What Should Richmond’s Players Actually Be Trying to Prove This Offseason?
Updated: Aug 30
RTSSG’s full member feature, The Season Is Over. What Does Every Richmond Player Need to Do Tomorrow?, starts with a supporter question worth testing rather than simply repeating.
Richmond’s 2026 season is finished, which makes the first part of the offseason fairly straightforward. Players need a break. Bodies need recovery, minds need distance from the weekly AFL cycle, and a young list needs to learn that professionalism also includes knowing when to stop.
The more interesting question begins after the break has done its job.
Every Richmond player will eventually receive an individual program and a set of physical expectations for the return to preseason. Injured players will have different requirements from healthy players, younger bodies will need different management from established senior players, and the club will have benchmarks it expects everyone to meet.
But what should a successful offseason actually prove?
Is completing the prescribed program enough for a player who does not yet own an AFL role? What happens if two footballers competing for the same position both meet the club standard but one returns capable of doing something he could not sustain twelve months earlier?
How many Richmond positions are genuinely owned heading into 2027, rather than simply having a current favourite?
Does that uncertainty make the offseason more important for the players on the edge of the side, the highly rated youngsters already receiving opportunity, or the established players who suddenly have younger competition behind them?
What should improvement look like before Richmond even plays a practice match? More strength? More running capacity? Better repeat efforts? A body better suited to a particular role? A skill that changes where a player can be used? Or evidence that the weaknesses which limited him in 2026 have actually moved?
How should players chase that improvement without turning the offseason into unsupervised punishment or ignoring the medical and high-performance boundaries designed to protect them?
And when preseason begins, what should Richmond’s coaches be rewarding: who returned fit, who changed, who can now perform a role the side needs, or who has placed genuine pressure on somebody who previously looked safe?
A rebuilding list creates opportunity. At what point should that opportunity become competition?
The full RTSSG investigation asks what the months between the final siren and the first serious preseason contest should actually demand from a Richmond player.
Not a member yet?
RTSSG.com: Richmond News By Richmond People For Richmond People!
Comments