Grand recollections: Nick Vlastuin

We continue our special post-season series presenting the thoughts of Richmond’s latest premiership heroes on that wonderful one day in September 2019. Today, reliable backman Nick Vlastuin gives his insight into the glorious triumph.

Connecting as a backline unit in Rance’s absence

"All pre-season we trained with Rancey, and then he was gone…We’d been training and playing with him for 100 odd games and then all of a sudden he was ripped away from us. It took us a fair while to get used it, but then Grimesy (Dlyan Grimes) stood up unbelievably and then Dave (Astbury), Bachar (Houli), also had career-best years. It forced everyone stand up that little 10 per cent because we didn’t have our superstar there looking after us."

The preliminary final win over Geelong

"It just didn’t feel like we were playing well at all and (Geelong) were just going pretty well. At half-time (I was thinking), 'not this again, we don’t want to waste another year' and then in the third quarter when we kicked two or three straight away, it flipped it pretty quick. Everyone was still really positive at half-time, we changed a few things structurally and changed our defensive system a little bit and it worked out alright."

Grand Final lead-up

"The week leading up to the Grand Final, I was actually pretty nervous. In 2017, we didn’t know what was going on and took it as it came. And this year, I kept thinking about post-game, sitting down and watching (GWS) get their medals if we lost, or us getting our medals if we won, and just knowing what came over the next couple of days…The weather was nice, training was good."

The big game itself

"The game was pretty good, everything went well. They were giving us something we wanted by playing an extra up at the stoppage, so myself or Grimesy or Dave was always free behind the ball, so our structure worked perfectly. And there was plenty of pressure up the field and our forwards were kicking pretty straight as well. Everything just went right on the day and it was probably one of the most complete structured games we had for the year."