TRENT COTCHIN

IT’S TIME FOR 300 – THAT’S A PLUS

u Triple premiership captain, Brownlow medallist, triple best and fairest. That’s a fair footy CV by any standards and it’s one of the reasons Trent Cotchin will go down as an all-time Richmond great.

And now we can add 300-game player to that list of honours as Cotchin prepares to bring up a rare milestone this round.

He’s the third player to reach the 300-mark this season, following North Melbourne’s Todd Goldstein and Collingwood’s Steele Sidebottom, and the 102nd in AFL/VFL history.

Given just over 13,000 players have played at the highest level since 1897, that’s less than one per cent who have reached the magical figure.

Since he made his debut as an 18-year-old in 2008, Cotchin has been a heart and soul player who has never taken a backward step.

Best of all, he was an inspirational leader who captained the Tigers through some of the club’s darkest and, later, greatest moments.

At just 22, he took over as skipper from Chris Newman, but he was leading a club in transition with veterans such as Matthew Richardson, Daniel Jackson and Newman moving on and a new breed of Tigers coming through.

They included Jack Riewoldt, Dustin Martin and, of course, Cotchin himself.

But it was not all plain sailing and with senior coach Damien Hardwick also under pressure, they had to navigate some stormy waters around that time.

The Tigers fell to 12th in Cotchin’s first year as captain in 2012, made the finals for the next three years –bowing out in the first week each time – before slumping to 13th in 2016.

Then came the line in the sand moment.

Richmond’s administration stuck fat and stood by Hardwick, knowing he could coach and that he had the cattle.

Bingo. The following year Richmond won its first flag in 37 years and repeated the dose again in 2019 and 2020.

Only a masterclass from Collingwood’s big American Mason Cox in the 2018 preliminary final prevented what might have been a ‘four-peat’.

Cotchin selflessly stood aside as captain in 2022, but remains the longest-serving captain in Richmond’s glorious history. That’s a plus.

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