What Did Richmond Really Learn From Tyler Sonsie Playing for His Career?
The full RTSSG feature “Never give up.” followed Tyler Sonsie into a season that began with a much more basic question than where he should play: would he still have an AFL career at Richmond at all?
At the end of 2025, Sonsie had no contract for 2026 despite playing 16 senior games. Richmond eventually gave him a one-year extension on October 31, just before pre-season began. That put the next season under a different kind of pressure.
By mid-2026, the visible evidence had changed. Sonsie was producing career-high numbers in several areas and had begun spending time around a much younger Richmond group. Those are facts. The harder question is what Richmond should actually infer from them.
What was really being tested?
Was 2026 simply a player responding to the threat of losing his career, or was Richmond finally seeing a role and level that could survive beyond a one-year lifeline?
How much should the club value improvement that arrives after uncertainty? Does persistence itself tell Richmond anything about a player’s long-term fit, or must every emotional part of the story be stripped away when the next list decision arrives?
And what happens when the player who spent years trying to establish himself suddenly becomes one of the older heads around Sam Lalor, Taj Hotton and the next wave? Does that change what Richmond needs from him, or merely add another layer to the same football question?
The role question is still open
Inside midfielder? Wing? High half-forward who can move through the middle? Richmond has used Sonsie in different ways across his career, and the answer matters because role clarity is becoming more important as the rebuild stops collecting possibilities and starts assigning jobs.
What evidence would show that Sonsie has moved from “useful improver” to a footballer Richmond should actively build around? And what would show the opposite — that the improvement was real, but the long-term role still is not?
There is also a broader development question underneath it. Richmond drafted Sonsie at pick 28 in 2021 after a disrupted junior path. His early AFL career included flashes, VFL time, criticism and uncertainty. How should Richmond judge players whose development arrives later than the draft-night expectation?
The answer is not contained in one good stretch of football. But the question is now materially different from the one Richmond faced when Sonsie was waiting for a contract.
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