AFL Draft: Richmond Tigers made plenty of mistakes early in the draft

Mick Stirling

AFL Draft: Richmond Tigers made plenty of mistakes early in the draft image

In the days leading up to the AFL draft Sporting News is taking a look at each club’s selections, needs, likely draftees and historical performance on draft day.

Do they like to load up on youth, or prefer to trade away early picks?

Will they lean towards home-grown talent or trust their systems to stop homesick kids leaving in a couple of years’ time?

MORE: Richmond Tigers' 2018 season review

And what’s on this year’s shopping list: talls, midfielders or a creative small forward?

RICHMOND TIGERS

Draft picks after the trade period: 17, 37, 64, 68, 74, 92

What Richmond needs

A trade period that saw Tom Lynch come in and a bevy of depth players go out sees the emphasis move from key forwards to midfielders at Tigerland.

#Tom Lynch

The elite onballers are still at the club, but the loss of Reece Conca, Corey Ellis, Anthony Miles and Sam Lloyd doesn’t leave a lot in reserve, so running players capable of doing their apprenticeship in the back half will be a priority. There’s still no shortage of smalls up forward.

The ruck is another area of ongoing concern at Richmond as Toby Nankervis continues to shoulder the great bulk of the load. 

Ivan Soldo and young Callum Coleman-Jones are capable footballers, but another understudy in the system wouldn’t hurt.

Richmond’s likely draftees

The Tigers did well with pick 17 last year, snatching Jack Higgins, and they’ll back themselves to get it right again.

Luke Valente is the type of midfielder Richmond has been targeting of late – hard working, ball winning and a natural leader. He captained the South Australian side to victory at the under-18 championships and impressed all good judges along the way.

Luke Valente

Victorian Xavier Duursma is another that would seem right in yellow and black. Duursma will be an AFL midfielder in time, but has the game to be able to do a more-than-serviceable job as a running defender while he bulks up .

Xavier Duursma

This year’s draft bolter could well be Sam Sturt, a natural forward with a beautiful left boot. Sturt started the year low in draft calculations but finished the year on a high and could catch the eye of the Tigers.

Richmond’s draft history 1986 – 2017

Number of top-20 selections: 39

Average games played at the Tigers by top-20 selections: 74.5

Most games played for the Tigers by a top-20 selection
249 Jack Riewoldt (pick 13, 2006)
243 Brett Deledio (pick 1, 2004)
220 Trent Cotchin (pick 2, 2007)

#Jack Riewoldt

Most games played for the Tigers by later selections
297 Wayne Campbell (pick 29, 1989)
282 Matthew Richardson (father-son, 1992)
268 Chris Newman (pick 55, 2000)

Wayne Campbell

Most games played by rookie draft selections:
188 Greg Tivendale (1998)
154 Nathan Foley (2005)

Greg Tivendale

In AFL draft history Richmond …

… took a long time before they started getting it right with the top picks, with only one of their first 15 top-20 selections getting past 75 games. Richard Lounder’s four games after being taken with the number-one selection in 1987 is still a low point in draft history.

Mick Stirling