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The script could not have been any more perfect had Trent Cotchin written it himself.
Jumped from the start by a slick, fierce and ferocious St Kilda outfit with sights on a top-four berth, shooting themselves in the foot time and again with skill errors in the worst possible spots, there was one single moment Saturday night changed for Richmond.
Trailing by 15 points midway through the first quarter at the MCG, Jack Ross sends a long but precise ball into the Tigers’ forward 50.
With rain beginning to sprinkle down, one man in yellow and black stood under the oncoming footy, with three Saints closing fast. He steadied, timed his leap perfectly, and took the ball safely at the highest point a split second before Mason Wood could arrive with a despairing fist.
Kicking from 50, that Tiger steeled himself, used the stand rule to run a wide arc and give himself some momentum, and flushed it through.
As a moment to savour, this would have been enough: but it was merely the icing on the cake of what had already been a superb first quarter from the 33-year old champion.
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Looking a spent force all but certain to hang up the boots for the majority of 2023, his milestone game brought with it more on-ball opportunities, and Cotchin relished the extra responsibility. He’d finish the term with 11 disposals – no Tiger had had more – with four of them contested, plus a couple of clearances and that goal.
His teammates couldn’t help but be inspired, as Cotchin’s deeds so often have in years gone by. His goal would be followed by four more in succession from the Tigers to turn their deficit into a 16-point lead, and with it a hold on the game that they would never relinquish.
Clearly going above and beyond to honour his captain’s special night, Dustin Martin had another vintage game, tough and ferocious rather than skilled and deadly on the outside as is his way.
"I'm glad we could do it for our inspirational warrior 'Cotchy'."
It’s hard for a man with three Norm Smith Medals to not be flashy in everything he does, but Dusty’s 35 disposals and six clearances were at the same time crucial as they were inconspicuous in the grand scheme of the Tigers’ desperation.
Jayden Short, too, was at his brilliant best, nailing two goals from outside 50 just in time before the rain made such long shots all but impossible.
The Tigers had been dominating clearances for a while, winning eight of the first nine, but that just isn’t the Tiger way of scoring. There was no continuity from their movement from stoppages, with the Saints able to set up the structure that has made them this year’s hardest team to score on.
Then, when they had the ball in their defensive 50, the worst of Richmond presented itself: horror skills and decisions coming out of the backline were manna from heaven for a Saints team that feasts on turnovers, with three of their first four goals coming from forward half intercepts – none easier than this Dylan Grimes shocker.
They would continue to dominate clearances for the rest of the night, winning the count 47-38 (and 17-8 from the centre) by the final siren. But what had been absent before Cotchin’s turn of inspiration, and impossible to miss after it, was the trademark Tiger ferocity on the follow-up.
Four of their six first-quarter goals came from Saints turnovers, turning their opponents’ usually calm ball use into panic and chaos time and again. They pressured the man, forced high long kicks, and feasted when the ball was turned over. That’s how Cotchin’s goal was set up, after all.
The Saints, risk-averse by trade, were going at 55 per cent disposal efficiency by quarter time, and had a ten-point deficit to punish them for it.
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Having weathered that only storm and surged off the back of an irresistible Tiger game into the lead, the rest of the match was simply vintage Richmond.
Front and centre to it all was Cotchin; adding a second goal to his tally, he’d end the half with 19 disposals, four clearances, a bunch of score assists and the most memorable of milestone games already.
Trent Cotchin lighting it up again in his 300th game! ⚡️
At a stroke, the match was suddenly on Richmond’s terms, the Saints forced to respect their desire to have an extra man behind the ball, so comprehensively were they being bushwhacked at stoppages.
It meant for the rest of the night Ross Lyon had to work out a way past Nick Vlastuin, who became an impenetrable shield with 11 intercept possessions to thwart St Kilda time and time again. He’d even add a rare goal to the tally just to rub it in a little further.
Nick Vlastuin's first goal of the season and what a time to kick it! ????
By half time, the clearance count, a Tigers weakness for much of this year even with the inclusion of the brilliant Tim Taranto, read 26-16 in their favour. With it came territory domination, and with the Tigers’ turnover game back in full swing, 10 goals to half time, six of them from just 16 forward half intercepts. It was Richmond to a tee.
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Helping them out too was the rain, which increased in volume throughout the night and seemed to peak early in the third term. The Tigers are not a team for which precision matters that much, where the Saints, disciplined and drilled though they are, lack a Lenny Hayes type to lead them on the warpath when conditions become sub-optimal.
St Kilda, for their part, have a big problem: four times in their past five games they’ve been battered for clearances, going down 38-43 to Adelaide ,30-42 to GWS and 36-46 to Sydney (the game they won the count, narrowly to Hawthorn, they still lost the inside 50 count).
