Garry Lyon was holding onto a potential “mega trade” over the course of the trade period.
He mentioned it on a number of occasions but did not want to pull the trigger until he had further information.
Upon the completion of the trade period, Lyon has now gone with the rumour he heard which had former Richmond defender Alex Rance playing for a rival club.
Lyon is unsure if the potential shock move was ever really a chance but did keep hearing noise surrounding the gossip.
“It came across my desk within two days post Grand Final,” Lyon said on SEN Breakfast.
“I checked this out and I made a couple of calls and I didn’t get anything back which is normally sort of code for ‘this is on’.
“Alex Rance to Essendon was what I heard very early in the piece.
“I got all excited. I thought, ‘boy, I’m on to something here’.
“That would have been the biggest trade of the whole trade period.
“I followed up, I chased it up as hard as I could, but it went cold so I didn’t go with it.
“I kept hearing it and I rang a couple of people and normally they get back to me, but nothing.
“I did a bit of homework and it just went cold. I don’t know if it was ever a possibility but it was suggested to me that it was on, but not to be.”
Tim Watson said: “I guess the reason you probably heard that and thought that there might be some legitimacy to it was the fact that Ben Rutten was his coach at Richmond for a period of time.”
Lyon replied: “Exactly, that was one of the things that was thrown into the mix that you just thought, ‘hang on, maybe there is something here’.
“But not to be.”
Rance announced his retirement in December 2019 and ever since there have been constant rumours surrounding a possible return to the AFL.
Football talent manager at the Tigers, Blair Hartley, addressed the Rance speculation on SEN’s Dwayne’s World last week.
He said that if Rance were to come out of retirement, he would be confident it would be with Richmond, but is not expecting that scenario to arise.
“We miss him but he’s content with his decision and we’ve just got to support him in that, as much as we’d love to have him,” said Hartley.
“I’m very confident of that (he’d play for Richmond if he came back).
“Look, he’s not going to come back. He’s made that pretty clear to us.
“He’s comfortable with his position and we’ve just to support him with that given the service he’s given to us over number of years.”