Club by club: The out of contract Tigers who need a big 2024 to feature in Adem Yze’s future plans
The decline of the once all-conquering Tigers was swift in 2023, and some players - including Premiership stars - were found out. So who needs a big year under new coach Adem Yze?
The killer line in Adem Yze’s pitch to coach Richmond was: “If you get stuck in the past, you die in the present”.
The 2017-2020 dynasty is done and dusted. Now it is over to Yze to plot a path to the next premiership.
There are still 15 premiership players and the Tigers reloaded in 2021 by drafting five players in the first 30 picks.
They have combined for only 51 games, but internally confidence remains high that several of these boys will blossom.
RICHMOND
Coach: Adem Yze (new)
Captain: Toby Nankervis (solo captain for first time)
The punters are predicting pain, perhaps for years, and rival clubs reckon the extended stay at the top placed their list under serious distress.
There are pot holes, but the AFL’s equalisation measures – rather than club calls – are to blame, whereas Damien Hardwick walked into a club that just captured three of the country’s best 14 kids.
But Craig McRae (preliminary final then premiership) and Adam Kingsley (preliminary final) worked wonders from the get-go at bottom-four clubs.
Richmond rapidly rebounding would be similarly remarkable – and cannot be ruled out.
What happened in 2023?
It was a soap opera of a season from the second Damien Hardwick pulled the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ break-up line. He was burnt out from barbecuing the same sausages 100 different ways.
It was the ultimate plot twist which, much like daytime TV, then splintered to set up a suite of emotional episodes.
Brendon Gale was linked to jobs at AFL House all season. Marlion Pickett was dramatically arrested and charged by police in Perth. Tim Taranto was talked about more than Donald Trump on a topic that turned into a bigger time waster than scrolling on Tik Tok. All the while, Hardwick was pursued all the way to the scenic Cinque Terre in Italy by a new flame.
It was almost an eternal flame, with a six-year contract ensuring the flicker will burn brightly like the Sun.
There were teary goodbyes to all-time greats Trent Cotchin and Jack Riewoldt, fears for Bachar Houli after he was flown to hospital from a car crash, and by the season finale caretaker coach Andrew McQualter (Melbourne) and assistant Xavier Clarke (North Melbourne) had also departed.
But the subplot thickened as ‘Mini’ McQualter fell madly in love with the thought of coaching the Tigers, but was left with a broken heart after hearing he had missed out to Melbourne assistant Adem Yze.
Richmond’s board felt a fresh voice would flush out a feeling that mediocrity had started to seep its way into Punt Rd.
So McQualter moved on by switching professional lives with the man who pipped him.
President John O’Rourke described 2023 as an emotional rollercoaster. Those strapped in say they were mentally drained by the end. It was an exhausting ride.
Where do they finish in 2024?
The Tigers could win eight games or, with some good health and good luck, they could win 13 games, which probably places them anywhere from 7th-15th.
Perhaps a more pertinent question is will fading flag heroes take priority over the future?
Or will they be vulnerable to playing VFL?
Kamdyn McIntosh and Marlion Pickett have each won two premierships and, aside from time trial king Taranto, McIntosh is once again running rings around the rest.
But he is 29 and Pickett turns 32 in January – and Sam Banks and Jack Ross are actually the incumbents on the wings after McQualter signed off with a selection statement in round 24.
Will match committee weigh up which set of wings would best give flight to this rebuild?
And what about Dylan Grimes? The heart-and-soul defender who stood down as co-captain will turn 33 mid-season and has showed signs of a decline.
There will also be more asked of seven-year signing Jacob Hopper.
Loads of leadership will surround Yze after Richmond recruited respected former captains Chris Newman and Jack Ziebell as assistants and retained former AFL coaches David Teague and Ben Rutten.
Yet if delicate decisions must be made then surely Yze will offer the soundest perspective.
In 2007 Yze’s run of 226 consecutive games was famously ended when he was dropped by Neale Daniher and in 2008 he was delisted.
While some exits might be stage managed, excitingly there is a full-forward (Tom Lynch) and fullback (Josh Gibcus) to welcome back. Gibcus (hamstring) was unseen in 2023, but track watchers have been so impressed they have barely noticed that Gibcus is still being guarded from the odd drill.
The defender dashed to Doha, the capital of Qatar, recently to refine his running mechanics in the hope his hamstring tendon troubles will remain history.
As for Lynch, he helped lure Jacob Koschitzke from Hawthorn perhaps without realising. ‘Kosi’ desperately wanted to learn from a mentor – the Hawks had none – and he is already picking Lynch’s brain on how to best use his body in different marking contests.
