There is a reason why the road less travelled is so, as it's the road that produces challenges and takes profound dedication to reach your goals.

Richmond’s VFL captain, Lachlan Street, has been down that road.

Overlooked by Coates Talent League teams and representative squads time and time again, he instead plied his trade at Frankston YCW throughout his junior career.

While Street was more than happy playing for his home club and being surrounded by family and friends, the dream of playing at a higher level was still in the back of his mind.

After several solid seasons of development for Street at Frankston YCW, the utility got a first taste of senior football in 2017. 

But it was in 2018 when his breakout came, producing starring performances for the senior team.

“I don’t think it (VFL) was really on my radar at all at the time,” Street said.

“We were playing against Sorrento (in 2018) and I was playing on a guy that had won the league goalkicking for two or three years in a row.

“I held him to no goals that day and I thought maybe there is something higher (for me).”

Strong form throughout the 2018 season for Frankston opened up an opportunity for Street to represent the Mornington Peninsula Football League against the Northern Football League, where he excelled with Richmond recruiters in the stands. 

“It was a really fortunate occasion where I got a late call-up for that (interleague game) and played a pretty good game,” Street said.

“It just happened that somebody was watching and I ended up here (at Richmond)."

On the back of that performance, the then 20-year-old was invited down to Punt Road to train with the Club, before signing a contract ahead of the 2019 VFL season.

“Being a Richmond supporter all of my life, I couldn’t have asked for a better place to end up,” Street said.

“I had a great opportunity with Craig McRae who was head coach at the time, I remember my first meeting with him pretty fondly.

“He asked me what do you want to get out of this and what type of person are you. I laid it all out on the table and said I’m going to be the person that never gives up and will make the most of my opportunities.”

A dream season followed in 2019 with Street playing 12 games for Richmond VFL, capped off with a premiership victory against Williamstown, while the AFL side reigned triumphant a week later against GWS. 

“The environment around the footy Club for the whole year was something that is very hard to emulate,” Street said.

“A lot of it was to do with the connection that we had between both programs (AFL and VFL), both teams were firing.”

After that season, football and life came to a crashing holt for most people around the country, with the Covid-19 pandemic putting a stop to the sports world.

While it was a challenging time for Street, it made him more motivated than ever to get back playing and reunite with a group that he had already achieved so much with.

“It was a bit of a tough time playing no games in 2020 and 10 games in 2021, throughout that period everyone was just so eager to get back to playing footy,” he said.

“It was a strange time but I think the enjoyment of being around the boys and the footy club was the biggest driving factor towards keeping us motivated.”

Upon return, he played 10 games in a shortened 2021 season, before being announced as VFL captain prior to the 2022 season. 

The decision was a great mark of the impact that Street had made on the Club, just 22 games into his VFL career.

He took over the captaincy from Steve Morris, a man he considers one of the most influential people in his football journey.

“To follow-up as the captain after a long-time friend and a former teammate of mine, it was a great honour,” Street said.

“He did so much for me in my development as a footy player, as a person and still does to this day. I’ll always cherish that opportunity that he gave me to lead the footy Club in a VFL capacity.

“It’s been a significant moment in my life and I believe that I naturally gravitate towards leading people.”

He went on to captain again in 2023, displaying his strong leadership, courage and versatility on and off the field, before being faced with the biggest challenge of his footballing career - a ruptured ACL suffered against Footscray last year.

“The aspect of 12 months on the sidelines was a massive blow, for me, injury was a very foreign concept (before that),” Street said.

“I probably missed no games throughout my juniors and seniors, so I don’t think I had actually missed a game of footy ever previously.

“So, to go from that to missing 12 months was a big hit to my aspirations. Everyone that plays VFL footy has aspirations to play a higher level.”
  
However, throughout the rehab process, the 26-year-old found silver linings, exploring other things of interest to him.

“I think it allowed me to open myself up to different ventures in my life, whether that be work, my personal life or helping the boys out from a leadership and coaching aspect,” Street said.

“It has definitely made me a better person as a whole and anyone that has gone through a similar injury, they come back a better athlete and a more durable person.”

Into his fourth season as captain, Street made his return from injury in Round 8 against North Melbourne this year and has since built nicely into the season. 

He currently averages 24 disposals per game, which includes a 31-possession, nine clearance game in the team’s Round 11 outing against Sydney and a 28-possession, six tackle effort against the Bulldogs in Round 13.

Away from the football field the big-bodied utility works as a Construction Manager, with the role helping take his mind of footy and connect with different people.

“After finishing up at school I probably had 50 million different ideas of what I was going to do in the future for work or study, but somehow I ended up in the construction space,” Street said.

“It’s like footy clubs, you meet so many different people of diverse education and background. You’ve got sub-contractors that you talk to and clients with multi-millions of dollars.

“It’s a very chameleon-based industry where you have to play different roles to further your position in a particular project.”

Having been at the Club for the best part of seven years and chalking up almost 70 games in the yellow and black so far, Street is set to go down as one of the great leaders to don a Richmond VFL guernsey.

He has been able to represent the team he grew up supporting madly, an opportunity that the fourth-year captain is forever grateful for. 

“The thought of wearing the colours and representing the yellow and black week in, week out was always a dream of mine, and it might be in a VFL capacity, but it’s still a dream come true for me,” Street said.

“It’s a special place and I’ll probably be here until my legs fall off, it might be 34 or 35 (years old) hopefully and I’ll still be running out here.

“We’ve still got plenty of work to do and I want to see the success that I had in my first-year return to the footy Club, so that’s the ultimate goal at this stage of my life.”