Sam Lloyd is no stranger to meeting new teammates, as he did at Richmond this week after being taken by the Tigers at pick 60 overall in the 2013 AFL National Draft.

Lloyd may be only 23, but he’s already been through more clubs than most players manage in a football lifetime.

Originally from Victorian country club Deniliquin, Lloyd made the playing squad at TAC Cup team the Geelong Falcons, while studying at Geelong Grammar.

Unfortunately, a long-term ankle injury prevented him from playing a game there and he returned to Deniliquin, believing his AFL dream would never come to fruition.

Four years on, after kicking 100 goals in a season for the Deniliquin Rams, playing in a premiership with them, starring for Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League club Mt Eliza, experiencing VFL football with both the Bendigo Bombers and Frankston, and excelling for a combined VFL side in a State match against Western Australia, Lloyd now finds himself starting an AFL career at Richmond.

“It was good to get down here and meet all the boys and all the coaches,” Lloyd told ‘Roar Vision’.

“I was a bit nervous at the start, but once you get down here and finally get out on the ground and have a kick around with all the boys, the nerves start to settle and you realise everyone’s a good bloke and there to help you.  So, it’s been a good couple of days . . .

“Playing at different clubs and different levels of footy has helped make it easier to walk into a club and meet guys.  You know what to expect.”

Lloyd admitted to hoping, rather than expecting, to be drafted by an AFL club.

“I’d had a few meetings and had been to the draft camp.  But going on history, they (AFL clubs) more take us older blokes as rookies . . . When it happened (having his name read out at the Draft), it was just a great feeling, and I couldn’t ask to be down at a better club,” Lloyd said.

The versatile medium forward has quite a few weapons in his football armoury . . .

“I like a goal, I like to take a mark, but I also like to crumb.  Hopefully, I can add a bit of excitement and then work on stuff like my forward pressure, so I can help the team,” he said.

“I just want to get together a full pre-season, get amongst the boys and then, look, I’d love to pinch a game and, hopefully, play a lot of games.

“You set your sights on that first game and if I can get a good pre-season, and get a lot of work done out on the track, then who knows.

“That’s the plan and, hopefully, I can just play my bit for the Tigers, whatever the coaches want me to do, and I can get there.”