Richmond coach Damien Hardwick provides an insightful summary of the selections the Tigers made in today’s pre-season and rookie drafts . . .
Bachar Houli
“Firstly, he’s a quality kid. He has good values and is a very strong family man . . .
The thing we love about Bachar, from a football perspective, is his kicking ability. He is an elite kick of the football. We’ve already noticed at training the amount of times he can hit up a leading target inside-50, which is something we lacked over the course of last season. We see him playing some half-forward, some outside wing . . . Another big plus with Bachar is he’s got the ability to kick goals, which is something else that we’ve lacked. And, he’s also got leadership qualities. He’s pulled our guys in a couple of times and spoken about the things we need to get better at, training-wise, which has been terrific. Look, he’s fitted in really, really well and we think he’ll be a great addition to our footy Club.”
Brad Miller
“Brad’s been a star. He’s a high-calibre guy, that’s an absolute pleasure to have at your footy club. The work he’s done thus far with Alex Rance and Jayden Post has been significant, and I reckon if those two have a really good season in 2011, Brad can take credit for a lot of that. Brad is a competitive beast, too. He’s been working those boys really hard on the track . . . driving their improvement from a playing perspective, and also mentoring them. With our key forwards - Riewoldt, Griffiths, Post and Vickery - being so young, we just felt we needed a bigger body down there to help out. Look, Brad mightn’t play a game, he might play 15 . . . we’re not too sure. But we just need the insurance there that if something does happen to one of our key forwards, we’ve got an experienced big guy, who can come in and play a role. Brad can play a bit, too. He kicked 10 goals in a game at VFL level last season, and he’s kicked goals at AFL level, too. He’ll be a really good asset for us.”
Ben Jakobi
“Ben is a beautiful kick of the footy. He missed about two years of TAC Cup football with Sandringham Dragons due to a foot injury. We’d known about Ben through Francis Jackson (a teacher at Brighton Grammar when Jakobi was a student there). He can play - there’s no doubt about it. We see him playing some half-back, some wing . . . We hid him away at Coburg for a little while last season. His development was okay, but we feel when we get him in our system, he rises to the challenge, and he looks at home at AFL level. Ben makes really good decisions with the ball, he’s a good height, and he’s been in our system now for a year, so he knows how we play. He’s just a guy that we believe, at some stage, will push for AFL selection.”
Tom Hislop
“Tom has had his share of injury problems over the past year, and that’s prevented him from getting a fair crack at it. He had surgery late in the season to give himself the best possible chance of playing good football in 2011. We feel a fit Tom Hislop has a fair bit to offer us, due to his strength, aggression and versatility.”
