Richmond - time for a rebuild?

[JackOutback]

I actually don't see it quite that way.
Sure we had a horrid year, but we had some really good excuses.

We had 4 to 6 VFL players left on our list for half a season almost. 5 ACL's is unheard of. Our entire midfield gone.
We had players like Martin running around far, far off his best and not really helping the side. Bolton and Baker were sort of gone already and were nowhere near their best. A new coach etc.

Our fully fit side is not devoid of talent. Vlastuin, Prestia, Taranto, Hopper, Short, Lynch, Balta, Nankervis and Broad are good to very good players. Players like Ross, Mansell, Ralphsmith, Brown, Miller, Rioli Jnr have shown they can play at the level. A lot of new faces got a go last year and at times looked good, Campbell, Banks, Trezise, McAuliffe, Lefau, Bauer, Blight, Green etc.

Lalor and Smillie are already our biggest mids, so physically ready to go. Not expecting too much but they will impact, no.1 picks usually do. Gibcus has shown he can play and will be back in training soon. 6 other 30 odd draftees will get games at times, but we will not be relying on them this year.

Injuries will make a difference. Lynch is in full training and has done a full preseason, his first in 3 seasons.
I don't expect us to rise much, but I think we will be a fair bit better than last season. No injuries at all apart from the rehab of the ACL, so a full list to choose from rd.1 (with some luck over the next 6 weeks or so).

Got to be honest, this sounds a lot like the more optimistic Eagles fans (of which I was one) at the end of 2022. We had legitimate reasons for the disaster of the season and a couple of bright spots. Didn’t make 2023 or 2024 any easier. Reckon Richmond have reset even harder, so a tough couple of years seems the minimum. But that’s what happens after sustained success at the top.

 

[juss]

Richmond hit the draft hard in 2021 taking five picks in the top 30.
This was meant to be the beginning of their rebuild, but none of these players are coming on as Richmond would have hoped.

Those guys are like 21 years old, unfortunately multiple of them have had significant injury setbacks, I would say Sonsie is probably the only one we'd be a little dissapointed in. Gibcus will be a good player if he can get fit, ditto Tom Brown is coming on nicely. Judson Clarke did an ACL but was showing promise. Banks is just average, but at 21 he's got loads of time to improve and you don't need a list of stars to win a flag, you need guys who can do a job or play a role.

Richmond took seven picks in the top 30 of the 2024 draft, but what happens if these players don't come on and the draft is a bust like the 2021 draft?

What happens if insert any team has a draft full of players that don't come on? You reasses and hit the next draft(s). Every pick is either hit or miss, but when you give yourself multiple picks you give yourself more chances to secure quality AFL players. The draft was supposedly well rated, it's the 2025 draft that is potentially not as well rated.

It could be the beginning of a long period in the wilderness similar to 1983-2016.

I mean, that's pretty dramatic, I don't think the 2024 draft will be tied to 30 years of mediocrity. The club as a whole is much better placed and run since those days.

Yze isn't a good coach either, as a player he was a flaky half back flanker who never tasted premiership success and he was a part of a loser culture at Melbourne.
The likes of Caroline Wilson will have the knives out for him soon enough, probably as soon as this year if Richmond look like winning another wooden spoon.

This is a pretty poor read, we know very little about Yze's coaching yet, and tying it to his ability or the type of player he was has no impact on whether he'll be a good coach or not. There's maybe some argument that not playing in a premiership has meant he hasn't had that direct environment experience at an AFL premiership team, but there's a lot of coaches around who fit that bill, I don't think it's the be all and end all of coaching, otherwise all clubs would just be hiring ex premiership players.

Also, just about every media pundit has us as a lock for the spoon, so there won't be any knives out if we are tracking that way, it is in many ways expected given we'll likely be playing a lot of inexperienced kids. So really, either Yze coaches a predicted spoon team to a spoon, or we do slightly better than that and he's done better than expected. There's not much for him to lose in 2025.

 

[Cdog71]

Also finished equal 3rd in the Brownlow medal too.

Equal with Crawford and Voss

 

[Cdog71]

Yze has not had the chance to be a bad coach, lol


looking better than Geelong

I can understand your getting edgy and nervous as a Geelong supporter.

I hope the mods do not keep you out because I fell for your fear for your Geelong team heading to the abyss and RFC potential down the track is frightening

Mate, it’s school holidays

 

[Freomaniac]

Brisbane Lions played in 4 GFs in a row, winning 3 flags from 2001-2004. The following season they finished 11th. For the next 14 seasons, except for 2009, they finished well down the ladder. They were fortunate to find talented players and form them into a premiership winning unit. Trouble is, while they were enjoying their success, they weren't able to draft quality juniors, and eventually all their senior players retired at the same time.

Hawthorn went through a similar period after their 3-peat, haven't played finals since 2018. Clarko understood he would lose a nucleus of the team all at once and tried weeding out senior players and bringing in younger ones. It didn't work, and now Mitchell is pretty much starting afresh.

I can see Richmond going through a similar period in the next couple of years. West Coast are in a similar position. Rebuilding takes courage, skill, and a lot of good fortune. Most football supporters don't understand this and just choose to ridicule, using the hackneyed old phrase "tanking". The bottom line is, somebody has to be near the bottom of the table, only the poorly run clubs are there for lengthy periods of time.

1st off Brisbane's 1999 to 2004 finals era was at least 20 years ago. A hell of a side. Even more remarkable they won 3 flags in a row as a non Victorian side.

They were never gonna get top 10 picks unless they traded a good player out like Des Headland to the dockers in 2002.

Dockers didn't win a flag but they had a solid finals run from 2012-15. They then dropped in 2016 as the squad was old.

West coast.... From 2014 to 2021. Not one year they had a top 10 picks. 2014 and 2021 , both years they finished 9th and had pick 11.

2015 to 2020, eagles made finals for 6 years in a row. No top 10 picks in that period.

Eagles finished bottom 2 in 2022. Traded that pick 2 and somehow ended up with picks 8 and 12.

Last time eagles got a top 10 picks before 2021 was 2013 when they finished 13th with pick 6.

As a dockers fan, I have no issues not having a top 10 picks for 3 years in a row, as long as dockers finish a bare minimum of 8th spot for 3 years in a row.

 

[Freomaniac]

Frawley, Wallace, Rawlings, Hardwick and McQualter.
That's five coaches and most likely to become six next year.
We've had two coaches in the same time frame and the last time we sacked a coach was in 1988.

This isn't the 1980s where Tony Jewell was sacked one year after the 1980 flag after finishing 7th. Or the time Richmond sacked a coach almost every year from 1981 onwards.

Those blokes you listed.... Frawley, Wallace and Hardwick all had at least 4 or 5 years.

They also had Robert walls and John Northey in the 1990s too.

Speaking of 1988, Richmond hired Kevin Bartlett at the end of 1988. They let him stay there until 1991.

 

[Taper]

They will be the next team to go back to back.

...


With spoons.

If Richmond win another spoon this year and Yze survives into 2026, he would want to start wearing raincoats to games in order to protect himself from the incoming saliva.