Two years ago, Joe Richards was working as a teacher at a special education school in Wangaratta and figuring his AFL dream was gone. Then Collingwood drafted him.
On Sunday, at the age of 24, he made his debut and, like Lachie Sullivan the week before, arrived in the game a bit like Mike Hussey arrived in Test cricket – having spent so long at a level below he knew his own game inside out and knew he would be OK at the next one up.
Collingwood’s Joe Richards, middle, is mobbed by his teammates after kicking his first AFL goal.Credit: AFL Photos
That Richards got drafted at all was in no small part down to Ben Reid, the 2010 Collingwood premiership defender, who badgered the Magpies’ recruiters to take a serious look at the talented small forward he was coaching at Wangaratta. Actually, that’s not right. He told them to take him.
For Sunday’s game, Richards got 30 tickets for friends and family from Wangaratta to make the trip.
Reid got 40.
The retired popular defender’s name still clearly carries weight at Collingwood.
There were multiple buses going up and down the Hume Highway on Sunday carrying Richards’ entourage.
“There was definitely a stage where I didn’t think it was going to happen. Between the age of 18 and say 22 it sort of goes out of your mind. And then, yeah, when you’re in talks and those sorts of things with clubs, that starts to spike up again,” he said.
“I have had to wait a little while [to be drafted] and even when you get into the system it takes a while. I suppose I also came into a successful club with lots of good players, so you sort have got to bide your time and wait for your turn. And, yeah, when it’s your turn, you have got to make the most of it.”
Which he did.
Richards was the highest-ranked pressure player on the ground, kicked a goal – he could have had a few, including one with his first kick – and was involved in three score assists.
“I went into quarter-time thinking I’ve wasted a couple of opportunities here. And I was just waiting for the next one, which lucky enough came in the second quarter,” he said.
They were not easy shots.
More impressive was that he was very clean with his hands, showed great vision to hit up Fin Macrae with one weighted kick going inside 50, and had poise.
Down a few through injury, all players had a lot of game time. Richards was cramping in both legs at the boundary on the siren.
He was the second mature-aged debutant for Collingwood in successive weeks after Lachie Sullivan’s debut last week. And he was just as impressive as the former Footscray VFL captain in adapting to the game.
Richards arm-in-arm with premiership star Josh Daicos.Credit: Getty Images
Reid was convinced Richards would make it. He rang Collingwood in 2021 and told them to look at him. Then he rang them again in 2022 and insisted.
“I just said this guy is so good [on] both sides of his body,” Reid said.
“He’s a one touch player. He’s a footballer. He’s the best I’ve seen in the Ovens and Murray League. In terms of the way he can just make things happen in a split second, I mean, Fin Macrae probably owes him three beers [for goals he created for him].
“He’s just a real footballer, he makes the right decisions. Nothing fazes him. When he was with us, we played him on the ball and I said, ‘Just go and get the footy’. There were a few structures but he was so good you’d say, ‘Go out and play’.”
But it was a little more complicated at Collingwood.
“You look at Bobby Hill, [Brent] Daniels at GWS – there are these little, little guys but they all have this footy IQ that’s through the roof and that’s what Joe’s got,” Reid added.
“I remember after his first six months he rang me and said: ‘It’s structures. It’s all about structures’. We just worked that out.”
Richards figured he had the ability to play, he just didn’t know how to play the way Collingwood played.
When he arrived at the Magpies his new coach Craig McRae saw what Reid saw in him, but also thought he was a way off AFL level.
“This year, it’s been like: ‘OK, this guy looks too good for VFL … he looks ready to play AFL’,” McRae said.
Collingwood coach Craig McRae.Credit: Getty Images
“But we’ve got a pretty good array of small forwards – Beau McCreery, Lachie Schultz and Bobby Hill. It’s hard to go past those guys but all of a sudden opportunities present, and now you go ‘OK, we’ve got one more that can do all the things that we need when we need them’.
“He gets his chance and he was the highest [rated] pressure player on the ground. In your first game! And he set up many goals, kicked his own, [and was] unlucky not to get a couple. [He’s] just really clean – same with Sullivan, [he] looks really clean, Harvey Harrison [is] really clean at ground level and in-tune with the game.
“We have a development player of the month, and he won that in April for doing all the things that make you want to get better every day. You don’t fluke this stuff. You can hope that you play well, then sometimes you come in with great belief because you’ve done the work.”
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