Where Should Taj Hotton Fit in Richmond’s 2027 Side?
Updated: Aug 30
Our full RTSSG feature, 🐯 TIGERS SEASON WRAP — TOUGH NIGHT, BUT PLENTY TO TALK ABOUT, finished Richmond’s 2026 season with questions about identity, standards, development and what comes next. One of those questions belongs almost entirely to Taj Hotton.
The final night against Geelong did not make Hotton a finished AFL player. It did, however, offer another glimpse of why Richmond supporters keep looking at him differently. The clean hands in traffic, the ability to move around pressure and the vision to release a teammate rather than simply take the first option all point toward a player whose eventual role may matter as much as his raw talent.
The question underneath it
Where should Richmond actually develop Taj Hotton for 2027 — as a forward with midfield traits, a midfielder who can rest forward, or something less conventional that allows his evasiveness and decision-making to become the point of difference?
That is a different question from whether he impressed in the final game. Young players can flash talent anywhere. Rebuilds become more serious when a club decides what that talent is supposed to become, what skills must be built around it and which senior role the player is ultimately being prepared to own.
Why the role matters
Richmond already has a long list of young players competing for midfield minutes, forward-half responsibility and development attention. Hotton’s value may come from not fitting neatly into one box. But versatility only helps if it eventually becomes a weapon rather than a reason to keep moving a player around.
Does Richmond want his first touch and evasiveness closer to stoppage? Is his vision more damaging when he receives in space? Can he become a forward who changes the geometry of the attacking half, or does that undersell the ball-winning and decision-making Richmond may eventually need through the middle?
Those are development questions, not selection-table trivia. The answer will shape what Richmond asks Hotton to work on over summer, which players he is competing with, how quickly he can influence AFL games and what kind of player the club believes it drafted.
The larger context sits inside the Read the full RTSSG investigation, where Richmond’s last game is used to ask what the club learned, what still has to be built and which young players may change the shape of 2027.
Hotton may turn out to be one of the most interesting of them. The important part now is not predicting how good he will become. It is making sure Richmond knows what it is trying to build him into.
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