The smile that spells danger for St Kilda

Shane Edwards lifts the lid on the telltale sign that Trent Cotchin is about to up the ante in the quest for victory.

Tom Lynch and Trent Cotchin warm up at Tigers training at Metricon Stadium Picture: Getty Images

Should Richmond’s semi-final against St Kilda be on the line late on Friday night, look for a smile to appear on Trent Cotchin’s face.

According to his former housemate and long-time teammate Shane Edwards, the smile is a giveaway the Tiger is stirring within.

It is not a sign of relaxation. Or overconfidence — Cotchin has never been the type for that.

Rather, it means the killer blow is coming. The Richmond captain will hit the next contest harder than ever, risking head and shin, to win the football and send it the Tigers’ way.

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“It is when he smiles. I would be scared if I saw him smiling,” Edwards told The Australian.

“It gives me a feeling of goosebumps. It tells me he is going to win the next contest.

“He is so calm of mind but so very physical in the contest.”

The sudden-death clash against the Saints shapes as a special moment and not solely because it will be the first AFL final played on the Gold Coast.

It will also be Cotchin’s 169th game as Richmond captain, which sets a record for leadership at the famous club.

The dual-premiership skipper takes the mantle from Percy Bentley, the one-time player-coach who was a star for the yellow-and-black in the era leading into World War II.

Bentley captained the Tigers’ 1932 flag-winning team, was captain-coach when they succeeded two years later and played his last game in the 1940 grand final.

A ruckman, he would have loved tapping the ball to a footballer of Cotchin’s skill and strength.

The era of the captain-coach is long gone but, according to Edwards, Cotchin effectively acts out the role on the field for the Tigers.

The 2012 Brownlow medallist is a captain who leads by deed and word.

Edwards described him as an in-play “game manager” capable of pulling the puppet strings to ensure Richmond is set up in even the tensest of moments.

“I think physically he has led by example by setting the scene for us, cracking into contests and doing some courageous stuff,” Edwards said.

“But he is unbelievable in that he is almost a game manager. He makes sure everybody is in the right spots.

“He gets about the group to see how you are feeling and can talk calmly in key moments. It is easy to get flustered in the heat of the moment and yell words out, but Cotch is really good at having a 10-second conversation and nipping any issue in the bud.”

It is now 11 seasons since Cotchin and Edwards lived for a year at the home of former Richmond captain Kane Johnson.

At the time they marvelled at Johnson’s ability to handle the balance of playing and leading.

Edwards has watched Cotchin develop from a very young captain, by AFL standards, in 2013 through to becoming a dual-premiership skipper. And he remains just as impressed.

As Edwards said, Cotchin was entrusted with leading the club through a turbulent period early on when questions were being raised about the performance of everyone from the board to the coach to the captain and his team.

Cotchin was drafted to Richmond with the No 2 pick in the 2007 draft, which led to massive expectations and pressure with the Tigers’ previous flag in 1980.

Edwards believes the burden was unfair at the time yet, more than a decade on, the 30-year-old has clearly delivered for Richmond in every regard.

“It felt like when he came to the club, he had an enormous amount of pressure on him to be the saviour. We lucked out in getting him,” Edwards said.

“We have worked into what we have become because of him being able to handle those expectations like he did.

“It is just a situation where you think it will almost be impossible for him to succeed … but for him to exceed expectations the way he has, which were unwarranted in the first place, is remarkable.

“If you are talking about a franchise-changing player, that is who he is. He has just been phenomenal from the get go.”

Cotchin has suppressed his natural skills for the betterment of Richmond. Edwards has no doubt that in different circumstances, Cotchin would have been encouraged to unleash his offensive traits and pursue the ball at will.

But instead he has performed a role, adopting a more defensive approach, in part to allow his great mate and fellow Brownlow medallist Dustin Martin to use his attacking flair to the fullest.

“Something that Cotch has done through his career is that early on, he was told to go and get the footy (because) that was better for the team,” Edwards said.

“As Richmond has evolved, Cotch has evolved and with all that evolving, Cotch has gone out of his way to play a team-oriented role that has limited the amount of possessions but so important for the team. To have someone of that talent willing to take a back seat and do what he has done is unbelievable.”