In a special summer series, Richmond Media is counting down the top 25 Tiger recruits from rival AFL clubs throughout the past five decades. At No. 12 is Robert McGhie.

With his sharpie hairstyle and tattoos, it was too easy to label Robbie McGhie as merely a football tough man.

McGhie, indeed, was a rough-and-ready customer, who relished exerting a strong physical presence on the field. But it would be selling him way short to solely focus on that side of his game.

He was to become an important member of Richmond’s back-to-back premiership sides of 1973-74, after previously struggling to cement himself as a regular senior player in four seasons at Footscray.

An off-field incident, just a few weeks before the start of the ’73 season, led to McGhie departing the Bulldogs and joining Richmond.

The Tigers, in the wake of their shock 1972 Grand Final loss to Carlton, had undergone a major post-mortem, and one of the positions they were especially keen to fill was centre half-back.

McGhie, with his tall, rangy build, fearless approach, pace and long kicking, appealed as a good fit in that key defensive post.

And, so it proved to be.

In the three seasons from 1973-75, McGhie played in 52 games for a winning strike-rate of 79 percent.

The Richmond teams of that time were brimming with genuine stars, such as Royce Hart, Kevin Bartlett, Francis Bourke, Dick Clay, Ian Stewart, Michael Green and Kevin Sheedy. While McGhie was not quite in that class, he, nevertheless, played his role in the powerful line-up extremely well.

He put the clamps on opposition centre half-forwards, but also managed to generate drive for the Tigers through his long, clearing dashes and penetrating left-foot kicks.

Kevin Bartlett, in his book, “KB: A Life In Football”, summarised McGhie’s value to the Tigers . . .

“Robbie was 190cm, could run like the wind and, despite an ungainly kicking action, all his kicks were long and effective.

“He had very long arms and he was a fine exponent of Richmond’s game plan, which was to run fast, get the ball, and kick it as far as possible.

“He was as mean and nasty as he looked with all those tattoos, and he roughed opponents up. But, at the same time, he was effective with the ball.” 

McGhie played 81 games for Richmond from 1973-78.