SO HERE we are. Round eight this year at the MCG and it’s Richmond versus Hawthorn. And it’s close. Too close, in fact, for the Hawks when you consider that not only are the Tigers winless, but they are supposedly good things to become the first team since Fitzroy in 1964 not to win a game all season.
It’s the final quarter. Hawthorn needs one more goal to put the game away for good, but as good as its midfield is, it’s getting killed at the stoppages. And the player stopping the likes of Sam Mitchell, Brad Sewell and Shaun Burgoyne getting first use of the ball is Trent Cotchin.
The 20-year-old plays an enormous last quarter for the brave Tigers, who could have won the game had Shane Tuck not been tackled by Mitchell just as he was winding up to kick what would likely have been the winning goal.
The Hawks won by three points, but the moral victory belonged to Richmond and the talk of the match was Cotchin, with his 27 touches and 11 clearances.
Since being selected by the Tigers with the No. 2 pick at the 2007 NAB AFL Draft, Cotchin has given Tiger fans glimpses of how good he could be.
That afternoon against the Hawks, many among the 40,000 people who left the MCG were asking the same question, “How good is Cotchin?”
For both Richmond and Cotchin, the Hawthorn game was the most important of the season. Never mind there have been three wins since, each impressive in their own way. The Hawthorn game demonstrated to the club it was on the right track under first-year coach Damien Hardwick, and to Cotchin that he had the makings of an elite midfielder.
“It was our turning point,” Cotchin said last week, as he prepared for a welcome few days away from Tigerland as part of the club’s split round bye weekend.
“We played to our own structures and played for four quarters.
“That was important for us and, even though it was disappointing to go down, we sat down as a group with the coaching staff and pretty much said that our season was starting.”
Vision from that afternoon shows Hardwick addressing his players intently before they left the ground.In subsequent interviews, Hardwick has admitted the slate was wiped clean after that match and that, in effect, the Tigers’ season was starting again.
That being the case, to stretch the point, the Tigers are 3-2 and among the form teams of the competition.
Read the fully story in the round 13 edition of the AFL Record, available at all grounds.
