jacob Hopper is well inside the top five or six. So that’s going to hurt.
“You’ve also given away three other first-round draft picks, you’ve got some ageing players … They’ve got real concerns.”
While Brereton said he would judge the Tigers with more certainty once some of their better players returned from injury, he suggested their recent list decisions – considering their age profile – were akin to the moves Hawthorn made after their three-peat.
“It sounds like it’s almost a history of my team that I love, Hawthorn, with O’Meara and Tom Mitchell, Wingard, even Jarman Impey … getting players like that in,” Brereton said on Saturday morning.
“For what you give up, you want core players. Are they top-up players or will they be core to your survival and progression? I’m a hold and wait and see at the moment on this.”
Bickley pointed out West Coast made a similar call when it essentially parted with two first-round picks, as well as an early second, to acquire Tim Kelly from Geelong.
Co-host Gerard Whateley pondered: “I think the question that sits on Hopper and Taranto right now is are they Mitchell and O’Meara, who have come when you’re grasping at it one more time but it actually is gone?”
The Tigers’ decision in 2016 to give up Pick 6 for Dion Prestia from Gold Coast received heavy criticism at the time. Three flags and a best and fairest in a premiership year later, it’s fair to suggest the deal was worthwhile.
But the timing is important to remember, because the Prestia trade was struck before the Tigers were considered flag threats. The Hopper and Taranto deals came two years after Richmond had won in its third flag and four seasons.
While it’s early doors, a Hawthorn or West Coast-like fall after such bold trades will be heavily scrutinised.
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