If Richmond Misjudges Its Greatest Full-Forward, What Does the Club Risk Losing?
Richmond’s full-forward throne may be impossible to award fairly with the numbers supporters reach for first: career goals and goals per game can reward different jobs. That is troubling because a ranking built on apparently objective totals may quietly penalise a player asked to create chances rather than finish them—or over-credit a role with more concentrated supply. The three claims are not interchangeable: one rests on sustained scoring, another on a devastating peak, and another on value that continued as Richmond’s attack changed. The unresolved question is not simply who scored most, but what Richmond loses when its definition of greatness mistakes the job for the scoreboard. In the full feature, we examine how career scoring rates collide with changing positional duties—and what the records can actually establish.
Jack Titus’s 970 goals in 294 senior games, Michael Roach’s 607 in 200, and Jack Riewoldt’s 787 in 347 produce markedly different career rates. That is meaningful evidence, not a verdict: appearances do not certify that each man played the same number of games as the deepest target. Roach’s early wing role and later ruck work, and Riewoldt’s changing duties in an attack with several scoring routes, complicate the denominator; Titus also played amid evolving forward combinations. Flatten those contexts and a clean decimal can disguise a messy comparison. The central test is what these totals measure before any rate is given decisive weight. In our Members investigation, we test whether Titus’s eleven club-leading seasons and ten fifty-goal years show sustained responsibility beyond longevity.
What should Richmond ask of its full-forward?
Goals must anchor a full-forward ranking; otherwise admiration for unseen work could excuse an ineffective scorer. But scoring is the end of an attacking passage, not always its whole story. A lead can open space for a teammate, a contested mark can rescue a poor entry, and movement can draw a defender away from the eventual target. Those actions matter only when they help the attack, not as automatic credit for effort. A useful standard must therefore give personal scoring real priority while asking whether the forward’s positioning and presence made Richmond’s chances better. How much that additional work counts remains a choice supporters should be able to inspect. In the full feature, we dissect the different seasonal windows behind Titus’s century, Roach’s 112 and Riewoldt’s Coleman-winning return.
There is also a boundary: this is not a contest for Richmond’s most beloved servant, best leader or most decorated premiership player. Sustained responsibility as the central scoring target, peak quality, contribution to the attack and performance when opportunities mattered are relevant, but they need not carry equal weight. Titus’s eleven seasons as the club’s leading goalkicker and ten seasons of at least fifty goals suggest persistence in that central role, not merely a long career. Yet those records cannot tell us everything about the difficulty or supply behind each chance. A fair comparison has to distinguish evidence of repeated responsibility from assumptions about what every era demanded. In our Members investigation, we investigate how Roach’s 1979–81 scoring peak depended on—and repaid—the supply of a powerful Richmond side.
When do famous goal totals stop being comparable?
A famous season can sharpen the argument and distort it at the same time. Roach’s 112 goals in 1980 include finals; his home-and-away total was 107. Titus’s 1940 century comprised 92 home-and-away goals and three in the Grand Final, while Riewoldt’s 2018 Coleman season was 65 in the home-and-away competition and 70 across the full season. Each figure is legitimate, but the windows answer different questions. Mixing a full-season tally with a league-leading home-and-away return can make a comparison look settled when it is not. The distinction matters both to peak claims and to what supporters think a season’s record proves. In the full feature, we look at how Roach’s 1982 ruck duties complicate his career average without justifying an invented positional rate.
Roach’s 1979–81 run—90, 112 and 86 goals—makes a powerful case for concentrated scoring force. A strong team could supply dangerous entries, but the forward still had to turn them into goals and make defenders account for his aerial threat. The partnership cuts both ways: team strength can create opportunity, while a great target makes that opportunity count. The record does not provide a dependable cross-era measure of entry quality, defensive attention or chances created for teammates, so assigning exact shares would pretend to know more than it does. Nor should his career rate be treated as pure full-forward output: documented ruck duties in 1982 changed the job. In our Members investigation, we trace the tension between Riewoldt’s repeated Coleman seasons and his evolving role in a multi-route attack.
How should Richmond judge a forward whose role keeps changing?
Riewoldt’s case raises a different accountability test: when a forward’s team values pressure, connection and multiple routes to goal, how should personal scoring be weighed against work that helps a teammate finish? His three Coleman seasons show repeated distinction as a scorer; they do not, by themselves, quantify what his changing role added to Richmond’s attack. Premierships cannot settle that either, because they belong to a team. The comparison needs evidence for both sides: that scoring remained a core responsibility and that creating space or drawing attention made a real difference. Without a reliable way to convert eras or credit every unseen action, the central question stays open: which definition of full-forward greatness should shape Richmond’s next judgment? In the full feature, we test how to weigh era-specific responsibility, finals evidence and team contribution without manufacturing a false conversion.
Not a member yet? Join RTSSG for the complete investigation and more Richmond research.
Richmond news by Richmond people, for Richmond people.
Comments