It’s becoming hard to watch Jack Steele play at the moment: clearly unfit and hampered by both the dodgy shoulder that saw him miss a chunk of matches earlier in the season, and a recently acquired knee injury, he is nowhere near the clearance beast he was at his best. Going head to head with Taranto, he was taken to the cleaners with a savagery bordering on disdain.
Steele’s determination and courage are admirable, but there comes a point where allowing your clearly wounded skipper to be dead wood at three-quarters of centre bounces, and a lion’s share of other stoppages around the ground, makes him a liability and opens up a weakness.
Steele finished with just five kicks for the night among 21 disposals, with just 28 metres gained. He fought the good fight with 12 contested possessions and four clearances – though both well short of the figures he produces at his best – but it seemed for a lot of the evening all he could do was dish out a quick handball to a teammate about to get swamped.
A lesser player wouldn’t be playing, but it’s reached the point where Steele might as well be a lesser player now. With Jack Sinclair again amassing seven clearances, three from the centre, in frequent stints on the ball, it might be time to make that move permanent.
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By the time the Saints finally adjusted to the wet, turning their clearance wins into long bombs forward, bringing the slippery ball to ground and getting their opportunist smalls into the game, it appeared to be game over. But in the space of five minutes, three goals from Butler, Higgins and Byrnes, all from scrambled balls inside 50, cut the Tiger lead to six.
In short, they were playing like warrior poets. Like Scotsmen. Like Richmond.
There was no beating the wet-weather champs, though: the Tigers’ response to the burst was to clamp down, up the pressure, force contest after contest, and let the slippery conditions do the rest.
Three of their 23 final-quarter tackles, when the stakes were at their highest, belonged to Cotchin. As he does.
It took until the 25th minute of the last quarter for another goal, with the Saints mustering just one point from 14 inside 50s as the greasy ball made spotting up a target nightmarish and the Tigers willed themselves to sprint back into defence and clog up space.
To that point, they’d gone at 15 per cent efficiency with their kicks in the last quarter. Their trademark was the high, hopeful bomb from a pack that, while not hurting them the other way, was making it all but impossible to score.
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Taranto, in the end, created the sealer with magic: handling the ball with a smooth dry-day pickup, he gathered on 50, burst into a fraction of space, and executed a magnificent banana from long range through. Martin himself could not have done it better.
Smiling on at the end, having amassed 29 disposals in by far his most prolific game of the season, was Cotchin. Best-afield honours might have gone to Taranto comfortably in the end, his ball-winning ability, strength and stoppages and newfound goal nous making him perfectly suited to a sodden MCG.
But the Tigers simply do not win this game without Cotchin.
Since their glorious 2017 season which saw every footy fan in the country do a total about-face on the quality of Cotchin’s leadership, he has sacrificed his game, and in many cases his body, times beyond counting for the cause.
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As happened with Joel Selwood, his leadership became his defining characteristic, so his remarkable talents as a footballer became lost in the mists of his undisputed legendary status. Saturday night was a telling reminder that, while his star may be dimming, it is as much to do with the Tigers’ desire to move on from their soon-retiring champion than it is a falling-away of ability.
This may, and likely will, be the last hurrah of Cotchin’s great career. It is still hard to conceive him going on for another season, especially with the Tigers likely to embark on a new era with a new coach at the helm. Ring out the old, ring in the new, as the saying goes.
Trent Cotchin celebrates. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
More charitably, it’s hard to see why on earth he’d want to. There is nothing in the game he is yet to achieve, and having given the barrackers the opportunity to glorify him with the most immortalising of milestones, game 300, his standing in the game and at his club can surely rise no higher.
High enough, in fact, for me to offer an opinion that many may consider sacrilege: Trent Cotchin is Richmond’s greatest ever captain. Yes, that includes Captain Blood himself, Jack Dyer.
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Why? Simple. A decade ago, Cotchin took over a club which had spent three decades on or near rock bottom. Enduring four further years of turmoil which saw his team rise, plateau at the elimination final stage thrice, and then fall again, he was derided as unfit for leadership, the Tigers written off as a laughing stock, and looking destined for a career full of personal accolades, but nothing more fulfilling.
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As so many of those closest to him at Punt Road have said over the last week, more than anyone else, even Damien Hardwick, Trent Cotchin has embodied this Tigers era. He has led the way unto the breach, set standards both off and on the field, and left no stone unturned to drag his team kicking and screaming back to the promised land.
Dyer’s Tigers were a powerhouse when he walked in the door, and greater still when he departed. Cotchin’s first years were in a team as low as any in his club’s history, and he led the charge back to the promised land. Back to glory. Back to being a dominant force on the AFL scene once again.
There can be no greater accomplishment. Saturday night at the MCG couldn’t have summed it up better – even to the end, Trent Cotchin is still inspiring his Richmond to glory.
