In May 2016 Richmond was accused of becoming the home of the list-clogger — a club filling the list with other teams’ footballers without changing its ceiling. A year later Richmond was premier. More awkwardly for the original argument, that premiership side contained a substantial group of players whose AFL careers had begun somewhere else. So the lesson cannot simply be that Richmond stopped recruiting recycled players. Something more important changed between the 2016 coll

Adem Yze inherited a brutally difficult rebuild: a premiership list ageing out, enormous experience leaving Punt Road, a deliberate youth shift and injuries repeatedly removing players Richmond most needed to assess. Those circumstances still matter. They also cannot answer every question forever, particularly after Richmond extended Yze through the end of 2028. There are components of Richmond’s football that have improved. Stoppage work moved. Young players developed. There

Richmond’s 2026 football was weak. The institution entered it carrying unusual commercial and cultural strength. The unanswered question is how much of that buffer the season consumed.

Richmond told Mick Malthouse he had the senior coaching job in 1983. He accepted. Days later the decision was reversed — then another Richmond role apparently disappeared too.

Richmond diagnosed its own football failures in 2011, before the dynasty. Fifteen years later, that old checklist has become a live rebuild test.

Richmond history is full of huge bets. Calling them wins or disasters after the event may be the easiest part of the argument.

Adem Yze arrived with match-day strategy as a genuine credential. Three seasons later, Richmond still has a quarter that can turn a live game into a dead one.

Richmond’s decision to extend Adem Yze through 2028 is easy to describe as a vote for stability. But stability is only the label. A contract that long also tells us something about what the club believes this rebuild needs — and what it expects the coach to show before patience becomes evidence. Richmond has accepted that a young list, interrupted availability and structural change take time. The harder question is what that time is meant to produce. Is the club buying contin

Richmond appointed Adem Yze to move the club beyond the football of its premiership era. Three seasons later, the question is no longer whether he is a recently appointed coach. It is whether Richmond’s football is actually moving with the modern game. The Tigers have worked on contest, stoppage, territory, defensive shape and faster ball movement. But improving individual components is not the same as connecting them into a system that repeatedly creates the next advantage.

Richmond can prepare a game plan. The harder 2027 question is who recognises and repairs the problem on the field when the game stops looking like it.

Richmond’s VFL side won four of 18 games in 2026 and finished 21st. For a standalone football club, that ladder position would almost write the verdict. For Richmond’s second team, the question is more complicated. The VFL side exists inside an AFL rebuild. Its best players can be promoted, young footballers can be left in uncomfortable roles because development matters more than the next result, and rehabilitation minutes or AFL needs can reshape the team from week to week.

Richmond has young defenders with obvious upside. The sharper 2027 question is what Taylor Duryea must turn into dependable individual capability before Jake Batchelor can build a defensive system around it.

Richmond’s young forwards spent much of 2026 working with poor supply, but that cannot make every part of their development impossible to judge. Jonty Faull, Harry Armstrong, Seth Campbell and the next group still have to become harder to defend when the entry is late, pressured or imperfect. Luke Breust’s development role sits inside that problem without being the same job as Chris Newman’s forward-line system. So where does Richmond draw the accountability line between coll

Richmond no longer needs only proof that Sam Lalor, Kane McAuliffe, Taj Hotton and the next midfield wave can produce AFL moments. The harder 2027 question is whether their individual improvement starts changing what teammates can do around them. That pushes Jack Ziebell’s development role into a different accountability lane from Sam Lonergan’s stoppage system, Blake Caracella’s ball movement and Adem Yze’s whole-team model. What belongs to Ziebell — and what evidence would

Richmond conceded fewer points late in 2026, but the opposition kept reaching dangerous territory at almost the same rate. That creates a sharper question for Jake Batchelor than simply asking whether the scoreboard improved.

Richmond’s late-season stoppage improvement created a more demanding question than whether the Tigers can simply climb the clearance table. They began winning enough first possession to show genuine progress, yet too much of that work still failed to become territory, inside-50 advantage or scoreboard pressure. That puts Sam Lonergan’s 2027 responsibility under a sharper light. As Richmond’s midfield and stoppage coach, where does his job finish once the clearance is won? Is

Richmond’s 2026 ball-movement numbers create a question that is harder than simply saying a young side used the football poorly. The Tigers could win the ball back often enough to rank near the top of the competition for rebound 50s, yet too little of that possession became territory, continuity or forward-half opportunity.

Richmond’s scoring problem in 2026 was too broad to be explained by one forward, one selection decision or one bad patch of delivery. The Tigers finished at the bottom end of too many attacking measures for the next question to be merely whether they can kick a few more goals.

Richmond’s new High Performance Manager inherits more than an injury list. What must Selwyn Griffith make physically possible for the rebuild in 2027?

The full RTSSG member feature, Adem Yze Is Being Judged. Who Is Judging the People Who Built the System Around Him?, starts with a question Richmond cannot answer by looking at the senior coach alone. Adem Yze enters 2027 under obvious pressure, but a football program is never built by one person. List construction, development, high performance, staffing, role clarity and the club’s own strategic decisions all shape what the senior coach eventually puts on the field. If Rich