“The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference” – Henry Miller.
We don’t have heroes in football, but we do have superstars. Our deification of the transcendent few is such that the distinction is slight. We treat stars like Chris Judd, Nat Fyfe and Lance Franklin as gods, because in a way they are. Their physical abilities are antithetical to this realm, and share little in common with our largely grounded existence.
The defining aspect of a superstar is their ability to exert supreme influence. Players like Michael Voss, Wayne Carey and Jason Dunstall weren’t just parts of the game – they stood taller than it. Their acts determined the game’s action and the game became an extension of them – not vice versa.
In 2012, Trent Cotchin was a superstar. He averaged 28 touches and five tackles a game, kicked 21 goals and finished the season ranked top ten in the AFL for kicks, inside 50s and disposals per game. He polled 26 Brownlow votes, finishing second in the count, and opened 2013 as the Brownlow medal favourite.
Back then Cotchin was an excitement machine, a ball of unstoppable pace and class. He was a wizard on the outside but had the hardness to win the ball on the interior, ranking 16th in contested possessions per game, ahead of the likes of Kieran Jack, Lenny Hayes and Chris Judd.
Cotchin had that tantalising Gary Ablett Jr quality where he always seemed to be leaning forward, almost perpetually crouched, ready to explode through the faintest opening. Like the bald maestro, Richmond’s #9 had extra-terrestrial agility and zip; able to create space for himself in congestion where there should have been none.
He had that Chad Wingard-type spark in the forward line, as though whenever he got near the ball he knew he would be able to do something remarkable, and he just wanted the crowd to understand that fact too.
Cotchin had the statistical output of a superstar, and just as importantly he carried himself with the swagger of one as well.
Then, for whatever reason, the super dropped out of Trent Cotchin’s star. He was appointed Richmond captain at the end of 2012, and that weight, combined with niggling knee injuries, seemed to slow down his once explosive speed. His stats dropped in literally every major category, losing volume but also losing efficiency.
More than anything, the spark dissipated. After kicking 39 goals in 2011 and 2012 combined, Cotchin kicked just 6 in 2013. His numbers were still respectable, but they weren’t superstar calibre. The story was much the same in 2014, with Cotchin failing to make even the 40-man squad for the All-Australian team after missing it in 2013 too. His one storied skill largely deserted him, ranking fourth in the league in clangers in 2014.
After being such a bastion of hope, excitement and the future, Cotchin became an omen of middling reality – a tame tiger. Once the kid from Northern Knights with boundless potential who was going to lead Richmond to glory, Cotchin became the guy who weirdly refused to adopt the Richmond captain’s ritual of changing his number to honour Jack Dyer. He said that he was ‘looking forward’ to football being over, and would retire in his mid-20s if Richmond won a flag.
Comments like this led to a cold perception of Cotchin, seemingly a guy who treated football as a job and not an untouchable dream, like it is and needs to be for all of us commoners. Inevitably, we treat football as more important that it is, and Cotchin’s sensible indifference was a bitter illumination of this fact.
This, combined with a lack of fire or front-page explosiveness in his personality, as well as a rhombus-shaped haircut that makes him look like a pen salesman, accentuated the gradual darkening of Trent Cotchin’s star.
In the space of two years, Cotchin went from the Brownlow medal favourite and one of the most tantalising, watchable players in the AFL, to the dude from ‘24′ who tells on Jack Bauer to try and get a promotion. No longer a superstar, he was just another guy that was ‘pretty good’ at football.
The Cotchin narrative reached its nadir a month ago, with Richmond listlessly sitting at 2-4 and statistical articles being written titled Why Trent Cotchin isn’t a great player. In the past month though, the script has finally turned in favour of the Richmond skipper. The crouching tiger is standing tall again.
With Richmond’s season on life support in Round 7 against Collingwood, Cotchin used a defibrillator of contested possessions and clearances to bring them back to life. He had 32 touches, two goals, seven inside 50s and six clearances that day, outplaying Scott Pendlebury and saving Richmond’s season.
He’s been prominent in Richmond’s past two wins over Fremantle and Essendon, beating the likes of David Mundy, Michael Barlow and Dyson Heppell in contested ball (no, he didn’t beat Fyfe, but neither does anyone else of this earth). The spark and the swagger of 2012 still isn’t there, but it’s been replaced by an admirable grit and resolve.
It’s cliché to say that anyone, especially a captain, ‘wills’ their team over the line, but Cotchin has been doing that in the past month, winning pivotal clearances through hardness, desire and application.
After averaging more uncontested possessions than contested ones the past four seasons, that ratio has reversed in 2015. Cotchin is winning contested ball at a career-best rate and ranks 12th in the league in that metric, ahead of the likes of Pendlebury, Luke Parker and Sam Mitchell.
After two years of largely unsatisfying ‘above-average’ play, Cotchin has seemingly found his niche and a way to impact games once again on a star level.
Out of nowhere, Cotchin’s team is inexplicably relevant to the 2015 season once again too. The Tigers are fifth favourites for the flag and given their form over the past month, that’s hard to argue with. In terms of superstars, Brett Deledio might have the aesthetic and Dustin Martin, for better or worse, might have the swagger, but Cotchin is the only player on this team with a past history of proven superstar performance.
He’s still the Tiger heartbeat, and the player who will need to carry this team to the places it wants to go.
To answer the question ‘Is Trent Cotchin a superstar?’, and satisfy Betteridge’s law of headlines, the answer is still probably no. Cotchin has been terrific recently, but he hasn’t been transcendent – an unfortunate but necessary benchmark for our superstars.
In recent times Cotchin has been a player to respect and appreciate, but not one to inspire awe or incredulity. Unlike peak Judd or present Fyfe, he doesn’t make football seem like a dream meant for the heavenly gifted. He makes it seem like a job that he’s very good at. And that’s fine.
Because even if Trent Cotchin isn’t leading the Tigers out onto the battlefield with the ethereal transcendence of a superstar, he’ll still be leading them, and he’ll be doing his part.
And in a sport often defined by its obsession with the extraordinary, sometimes just doing one’s part is the most admirable thing of all.
A touching moment for the Demons star with Jacob Hopper.
There's an old saying that you should never argue with an idiot, because they'll drag you down to their level and then beat you…
The ball hit the boundary umpire's leg and rebounded back into play, leading to debate over whether a throw-in should have been called for.
Poor Jacob Hopper just can't catch a break.
The Dees will be hoping it doesn't prove costly!
