Each year there’s the same preoccupation with draft picks — which player your club picked first and how much of a ‘gun’ player they’ve been in TAC or what amazing beep tests they did at draft camp.

This is all nonsense. We’ll know in five years whether these kids will make the grade, and no amount of fervent prognostication will make a scrap of difference.

Naturally, the kids in the 2009 draft are better prepared than recruits have been before for adapting to the tough and uncompromising world that is AFL football. But the truth is that for every Daniel Rich who makes a sizeable splash in their first season, there are dozens of others who’ll sink like stones after a few games.

Lest anyone be thinking I’m talking through my hat, just remember that the Bulldogs’ Brian Lake was taken at pick 71 of the 2001 draft, while Tim Walsh was taken at pick 4 in 2002 for the same club. Yeah, that’s right. Tim who?

Amongst all the draft-related news and seemingly endless — and pointless — draft prognostications over recent weeks, there was one truly startling piece of information.

In a story likening Richmond’s current plight to Geelong’s at the turn of the century, Jake Niall noted that Richmond did not have a full-time recruiter on staff in 2005. You don't need to be a ‘rocket surgeon’ to be aware that the Tigers have burned almost countless recruiting opportunities in the past couple of decades, not to mention letting go a player like David Rodan. It beggars belief that a club in the AFL competition could have its head so far into the sand that recruitment was not a number one priority. And it’s not like they were travelling well at the time.

Of course, recruiting is a subjective process at the best of times. With the benefit of hindsight, one can wonder how the Tigers selected Deledio and Tambling ahead of Franklin and Roughhead — faith in Richo was probably a big factor. Recruiters spend time watching games to evaluate a wide selection of potential recruits — unlike the ubiquitous draft previews that litter the blogosphere — but, ultimately, make subjective judgements based largely on perceptions of their list’s future weaknesses. In short, none of this is an exact science. Nevertheless, Richmond’s situation in 2005 is extraordinary.

Matthew Ricardson's retirement should be seen as a filip by Richmond fans, though I am sure most will see it as an extremely sad day. For AussieRulesBlog it’s a very sad day — one of my favourite whipping boys is no more!

Let me say, yet again, that Richo’s love for and dedication to the Tigers has never, ever been in question, and he should be applauded for this. The sad truth, however, is that Richo has, for most of his career, been a disastrous on-field role model for less exalted teammates.

I feel for Damien Hardwick today. He will have to maintain a solemn outward demeanor appropriate to the ending of such a famous career, but his heart must be bounding with joy at losing a significant millstone in his quest to return the Tigers to consistently competitive football.

No longer will messages about clinical skill execution be thwarted by a favourite son dropping clangers as if he were re-enacting Hansel and Gretel’s stroll into the magic forest. Forwards can now be expected, nay required, to kick goals like professionals without the most famous current forward squandering chances like a gambling addict at the tables at Crown Casino.

Today also marks the passing of the last of the triumvirate of mediocrity that anchored the Tigers to the middle or lower reaches of the competition for most of the last two decades — Wayne Campbell, Matthew Knights and, now, Matthew Richardson.

As an interesting postscript, just as the Tigers will, I believe, be able to make a new start with Richo removed from the playing group, Collingwood may find a similar benefit in the retirement of that endurance athlete, Anthony Rocca. Both have, I think, for quite different reasons, held their teams back.

With media speculation over the future of two members of the Bombers’ leadership group, I’ve been thinking a bit more deeply than usual over player contracts, changing clubs, and so on.

From the supporters’ perspective, we’d love every player on the club’s list to love the club as much as we do. Only the callow supporter changes clubs. For the rest of us, we are there through thick and thin.

For the players, however, things are more complex.

• We’re talking about their job — and a job that can set them up for the rest of their lives, if they’re a bit canny. 
• There’s clearly some considerable caché among ex-players for one-club players. We hear ambitions to be a one-club player too often, especially from players who have clearly forsaken potentially greater success at other clubs, for it to be a furphy.
• Coaches and clubs do their best to indoctrinate players with the notion of loyalty to their mates.
• Many players are connected to supporters and feel a sense of obligation to them.
• Players put their bodies in harm’s way while wearing a club’s guernsey.
  
• To have reached AFL level, players are pretty driven individuals with a keen sense of ambition for success.