Tylar Young has made a Dylan Grimes-like defensive start to his AFL career at Richmond with regards to the no frills but important statistical category of one-percenters.

Grimes had two one-percenters in his senior debut with the Tigers in the final home-and-way round of the 2010 season against Port Adelaide at Marvel Stadium. But then, in his first five games the following season, he had a highly-impressive total of 58 one-percenters.

The current Richmond co-captain and triple premiership star was more preoccupied with tight defence on his opponents in the early phase of his AFL career, rather than intercepting and rebounding.

He subsequently developed into one of the competition’s best all-round defenders with his ability to negate opponents, intercept and provide offensive run out of the backline.

Young, a mature-age recruit for the Tigers this season as a 24-year-old, had seven one-percenters on debut against Adelaide at Adelaide Oval in Round 2. Then, in Round 3 v Collingwood at the MCG, he had a team-high 10 one-percenters, followed by a game-high 15 one-percenters v Western Bulldogs at the MCG in Round 4, and a game-high 11 one-percenters against Sydney at the Adelaide Oval last Friday night.

After five rounds of the 2023 season, Young is ranked No. 1 in the competition for one-percenters per game with 10.7.

And he’s slowly but surely finding more of the ball in Richmond’s back half as well, with 11 disposals in each of his past two games.

Clearly, Young has been a key positive for the Tigers in the early stages of season 2023. And, given he didn’t take up playing Australian Football until just four years ago, there is a huge upside to him.