AFL 2023: Richmond should consider trading Dustin Martin to Gold Coast, writes Mark Robinson

Trent Cotchin is gone, Jack Riewoldt is gone, it’s time for the Tigers to consider whether or not they need Dustin Martin, or whether they need draft capital, writes Mark Robinson.

Richmond’s Dustin Martin. Picture: Michael Klein

As unsettling as it would be for Tigers fans, Richmond has to consider a trade for Dustin Martin.

And Gold Coast is the logical destination.

The Damien Hardwick link can’t be ignored, nor the fact the Suns have a desire to recruit Martin and have the cap space to accommodate his estimated $1.3 million salary.

Martin’s camp has indicated, without confirming, that Martin will see out the final year of his contract at the Tigers.

“I’d like to see him play his 300th at Richmond,’’ his manager Ralph Carr told this masthead a week ago.

The pair have scheduled a holiday in America at the end of the season, starting first in Las Vegas to attend a boxing event.

The plans ahead for the triple Norm Smith medallist will be on their agenda.

Richmond, too, has to make plans.

The golden era is over. Trent Cotchin, who is Martin’s close friend, has retired. Jack Riewoldt might follow suit. And Dylan Grimes, the 32-year-old captain, must be weighing up whether to retire or not.

The Tigers are five or six years away from contending, according to Fox Footy’s Jordan Lewis, and need a drastic list overhaul.

The slash and burn list strategy which the AFL hates so much because it creates unwanted mediocrity may be back in vogue.

Carlton and North Melbourne stripped back savagely and couldn’t find momentum for many years, while Hawthorn did the same at the end of the 2022 season and now Hawks coach Sam Mitchell is the toast of the town for his foresight and ability to regenerate his team.

Richmond, it appeared, tried to follow the Geelong strategy: Trade in to try to contend.

It hasn’t worked. Tim Taranto will probably win the best-and-fairest – from Martin – and Jacob Hopper’s season hasn’t been what it was hoped to be.

A loss to St Kilda reinforced why Richmond needs to start planning for a major rebuild. Picture: Michael Klein

The Tigers need draft picks.

Their first pick in this year’s national draft is pick 25. Their next is 44 and then 62.

What can they hope to pick with those selections? Maybe a gem at 25 and fingers crossed on the other two selections.

They need top-end talent.

The Suns have pick 4 – their current first-round draft selection – but need that selection and more for points to acquire their academy boys, key forward Jed Walter, ruckman Ethan Read and midfielder Jake Rogers.

One theory is the Suns could trade out pick 4 to secure enough later picks and draft points to land the trio.

But what if the Suns offered a future pick for Martin?

Say, a second-rounder next year?

The salary complicates the issue. The higher the pick, the higher the cost. If, for example, the Suns offered next year’s first-round selection, they would ask the Tigers to pay some of Martin’s salary. The same for a second-round selection, although the salary paid by the Tigers would slide down the scale.

That’s what played out with the Jack Bowes and pick 7 trade to Geelong.

Dustin Martin could be reunited with Damien Hardwick at Gold Coast. Picture: Michael Klein

A Martin trade would be purely a business decision.

Emotionally, fans would be in uproar.

Romantically, Martin playing 300-plus games for the yellow and black and retiring as possibly Richmond’s greatest ever player also can’t be ignored.

Martin’s done everything he can for the Tigers. He’s won flags, his won medals, he’s inspired old and young. But what’s left to achieve?

Trading out players at the end of their careers is not new – think Hodge, Mitchell and Lewis at the Hawks – but nor is it ideal for the champs and the fans. And Martin is a special player.

Of course, Martin would have to agree to the trade and Richmond would have to want to make the trade.

It all depends on whether Richmond are romantics or business-minded.

And whether Martin would like to join Hardwick at the Suns.

Make no mistake, the Suns would take Martin if they could make the deal work.

Originally published as AFL 2023: Richmond should consider trading Dustin Martin to Gold Coast, writes Mark Robinson