What Did Taj Hotton, Luke Trainor and Harry Armstrong Share Before Richmond?

The full RTSSG feature “From Junior Basketball to AFL Dreams: A Moment Years in the Making” is available here.

In August 2025, Richmond named Taj Hotton, Luke Trainor and Harry Armstrong in the same AFL side for the first time. That was the visible moment. The more interesting question was whether their connection had started long before Richmond put the same jumper on all three.

How much of their shared sporting path sat outside football? What had they already learned about each other before elite pathways pulled their careers in different directions? And when three young players arrive at the same AFL club after years of crossing paths earlier, is that merely a neat coincidence — or part of a story worth preserving before their Richmond careers take over the narrative?

What did the road before Punt Road look like for Hotton, Trainor and Armstrong? Which parts of that earlier connection matter now, and which are simply the kind of detail that becomes more interesting as three separate careers unfold?

The full member feature follows that earlier connection rather than stopping at the team sheet. Read it here.

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