Where Is Richmond’s 2021–2023 Bridge to the Next Team?

The full RTSSG member feature, The Missing Middle: Why Richmond’s 2021–2023 Cohorts Have Not Bridged the Rebuild, opens a question worth separating from the easy answer.

Richmond’s 2024 draft class carries much of the future expectation, while players recruited from 2021 to 2023 are now further into their AFL development and should be entering different stages of responsibility.

What should that middle cohort be providing by now? Does Richmond need stars from every draft, or does it need enough dependable third-to-sixth-year footballers to connect the senior survivors with the newest talent?

What happens to a rebuild when the newest players are asked to learn difficult AFL jobs without enough settled players immediately above them? Which individual explanations are reasonable, and when does the collective output become the more important question?

Which functions should this cohort own in 2027? What would a genuine bridge look like on match day? And how much pressure does the answer place on Richmond’s list decisions over the next twelve months?

The evidence does not stop there. Read the full RTSSG member investigation here.

Read the full RTSSG investigation

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