The impressive development of talented, young Richmond midfielder/small forward Jack Higgins in his 2018 debut season of AFL football comes as no surprise to the Tigers’ recruiting manager Matt Clarke.

Higgins, who was Richmond’s first pick (No. 17 overall) in last year’s national draft, has played 12 senior games, is averaging 15.5 disposals and ranks second among the competition’s Rising Star contenders for goal assists, third for score involvements per match, fourth for contested possessions per match and fourth for tackles inside 50.

“We always expected that he’d play this year, whether that was really early or late in the season,” Clarke told AFL.com.au’s ‘Road to the Draft’ podcast.

“Jack is a pretty focused individual on his footy, so he was always going to come in and work really hard.

“What Jack had was his running power.

“It was already there, so he’s been able to come in and show a lot of our guys and our coaches, wow, this kid can really run . . .

“So, if he’s not touching the footy, he’s still actually having an impact due to his running ability.

“He’s gone through the centre bounce a number of times as well.

“Our coaches are more than happy for him to go in there because he’s actually got quick reaction with his hands.

“He can actually get out of the stoppage, too, when we win it, and close out defensively.”

While other AFL clubs pre-draft may have questioned whether Higgins had already reached the ceiling of what he could produce on-field, and had concerns over his lack of size, the Richmond recruiters saw significant upside in him.

“We thought, having watched him a number of times from (under) 16s level all the way through, and heard about all the other competitions he’d played at junior level, he’d done the same thing at every level,” Clarke said.

“We thought his athletic ability and his running power was always going to give him a chance to play (AFL football) and play early.

“So we weren’t so worried about his shape, or what he’d been able to do and not be able to translate to AFL level.

“We thought he had the skills set.

“He’s just been desperate to play AFL footy. And he’s shown that through all his work and all those little things that he needed to do and people had suggested to him that he had to do . . . He went and did it.”