Despite going down to Essendon in Friday's match simulation, Richmond can take plenty of positives from an impressive performance by young gun Kane McAuliffe.

The 20-year-old dominated through the centre of the ground and on the wing, dishing up several inside-50 entries from centre clearances.

After enduring an injury-riddled season in 2025 with only five AFL appearances, McAuliffe is confident in his preparation, labelling it his best pre-season yet.

“It’s been a good pre-season,” McAuliffe said.

“It's been my first time at the Club injury-free, which has been nice, so I’m just feeling fit and ready to get into the season.

“I’m just starting to learn a bit of the wing, a bit of inside mid, so it's been a good balance so far. It's a great young group through the midfield, and everyone works well together.

“We do heaps of reviews together, and I feel like we're really close as a line, so looking forward to the season.”

Friday's game saw all four draftees in Sam Cumming, Sam Grlj, Noah Roberts-Thomson and Zane Peucker, along with recruit Patrick Retschko, gain valuable on-field minutes as Tigers. 

McAuliffe was impressed with what the group were able to show in their first hit-out. 

“All the boys who came on had an impact, Sammy Cumming and Grilla (Grlj) in the first half, just showing their weapons,” McAuliffe said.

“They've got some weapons that other boys at the Club don't have, like Grilla's speed, and Sammy's competitiveness.

“They add so much to the team, and then Zane and Robbo (Roberts-Thomson) coming on in the second half were huge. They all impressed.”

McAuliffe is confident his team will build on Friday's hit-out, taking learning’s into the AAMI Community Series match against Melbourne in Ballarat next Friday at 4:15pm (AEDT).

“We can learn from it and just review the game, see where we went wrong, what we were doing well, because we were doing some really good stuff in the first half. We really put out some good passages of play,” he said. 

“We've had a pretty general focus throughout the pre-season, just getting better as a group, learning how we want to play together, creating the synergy between all the lines, so we'll just keep going on with that.

“We won't focus too much on the result today. We'll keep trusting our process, and all the work we've done over the pre-season and keep learning as a group and take on Melbourne.”