Here’s how Richmond’s General Manager of Football, Neil Balme, reflected on the Tigers’ triumphant 2017 season at the Club’s Annual General Meeting on Monday night . . .

“It was a wonderful year, we all know that.  It’s very easy to talk about that.  Even the VFL year had a great year.  We were a bit disappointed we didn’t win the grand final, but they had a great year.  And the AFL boys got up in what was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary.

“But, funnily enough, the thing that I reflect on more than anything else, is that it was a wonderful year because the relationship between the players and coaches, in particular, and how selflessly they worked together to get the outcome, was quite amazing. 

“It’s the true reflection of a great club.  Now the reflection of this great club will be how we do in 2018.  We all know that’s the test, the real rest.  But it was the way the players worked together with the coaches, all just putting aside their own needs. 

“And some of the young men that played mostly in the VFL team, who had a good argument as to why they should have got a game, and could have got a lot more games, and didn’t get many at all, but still approached every week as though they were first picked in the AFL team, was a great reflection of what the Club was all about. 

“People like, for example, and I’ll use a good example in Jake Batchelor.  The sort of man that he was, and the sort of year he had, he should be really disappointed because he didn’t get the ultimate accolade of playing in a winning premiership team.  But you wouldn’t have known that if you saw him train and the way he approached the whole club thing.  And he had a lot of mates as well. 

“I think that was a wonderful reflection of what this club can do.  The subjugation of your own personal needs usually is proportional to how successful you are.  And I think that’s a great reflection of what these people did this year at the Richmond Footy Club.  We should be really proud of them.”