THE SLIDING DOORS SCENARIO INVOLVING MULTIPLE CLUBS THAT SAW COTCHIN END UP AT RICHMONDAndrew Slevison
SEN
15 June 2023Former Richmond coach Terry Wallace has recalled a sliding doors moment which would result in the club being able to draft Trent Cotchin.
It was Round 22 of the 2007 season and the Tigers, who were on the bottom of the ladder, were preparing to play St Kilda at the MCG.
The scenario was this: If the Tigers won, they would hand Carlton picks 1 and 2 in that year’s National Draft after the Blues were given a priority selection.
Just two points separated the Tigers and Blues, who were set to play third-bottom Melbourne the following day.
Wallace entered the match keen to avoid victory, knowing very well how good a player the then-Northern Knights and Vic Metro midfielder Cotchin would turn out to be.
It was a tense afternoon for ‘Plough’ and his coaching staff, but luckily for the future of the Tigers, the Saints got the job done by 10 points.
“We knew exactly what we were playing for. We were playing for Trent Cotchin on that day,” Wallace said on SEN’s Whateley.
“St Kilda got about six goals in front of us late in the second quarter and I thought, ‘Phew, we’re not going to have to deal with the innuendo’. Well, wouldn’t you know, in the last half here we come.
“We started coming back, we had Joel Bowden and Chris Newman dominating across half-back and our boys were on the march. We got back to level and I turned around to the boys in the box - and it might have been seen as the wrong thing to do - and said, ‘We’ve just got to let them play. Don’t do anything smart, don’t do anything overboard, just let them play out the last 12 or 13 minutes and what will be will be’.
“Fraser Gehrig ended up kicking the last two goals of the game and the Saints got up by 10 points and the rest is history.
“It was a stressful time, I knew what we were playing for but got no direction from board or management about what was the right or wrong thing to do in that scenario.
“I knew from watching him first-hand how important ‘Cotch’ would be for us.”
Wallace further laid out the scenario which may have given Carlton the first two picks of the 2007 draft and how West Coast could have been involved if that game against the Saints panned out differently.
It centred around the Blues’ recruitment of Chris Judd in the trade that saw Josh Kennedy and a high draft pick head the other way to the Eagles.
If the situation turned out differently, Cotchin would have ended up an Eagle.
“If we had have won the game, it would have delivered Matthew Kreuzer and pick 2 to Carlton,” he added.
“It was the same year that Chris Judd came across from the West Coast Eagles in what ended up being Josh Kennedy and pick 3, would have been Kennedy and pick 2.
“So Trent Cotchin would have played his career at the West Coast Eagles.
“Carlton were fully invested in Judd so the pick 2 or 3 was going to the Eagles regardless. It ended up being Chris Masten who was a big jump down from where Cotch was at the time.
“Cotch and Kennedy would have been marching their way across the Nullarbor and playing over in the west.”
As Wallace said, the rest was history.
Cotchin would go on to be Richmond’s longest serving captain, leading the club to three premierships in 2017, 2019 and 2020.
He plays his 300th game, coincidentally against the Saints, at the MCG this Saturday night.
https://www.sen.com.au/news/2023/06/15/the-sliding-doors-scenario-involving-multiple-clubs-that-saw-cotchin-end-up/
