In the final of a richmondfc.com.au post-season special focusing on 14 key findings from the Tigers’ 2014 season, we take a look at the change of fortune for young defender Dylan Grimes.

No. 14:  Dylan Grimes finally had some much-needed continuity with his football.

After making his AFL debut with Richmond in the 2010 final home-and-away round, Grimes had managed just 26 senior league games all-up leading into the 2014 season.

He’d been plagued by serious hamstring trouble, as well as a foot stress fracture, which wiped out half of his 2013 season, and placed extra pressure on him to get through 2014 relatively unscathed, so he could establish himself as a regular member of the Tigers’ line-up.

Slowly, but surely during this season, Grimes gained confidence in his body to stand up the rigors of AFL football.

So much so, that by season’s end, his self-belief levels were high enough to enable him to run off his opponents, in a bid to add an offensive string to his bow, and further benefit the team.

Grimes averaged a tick under 10 disposals per game for the season, but, far more importantly, he played 19 games out of Richmond’s total of 23, which was far and away a career-high tally for him (previous best was nine games).

To at last be able to string together games, without injury intervening, delighted Grimes.

“It was a dream come true to finally feel like an AFL footballer, and have an AFL footballer’s body.  Having that assurance to play at the highest level, consistently, and not get injured, is a pretty special feeling,” Grimes said in a ‘Roar Vision’ post-season interview.

The steady progress that Grimes made throughout this year should hold him in good stead, when he returns for pre-season training, in preparation for the Tigers’ 2015 campaign.