Richmond’s VFL Side Lost the 2017 Grand Final. How Much of the AFL Premiership Was Built in the Team That Didn’t Win?

P.A.

Sep 11

2 min read

We've just dropped another deep dive feature called Richmond’s VFL Side Lost the 2017 Grand Final. How Much of the AFL Premiership Was Built in the Team That Didn’t Win? on rtssg.com...

Six days before the AFL premiership, Richmond lost a VFL Grand Final with nineteen AFL-listed players — and not one of them played in the AFL decider. That makes the second team’s contribution much more interesting than a simple list of future premiership names.

The question Tiger supporters should be asking is simple:

How much of Richmond’s 2017 AFL premiership was built by a VFL program whose Grand Final team never supplied a player to the AFL Grand Final six days later?

Because that's exactly what this feature examines.

Was the VFL side merely depth insurance? Was it a classroom, a genuine team, or both? What did the coaching structure underneath Hardwick’s side actually do — and why does a four-point VFL Grand Final loss belong inside the premiership story at all?

In the article we break down:

why nobody playing in both Grand Finals is the best place to start
the coaching restructure that deliberately linked AFL and VFL teaching
why a development side still had to care about winning
what Port Melbourne exposed about continuity versus AFL-list talent
Sam Lloyd’s Norm Goss Medal and what genuine depth really means
why Shai Bolton could be developing correctly without playing the AFL Grand Final
the role veterans played in transferring standards below the senior side
how aligned roles kept omitted players inside the same football language
what Ivan Soldo’s omission tells us about non-linear development
why the VFL loss can matter without being rewritten as a hidden victory