Tiger time is coming, but not in 2016

Over the past few years Richmond have regularly been talked up as a premiership possibility, as success-starved Tigers fans grow ever hungrier for a return to the very top of the AFL competition.

Recently a number of Roarers have shared their opinions on the Tigers, saying that they can be a top four team in 2016, or that they can win the flag.

Tigers fans might be disheartened to learn that I don’t think the side is capable of winning or even contesting the grand final in 2016.

But, I do believe the potential for that success exists within this current group, and might not be that much further away.

There’s a good chance that in some high school English class you once heard the saying that every good story has a beginning, a middle, and end. The same is true of AFL premiership teams.

What I mean by this is that an AFL team is mostly likely to be flag-capable when it has a strong distribution of talent across three groups of players: those at the beginning of their careers, those in the middle, and those nearing the end.

To assess Richmond’s premiership hopes I compared the age profile of their best 22 to that of the premiership teams of this decade, 2011-2015.

Establishing a club’s best 22 is something that’s very subjective so I’ve tried to go the most objective method possible, compiling the 22 players who featured in the most games for the club last year, with one exception – trade recruit Chris Yarran replacing retiree Chris Newman.

This method leaves the likes of Ben Lennon and Reece Conca out of the squad, though their inclusion could be debated, and the same goes for Sam Lloyd who was tied with Kane Lambert on number of games – I went with Lambert as he made the elimination final team while Lloyd did not.

Player ages have been determined as the age the player was on January 1 of the year in question, and the best 22 for the other teams examined here has been taken from the 22 players selected in their grand final-winning sides.

In terms of average age of players in the 22, the numbers look pretty good for the Tigers. They’re a little younger than the premiership teams of the decade, but certainly close to the pack.

It’s worth pointing out right now that the Hawthorn 2015 flag team is a significant outlier – they were oldest premiership team in history, at least until Hawthorn win the flag again this year.

However while the average age of Richmond compared to recent premiership sides may seem fairly similar, the side differs significantly in terms of what the individual ages of the players who make up that average actually are.

To look at this in closer detail I separated the players in each listed side into three broad categories, the beginning of the career (18-23), the middle of the career (24-29), and the end (30+).

Of course, players follow different trajectories – but I think those categories can be broadly said to define the typical career arch of your average 150-200 game player.

Where Richmond differ significantly from this decade’s premiership teams is that their current squad is almost entirely drawn from the mid-career group, with very little representation from the beginning or end groups.

Every premiership team from 2011 to 2015 has had an established veteran core of players aged 30+. The 2011 Cats had the likes of Matthew Scarlett, Brad Ottens, Corey Enright, Paul Chapman and Cameron Ling. The 2012 Swans Adam Goodes, Jude Bolton, Rhyce Shaw and Ryan O’Keefe. In the last three years, the Hawks have had Brian Lake, Shaun Burgoyne, Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge and Josh Gibson.

The Tigers on the other hand have only two players entering 2016 in the 30+ category, Ivan Maric and Troy Chaplin. To compare them in number or quality to those listed above is laughable.

At the other end of the scale, this decade’s premiership teams have all had strong youth representation – with the slight exception of Hawthorn 2015, who are something of a special case as both the oldest premiership team in history. Of course, their 2015 win was the continuation of a dynasty that began two years earlier with a team then boasting a strong youth contingent.

The Cats in 2011 had in the 23-and-under contingent the likes of Joel Selwood, Tom Hawkins, Allen Christensen and Mitch Duncan. The 2012 Swans had Daniel Hannebery, Luke Parker and Lewis Jetta. The Hawks across their three flags featured the likes of Jack Gunston, Luke Breust, Liam Shiels and Brad Hill – though all but Hill had graduated to the mid-career group by the 2015 flag.

Comparatively the Richmond best 22 I’ve compiled has Brandon Ellis, Nick Vlastuin and Kamdyn McIntosh. Not necesarilly a bad group of players – but fewer and less proven than their premiership-winning counterparts.

It’s worth noting briefly that the 2010 Collingwood premiership team was the youngest in history and significantly different in these categories both from the 2011-2015 flag sides and from the current Richmond side. But the game has shifted significantly since then, as evidenced by Mick Malthouse’s fall from premiership coach to sacked wooden spooner.

Recently a lot has been made of Champion Data’s deduction that Richmond are held back by the ‘bottom five’ members of their team, who according to Champion Data all rank well blow the quality level of the average AFL player.

I agree with that assessment, and in my view, it’s a symptom of the fact that Richmond’s beginning and end category players are not as well-developed as they ideally should be.

The reason for this is largely due to the fact that prior to 2006, the Tigers’ drafting bore very little long term fruit.

