From Jordan McMahon to Chris Yarran, the least successful trade deals in Richmond history
Dion Prestia, Josh Caddy and Toby Nankervis were genius trades that have helped Richmond win two premierships. But it wasn’t always that way. Here are five deals that didn’t work out.
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Richmond’s 2019 premiership was a triumph of smart recruiting.
Dylan Grimes and Bachar Houli were pre-season draft picks, Kane Lambert, Jayden Short and Jason Castagna were rookies and trades for Dion Prestia, Josh Caddy and Toby Nankervis were masterstrokes.
But it wasn’t always that way.
Every club has some skeletons in their trade closet they would prefer to keep in the dark, and the Tigers were up there with the best (worst?).
These moves must have seemed like good ideas at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight here are five moves we think the Tigers regretted the most.
1. JORDAN MCMAHON FOR PICK 19
This goes down as one of the all-time trade regrets. McMahon was a half-back with a nice left boot, with his Tiger highlight a goal after the siren to defeat Melbourne in 2009.
But Richmond paid a huge price for the Bulldogs backman in the form of pick 19, which the Dogs used on a promising midfielder named Callan Ward. He played 60 games for the Dogs before being poached by GWS, but the Bulldogs received a compensation pick which they used to recruit Jack Macrae. McMahon, meanwhile, was delisted in 2010.
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2. CHRIS YARRAN FOR PICK 19
Richmond appeared to have scored a win when they held firm on the Blues’ demand for pick 12 for the silky defender, instead handing over pick 19 just before the trade deadline in 2015. Unfortunately, Yarran never added to his 119 AFL games as he was struck by mental health issues, sitting out the 2016 season then aborting a comeback the next year. He later revealed a harrowing ice addiction. In May this year he hit rock bottom when he was sentenced to five years in jail over a crime spree in WA.
3. BRAD OTTENS FOR PICKS 12 AND 16
When Terry Wallace arrived as Richmond coach at the end of 2004 the club identified Brad Ottens as a player with trade currency. The ruck/forward was sent to the Cats in a swap for picks 12 and 16, which the Tigers used on midfielder Danny Meyer and big man Adam Pattinson — who played a combined 92 games — while Ottens became a key figure in three Geelong premierships.
In hindsight, it wasn’t a great year to invest in the draft, with only one of Richmond’s five top-20 picks a clear success (Brett Deledio at pick 1). Wallace said later he had little say in the deal.
“He was gone virtually the day that I arrived, gone before I was even in the seat, but what happened when I arrived at the club they said the good news is we got two first-round picks for him,” he told SEN.
“So we’ll be able to realign the footy club with those picks, we sat down and went to the draft with picks 12 and 16. Within three years 12 and 16 were gone — so no longer did we have Brad Ottens or the players that were meant to be the 10-year replacements.
“It’s OK doing it, but if you’re going to do it you’ve got to get it right.”
4. JAY SCHULZ FOR MITCH FARMER
Schulz, the No.12 pick in the 2002 draft, showed glimpses of his potential and equal doses of
frustration in seven seasons at Tigerland. In 2009 Richmond sent the key forward to Port Adelaide in exchange for hard nut Mitch Farmer, who had played three games to that point.
He added another 28 at Richmond before being delisted, while Schulz became a reliable target for the Power over the next seven seasons, winning the club’s goalkicking four times.
5. 1980S TRADE WAR
The rules were very different 30 years ago and it’s hard to single out any one move, but the hatred between Richmond and Collingwood almost crippled the Tigers. When the Magpies lured Geoff Raines and David Cloke to Victoria Park after the 1982 season, Tiger powerbroker Graeme Richmond declared war. Richmond poached players including John Annear, Phillip Walsh, Wally Lovett, Neil Peart and Craig Stewart. “Graeme Richmond did a lot of great things for the club but the fact was he had past his use-by date in the early 1980s.
He had lost his grip on what was reality,” Raines told the Herald Sun in 2013. “It became crazy when the attitude was, ‘If they get one of ours then we will get one of theirs’. The moves didn’t help the Tigers on the field and almost drove the club to bankruptcy, only saved by the people-powered “Save our Skins” campaign in 1990.
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