During the off-season Richmond welcomed three new coaches, all of whom are under the age of 35, tasked with guiding a young group of Tigers as they transition into the AFL system.
Coaches Luke Breust (Forwards/Development), Taylor Duryea (Backs/Development) and Jack Madgen (VFL), all played football at AFL, SANFL or VFL level as recently as 2025. Fresh off their own playing careers, the trio have seamlessly transitioned into helping the next generation of Tigers develop and improve their craft.
“We just expect to get better,” coach Adem Yze told SEN.
“There were KPI’s that we weren’t good enough at last year, and we just expect growth, whether that’s from our coaching staff or playing group.
“We went out of our way this year to bring in some younger coaches to really bolster our development space, so we brought in Luke Breust, Taylor Duryea and Jack Madgen.
“My job is to get our players better, so as a team, we want to improve systematically, but at the same time, individually, we want to improve.
“Last year we tried really hard. Our attitude and effort, I couldn’t question it, but at times it was our execution that wasn’t as good as the better teams.”
With the start of the 2026 season less than a month away, Yze was asked what the goal was for the Club as he embarks on his third season at the helm.
“For our younger group, you are teaching them about the process,” Yze said.
“Whether you have a really good win, we just have to be honest in the way we review every game.
“We aren’t going to put a ceiling on how many wins we will have, but we want to get better, and we expect our players to get better, and we expect to be really competitive.
“We want to be in games for longer. Against the good teams last year, we weren’t good enough. We were competitive against the teams who were around the same mark as us on the ladder, but we really want to test some of the better teams in the comp.”
Richmond will meet Essendon for its first practice match next Friday, February 20, at the NEC Hangar in Tullamarine.
