Trent Cotchin opens up ahead of his 300th game on his future, his journey and how he’s still “uncomfortable” with his Brownlow status

Being referred to as a Brownlow Medallist has never sat well with Trent Cotchin. He opens up about how he won the award and his relationship with Jobe Watson.

Trent Cotchin with his children Harper (left), Mackenzie (middle) and Parker (right) before his 300th game. Picture: Michael Klein.

Trent Cotchin says his mind changes fortnightly on whether he’ll play on next year.

Cotchin, 33, had thought that the 2022 season would be his last, before signing a one-year contract for this season.

And he still hasn’t quite made up his mind on whether 2024 in the boots could be a reality.

“Honestly, every two weeks, it’s different in your head,” Cotchin said.

“But I also want to leave footy knowing I’m still contributing, and not be a piece of dead wood.

“But I’ll be the first person to put my hand up and say ‘there’s someone else that offers more than me in my role’.”

Of course, there’s talk of he and teammate Jack Riewoldt “smelling the roses” this year — what the end of the season could hold for both is yet to be seen.

But Cotchin’s 300th game – this Saturday night against St Kilda – comes after what has arguably been the most tumultuous three weeks of his 16 seasons at Richmond.

And while there’s been a few over his time, the departure of long-time coach Damien Hardwick last month, punctuated by teammate Marlion Pickett being hit with serious charges and premiership teammate Bachar Houli being involved in a serious car accident last Sunday night has marked a month Cotchin could never have imagined.

Cotchin joins an elite group of Tigers this week — including a couple of former teammates. Picture: Michael Klein

But there is one thing he has become sure of amid times of uncertainty.

“I think the hardest thing with all of those sort of things is most of the time, you don’t see them coming,” he said.

“But what we’ve established through our leadership – (president) John O’Rourke now, but Peggy (O’Neal) previously, Brendon (Gale), Dimma (Hardwick) at the time, Livo (football boss Tim Livingstone), (list boss) Blair (Hartley), (club advisor) Balmey (Neil Balme) … is just this insane level of stability.

“And just knowing that everything will be OK.

“I think there’s an element of confidence no matter what’s thrown at us that we’ll be OK, and we just need to work through it.”

Hardwick’s absence is felt this weekend, the former coach travelling in the United States after walking away from the game in May.

“I think there’s just a mutual appreciation for everything we’ve been through together,” Cotchin said.

“Obviously love everything about him and an extension of that is (Hardwick’s ex-wife) Danielle and the kids. They’ve been huge supporters of us as a family for a long period of time and it’d be nice to have him there.”

BAPTISM OF FIRE

Cotchin’s first experience of AFL football ended in vomit.

And it wasn’t his own.

His father, Peter, “hates crowds”, Cotchin revealed, meaning there weren’t many trips to watch his childhood team of Geelong in the action live.

“I didn’t go to a lot of footy as a kid, and in one of my first experiences, I got vomited on from the second tier,” he said.

“I think it was Geelong v North Melbourne and I copped vomit down the back of my shirt. So my first experience of AFL wasn’t ideal.

“But it didn’t change my love of the game. I started playing when I was four-and-a-half, so I’ve always loved it.”

Garry “Buddha” Hocking was his favourite player.

And when the Geelong great texted Cotchin some well-wishes this week, he was taken back to the kid from North Preston who loved the hoops.

“I just always admired that competitive spirit that he had … what I loved about the older game was the contest,” Cotchin said.

“IT’S STILL UNCOMFORTABLE”

Being referred to as a Brownlow medallist doesn’t sit well with Cotchin.

Amid the Essendon drugs saga, then-Bombers skipper Jobe Watson was stripped of the 2012 honour, handing back his medal in October 2016.

It was later that year – four years on from their stellar seasons – that Cotchin and now-Hawthorn senior coach Sam Mitchell were retrospectively awarded the 2012 medal at an official ceremony in Melbourne.

And another seven years later, things still don’t quite sit right.

“It’s still uncomfortable,” Cotchin admitted this week.

“Every time someone mentions I’m a Brownlow medallist, I do feel incredibly uncomfortable. Even on social media, some of the feedback (suggests that) … but I laugh at it, because I kind of semi-agree.”