Lynch has not played since round 4 last season and remains in doubt for round 1.
He has been so sorely missed that teammates showered him with love when he stepped on to the AlterG machine recently. Elsewhere they are healthy.
Draftee Liam Fawcett has recovered from glandular fever while by mid-January Jack Ross (toe), Tylar Young (shoulder) and Judson Clarke (scapula) should join full training.
Biggest improver in 2024?
New midfield coach Chris Newman has gone ‘wow!’ at Thomson Dow, and so let’s declare it now – the 22-year-old is a lock to line-up against Damien Hardwick’s Gold Coast in round 1.
Under Hardwick, Dow hardly played (14 out of 75 games).
Durability was never a problem – Dow has been developing every week outside of the two matches he missed in 2021 (concussion and thigh injuries).
The Swan Hill boy is simply a star at stoppage and his training patterns at centre bounces are getting pats on the back.
Dow’s potential will be determined by whether he can grow his game by supplementing that strength. Statistically the Tigers have long struggled at stoppages, although that was by design to a degree when ‘Dimma’ plotted – or perhaps prioritised – winning the ball back on turnover rather than under pressured clearances.
But whatever system Yze settles on, Dow is set to strengthen their craft at the coalface and show off the lightning hands and lateral movement the Tigers talked up when they took him at No. 21 in 2019.
Tyler Sonsie sits second on the ‘buy stocks’ list. When Sonsie rocked up in 2021 the ruling was raw in terms of fitness, but really, really classy.
Sweating through more off-season sessions with Crow Jake Soligo (they, along with Hawthorn draftee Nick Watson, are best mates) has helped Sonsie’s professionalism prosper.
Speaking of professionalism, draftee Kane McAuliffe knows no other way.
The inside midfielder taken at pick 40 turned up to Punt Rd hungry to hear Tim Taranto and Jack Graham’s habits and only a few training sessions later he was turning heads.
X-factor
Adem Yze believes the best teams play with a lot of speed and a lot of risk. They bolt forward ballistically as soon as they win the ball back.
Yze knows that boldness will backfire unless it is built on top of a stable defence and strength at the contest. But pairing that philosophy with Noah Cumberland’s chutzpah and it could be chaos. In 2022-23 Cumberland split his time evenly between the AFL and VFL (18 games in each) and Shai Bolton and Dustin Martin (who is setting PBs in the gym) are the obvious X-factor picks.
But if Cumberland can coexist with that cream and contribute, say, 30-odd goals, then his tricks could be the tonic that turns the Tigers from tame to intoxicating.
Like Bolton, Cumberland is a bit of a blaster … but, similar to what Vanessa Williams once sang, he gets the looks.
Coach status
Adem Yze is the rookie coach in the comfortable surrounds of a stable club. Recruiter Matt Clarke hinted to the Herald Sun that Yze – like Cher in 1989 – could look to turn back time. “He’s very specific about what we really need to do to slightly tweak our style of play to get us back to where we were,” Clarke said. “He’s not coming in with a different brush saying, ‘Oh, well, we need to change this whole lot’. He’s saying, ‘You blokes were elite – you won three (premierships). If we just tweak a couple of these things here and you’ll get back to playing that style again – and that’s what we want to play’. Yze’ impatience should be applauded. Essendon is “somewhat concerned” how it will start the season because it has three free agents plus Xavier Duursma to fit in. “It’s a real risk for us,” coach Brad Scott said. Compare that to Yze’s mantra, which is: “If they (players) haven’t learnt it, we haven’t taught it”.
Who is in last year of contract?
Ben Miller, Dion Prestia, Dustin Martin, Dylan Grimes, Hugo Ralphsmith, Jack Graham, Jack Ross, James Trezise, Kaleb Smith, Kamdyn McIntosh, Liam Baker, Marlion Pickett, Mate Colina, Matt Coulthard, Maurice Rioli, Noah Cumberland, Rhyan Mansell, Sam Naismith, Samson Ryan, Seth Campbell, Steely Green, Thomson Dow, Toby Nankervis
Outs for 2023
Kaelan Bradtke (delisted), Jason Castagna, Trent Cotchin, Jack Riewoldt, Robbie Tarrant, (retired), Bigoa Nyuon (traded to North Melbourne), Ivan Soldo (traded to Port Adelaide)
Ins for 2024
Jacob Koschitzke (traded to Hawthorn), Liam Fawcett (drafted at No.43), Kane McAuliffe (drafted at No.40), Sam Naismith (delisted free agent), Oliver Hayes-Brown (Category B rookie)
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