The changes have come thick and fast at Richmond since the end of the 2024 season.
It’s well documented that the Tigers snared eight talented young players in an extraordinary draft bonanza, but there also have been considerable changes to the Club’s football program.
Richmond coach Adem Yze outlined those changes on the latest episode of the Talking Tigers podcast.
“We went through a lot last year. With all the things that we were going through, for a first-time coach, it was great learning for me,” Yze said.
“This year our list dynamic changed, so we sat down as a collective – Tim Livingstone, Blair Hartley and Shane Dunne – and we created a plan.
“We’ve gone from a pretty experienced list to an inexperienced list. Things need to change for that . . .
“It doesn’t change our expectation on win-loss, but what it does do is we go into more of a development program.
“We’ve got a lot of young players that need upskilling . . .
“We’ve shifted a couple of our coaches around. For instance, Ben Rutten, rather than doing a line, he’s overseeing our coaches, making sure that we’re educating the right way . . . making sure what we’re making every minute matter in our coaching, in our development and education.
“So, he’s overseeing that, and it helps me. We’ve got another set of eyes for our coaches, so we can upskill them.
“And then Jack Ziebell, who was a stoppage coach last year. He was full-time in the AFL program, but right now we see more benefit for him to be in the development room. We’ve got 24-25 really young players that need that time . . .
“Blake Caracella’s come in. He’ll look after stoppages, and we’ve got a couple of analysts that will help him with that.
“But we just see the benefit is going to be around our development and how fast we can fast-track the development of these boys.”
Steve Morris’ promotion from the Club’s VFL coach (replaced by former player Jake Batchelor) to an AFL assistant coach, along with the arrival of well-regarded High Performance Manager Ben Serpell from Geelong, were other key off-field appointments at Punt Road.
Yze declared that Morris had been ready to assume an assistant coaching role for a couple of years and thoroughly deserved his opportunity.
“He’s been a great VFL coach, running his own program, transferring our message from the senior program and the same game styles,” Yze said.
“Last year we went through a lot of adversity in the senior team and our VFL program then got impacted by that.
“But if you were a supporter and going and watching our games at Punt Road at VFL level, they looked like they were playing a Richmond brand of footy, which is really impressive for a young coach.”
Yze also spoke glowingly of Serpell.
“Any person you talk to about him in the AFL industry, just speaks so highly of him, and we can see the reasons why,” Yze said.
“He’s such a smart operator, he’s really diligent, and we need that with our list dynamic what it is right now.
“Our boys are learning how to train hard, recover . . .
“Ben’s been terrific for our program and a great support for me.”
In further changes to the Club's football department, Oliver Grant has moved to a full-time recruiting role as Victorian Recruiting Manager, under National Recruiting Manager, Rhy Gieschen.
Grant was previously the Club's VFL Operations Manager and AFL Recruiting Officer, and has been pivotal in developing the second-tier program's success.
Alex Davey has now joined the Club to fill the vacated VFL Operations Manager and AFL Recruiting Officer role. Davey joins from the Oakleigh Chargers where he was the Regional Talent Operations Lead of their strong talent pathway program.