Cotchin’s three children Harper, Mackenzie and Parker. Picture: Michael Klein

He tried contacting Watson when it all happened. But the pair has never spoken about the matter.

“I’ve obviously seen him in the rooms now that he’s doing a bit of media,” Cotchin said.

“But we’ve never really discussed it.”

Cotchin had been just 22 when he delivered the 2012 season that remains his best.

He was vice-captain, then, and recalls a sense of stoicism in his game that went unmatched until late last season.

“It was more the insane confidence – knowing that you were going into every game feeling like you could beat the world,” he said of the eventual-Brownlow form.

“I remember feeling it for the back part of last year when I was playing high forward but as a mid, and probably played my best individual footy that I had for a few years, really, from a stats point of view. But it’s a long time ago now.”

THE RESIGNATION

Cotchin and Jack Riewoldt sat in St Rose cafe in Essendon late in 2016 and had all but resigned themselves to the fact that they would never taste premiership success.

The Tigers had finished 13th, there’d been an attempt at a board coup, and an internal review that – ultimately – backed in then-senior coach Damien Hardwick.

Everyone was coming for Richmond.

And for Cotchin and Riewoldt, it had felt like time to start watering the green shoots that were beginning to flourish around them rather than their own backyards.

“The chat was about our journey and not knowing when it would come to an end and probably almost that acceptance that we wouldn’t get to taste premiership success, but how can we give every other player that is going to come after us the best opportunity to do so?,” Cotchin recalled.

“It was effectively just shifting I to ‘we’, and realising that we could still play a role from an individual performance point of view, but how could we hugely impact the group?

Riewoldt and Cotchin had all but resigned themselves to never tasting premiership success. .

“Obviously our forward line was so young, particularly in 2017, but Jack really took that role to a new level and the way that he put his arms around the Buts (Dan Butler), the Riolis (Daniel), the Jason Castagnas, a whole host of people who were undersized but we found a way.”

He’d been “a loner-type leader”, Cotchin admits, and overhauled his own approach after hitting what he has previously described as “rock bottom” at the end of that year.

As the pair’s coffees cooled on Essendon’s Rose Street, there was talk of the past and the future and what could come next, and how the club could shift from celebrating players for “what they did, more than what they couldn’t do”.

Little did they know what would come in the years that followed. Picture: Getty Images

What couldn’t be forecast was what would happen less than 12 months later – then again another 12 months after that, and then again in 2020.

Cotchin can still only shake his head – still seemingly disbelieving even years later.

“It’s just still so bizarre to think that over the next four years, we’d win three,” he said.

GREEN TO GREY

Cotchin’s playing CV isn’t the only thing that looks very different to that of the Northern Knights young gun who first walked into Punt Road as a teenager.

His then-shaggy hair is now sharp with a crisp fade – with a few additions the “lucky” former captain has welcomed along the way.

He uses that word a lot.

“There’s lots of grey hair, now, but lots of memories that come with that,” he laughs.

“When you reflect, you feel incredibly grateful for everything, really.”

Jack Riewoldt says his mate is “the soul of the golden era”.

Their fellow 300-gamer Shane Edwards calls his former skipper “the classiest tough guy ever”.

It’s been one heck of a ride that Cotchin says has flown by. Picture: Michael Klein

But before Cotchin had even played one game – let alone dreamed of 300 – he was on the injury list, hit by an Achilles complaint in just his second run as a Tiger.

The end of 2007 a lifetime ago, he sat this week in the club’s Maurice Rioli room as children Harper, Mackenzie and Parker ran riot, their dad lauded as just the sixth Richmond player to reach the milestone.

It’s not lost on him, having arrived at the historic ground as just a kid himself.

“I’ve spent half of my life at the Richmond footy club,” Cotchin said.

“And then for half of that time, Harper’s been alive. It does go bloody quick.

“I think about every retirement speech from literally the day that I go here. And every one I reckon has said ‘time goes so quickly’. I was like ‘pfft’.

“But when you do get to the end, it feels like it was only yesterday that you walked in the doors.”