Rodan and Schulz have gone on to have decent quality careers, but at other clubs, while Gilmour and Oakley-Nicholls proved remarkably bad investments. Deledio is the one exception, but was followed just three picks later in the same draft by the decision to take Richard Tambling over Lance Franklin.

Deledio happens to be the oldest player on the Richmond list who was recruited via the draft. The only players older than him, Maric and Chaplin, joined the club through trade and free agency respectively.

From 2006 onwards the Tigers’ drafting has significantly improved and in this time they’ve recruited much of that mid-career talent that has seen them qualify for finals three years running.

In 2006 they acquired Jack Riewoldt and Shane Edwards, in 2007 Trent Cotchin and Alex Rance, in 2008 Tyrone Vickery, in 2009 Dustin Martin, Ben Griffiths and Dylan Grimes, and in 2010 Reece Conca, Jake Batchelor and Bachar Houli (through the pre-season draft).

The talent they’ve recruited in 2011 onwards has generally looked to be of a good standard as well, though only a handful have been able to make their way into the team. More on that later.

The result of this statistical consideration is that I don’t believe the Tigers are equipped to make a premiership assault in 2016. Simply put, their list isn’t in the optimal position for that to happen, and while they could prove to be an exception to the rule, it’s not likely.

However, I also worked up a rough draft of what the Richmond team might look like coming into 2018, and at face value, it’s a list that I believe could be premiership contenders.

In making this 2018 Richmond team I have assumed the retirements of Troy Chaplin and Ivan Maric, who would both be 32 coming into the 2018 season. It’s not impossible that they could hang around, but my assumption is that they will not.

I have also dropped the likes of Steven Morris, Shaun Grigg, Taylor Hunt, Kane Lambert and Ben Griffiths. Again, it’s not impossible that these players could be Richmond regulars in 2018, but my suspicion is that they will not be.

The 2018 Richmond best 22 sees five players in the 30+ category – Deledio, Edwards, Houli, Riewoldt and Shaun Hampson, who I’ve included as Maric’s successor in the ruck.

I think it’s far more likely that Richmond will look outside the club to recruit a Maric replacement – just quietly, I’ll tip Zac Clarke – but without definite knowledge of who that might be, I’m taking the next best option available on the current list in Hampson.

The mid-career group is still populated by the likes of Cotchin, Rance and Martin among others, but has shrunk from 17 players to 13, much more in line with the typical premiership team of the decade to date. It also includes David Astbury as a predicted successor to Chaplin, under much the same logic as Hampson.

The last and arguably most important piece of the puzzle is the four players who will be 23 or under that I am tipping to come through and make themselves part of the best 22 by 2018. These are Richmond’s last three first round picks, Ben Lennon, Corey Ellis and Daniel Rioli, as well as 2014’s second round pick, Connor Menadue.

Laid out in the traditional style, the team looks like this.

That is a side that is capable of winning a premiership. Whether or not they will manage to pull it off, I don’t know. It will depend on a lot of other factors like coaching, and a little bit of luck. But unlike the 2016 Richmond, they will be capable.

The one doubt that sticks in my mind is whether or not the current Richmond youth crop can elevate themselves to the level needed. The lynchpin of this plan is for those early-career players to reach the grade of quality required to push for a flag.

It’s not that I don’t rate the talent of the players themselves but my concern is that the Tigers will adopt too much of a here-and-now approach and focus on stocking their side with mature-age recruits to the point where they neglect the development of their 21-and-under group.

This would be an understandable course of action. Richmond fans are so very thirsty for success, and the club wants to give it to them. In pursuit of that goal the Tigers have drafted and debuted a significant number of mature age talents in recent years, often at the expense of their new young talent.

The numbers show a clear shift over the past four years from primarily developing youth talent to a greater focus on playing mature talent, which indicates a decreased interest in the future and a more intense focus on the right now.

The Tigers went mature yet again in the 2015 drafts, spending two of their six draft selections on players 22 and over, Nathan Broad and Adam Marcon. It would not surprise me at all to see these two given significantly more gametime than first round pick Daniel Rioli this season.

Given that I believe the Tigers premiership chance will arrive not now but in 2018 and beyond, this concerns me – while there is nothing wrong with picking the best team available, this should be tempered with a focus on the long-term development of the list.

‘Playing the kids’ is a phrase often used to describe a rebuilding club, but even for successful sides it’s an integral part of lon-term list planning.

I’m not a fan of gifting players games, but when they feel they’ve earned it, Richmond need to be more willing to give their youth an opportunity to develop at AFL level, rather than just play the mature bodies in the hopes it might give them a marginally greater chance of immediate wins.

That just might win them a flag.