Richmond draftee Riley Collier-Dawkins admits he was not expecting to end up at Richmond.
The Oakleigh Chargers midfielder was snapped up by the Tigers with Pick 20 in the first round of the 2018 NAB AFL Draft on Thursday night.
Tipped by many draft experts to be taken earlier in proceedings, Collier-Dawkins similarly felt Richmond’s first pick may have been too late for him.
“I had a bit of an inkling that I was going to go a bit earlier, but to slide into Richmond is just ideal, it’s perfect,” he said on Roar Vision.
In a bid to ease his mind, Collier-Dawkins wrote down a percentage chance of him ending up at each AFL club with the Tigers coming in at just 1%, further adding to his surprise.
“It was one per cent actually. I tried to do it to ease my mind but I think it did quite the opposite, it made me a bit more paranoid,” he added.
“I didn’t really think it was going to happen but I’m just stoked.”
Collier-Dawkins, who rates his contested ball-winning ability as his greatest attribute, says he is simply looking to earn the respect of his new Tiger teammates now the draft is out of the way.
“(Richmond’s list) is pretty star-studded, I’m pretty keen to learn off them and earn my stripes,” he said.
Further adding to the unexpected draft result, Richmond’s recruiting manager Matthew Clarke felt the club struck gold by landing the highly-rated Collier-Dawkins at 20.
“We had a number of boys rating around that pick (No. 20) and Riley rated quite highly,” he told richmondfc.com.au.
“You never want to be one of those guys that says, ‘Oh, gee, I couldn’t believe he was there at our pick’, but we probably had him rated a little bit higher than that.
“So we’re really excited to get him where we did.”
Collier-Dawkins kicked off training with Richmond today and made an immediate impression on his new teammates.
First day snags ☄️ #gotiges pic.twitter.com/JFFuSaqbPk
— Richmond FC 🐯 (@Richmond_FC) November 26, 2018