Dylan Grimes’s mother believes Francis Jackson should receive credit for building premiership side
Dylan Grimes barely spoke for days after being overlooked for the draft, and some coaches said he was useless. Now the stopper has become a backline supremo. And according to his mum, it is all thanks to one man.
Richmond
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The email lobbed in the Herald Sun inbox from Dylan Grimes’ mother Cathy only days after this year’s premiership triumph.
Why doesn’t Richmond recruiter Francis Jackson get any love for building this premiership side, she asked?
Francis was this week feted with Richmond life membership as the recruiting boss who secured 16 players in the 2017 premiership side and trio more in this year’s bunch of flag heroes.
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And yet as Grimes’ mum Cathy Coonan says, the criticism came thick and fast given Richmond’s chequered recruiting history.
Incredibly, Richmond was so cash-poor in Jackson’s early years that he was a part-time recruiter whose main job was working as a teacher at Brighton Grammar.
Yet when rivals ignored Grimes, Francis and then-coach Terry Wallace saw enough in the spindly defender to invite him down to the Tigers.
This year Grimes was football’s most improved player, a supposed dour stopper who became a backline supremo.
Richmond was once the club where high draft picks came to die, and yet alongside Jackson receiving life membership was one-game premiership star Marlion Pickett.
Footy’s laughing stock now leads the charge when it comes to inventive and bold recruiting.
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“Terry Wallace’s son played with Dylan at the Northern Knights and when he missed out Terry and Francis invited him down,” Noonan recalled yesterday when the Herald Sun finally called her about that email.
“He had been told Hawthorn would take him in the early 40s and instead they called out G.R.I.M … but it was Grimley instead of Grimes. It was (Northern Knights teammate) Sam. Melbourne said they would take him as their last pick and they chose not to do that.
“He was absolutely gutted to the point where he basically took off. I didn’t hear from him for days.
“He would leave home before we all got up and come home after we went to bed.
“That was on the Thursday. He finally acknowledged my text on the Sunday morning. I had said it wouldn’t define him and that I loved him and he said, “Thank you mum,” which made me cry.
“It was an awful time when he didn’t get in but through Francis and Terry he did the training and they took him in the pre-season draft.”
In those early 2000s footy was still an arms race and yet Richmond were paupers.
“Richmond pretty much flew him where they could but they couldn’t afford accommodation for him or for him to hire a car so he did a lot of it out of his pocket,” she said.
According to recent one comparison of those years, Collingwood’s recruiting budget was 15 times larger and yet Jackson found players like Shane Edwards (pick 26) as well as their array of current stars.
Jackson is now a recruiting officer as part of a team led by the recently promoted Blair Hartley with a list that includes Alex Rance (pick 18), Jack Riewoldt (pick 13) and the previously unwanted Sydney Stack and Kane Lambert.
Richmond’s only top-10 pick in the last nine national drafts has been Nick Vlastuin (pick nine).
And while every recruiter has busts the misfires like Reece Conca (No. 6) and Ben Lennon (No. 12) have been overwhelmed by the weight of value picks.
Coonan watched on this year and watched a son typecast as dour blossomed on-field and lauded for his leadership and work-life balance as he builds a Macedon winery with partner Elisha, who he married last month.
“Some coaches had told him horrible things, that he was useless. And to see him rise up and take on those challenged and become such a strong player in the league … well he won the league’s most courageous player award. That’s a pretty special moment.”