Richmond great Matthew Richardson has expressed his great admiration for triple Richmond premiership star Kane Lambert, who announced his playing retirement from AFL football early this week.

Richardson regards Lambert’s role within the Tigers’ line-up as pivotal to their premiership success.

“His role within the team was a selfless team role,” Richardson said on this week’s episode of the Club’s podcast Talking Tigers.

“It’s talked about so often what he was able to do to help Dustin Martin play his natural game, coming in off half-forward and allowing Dusty to roll forward. And that role was one of the major parts of our game to be able to secure those three premierships . . .

“Even this year, when he’s played, we’ve won every game (7-0). I know he couldn’t quite cover the ground because of his hip, like he could in the past, but his ability to cover the ground just opened up the game for so many other players.”

Richardson pinpointed another of Lambert’s on-field attributes that benefitted the Tigers significantly in their finals campaigns.

“He’s probably half a goal a game player, a little bit over, maybe, but he was able to step up his goalkicking come finals time,” Richardson said.

“He’s the only Richmond player, apart from Dusty, that kicked goals in all three prelims and all three Grand Finals . . . He’s a goal a game player in finals, basically. So, he stepped up his goalkicking on the big stage.”