Blair Hartley says Richmond and North Melbourne “kicked into gear” to get the Robbie Tarrant/Callum Coleman-Jones deal finalised swiftly last week.
The club’s football talent manager has outlined how the Tigers came to work out with the Kangaroos what would come in and go out along with both players.
Veteran defender Tarrant made his way to Punt Road along with a future second-round selection and a third-round pick this year, with Coleman-Jones, two third-round picks and a future fourth heading to Arden Street.
Hartley admits the compensation for Mabior Chol’s move to Gold Coast also impacted the decision.
“The free agency window closing on Friday kicked us into gear, both us and North Melbourne,” he said on SEN Breakfast.
“The trade itself was made a little bit more difficult with North Melbourne wanting one of our uncontracted players in Callum and us attempting to take Robbie as a free agent.
“The Chol compensation pick coming in at the end of the second round, if we had have taken Robbie as a free agent that would have diluted the compensation pick for Chol.
“We were able to get together with North and come up with a trade that was mutually beneficial with the free agency deadline on Friday kicking us both into gear.”
Having lost promising forward-ruck pair Coleman-Jones and Chol, Hartley explained how the Tigers will cover for the departing duo.
“It’s certainly a challenge for us. We put four years into Callum and it’s disappointing to see him go,” he added.
“He was looking for more opportunities elsewhere and he was out of contract so we couldn’t really hold him.
“But we’ve got a guy called Samson Ryan who played his first game this year. We probably didn’t anticipate him playing for the first couple of years of his career, but he is someone we’re excited about.
“(Noah) Balta has shown he can play through the ruck and we’ve got a guy called Mate Colina who is a Category B rookie that we took last year and he did some pretty exciting things during some scrimmages last year.
“He’s exciting, he can really run, he can catch it. We look forward to welcoming him back next year when he returns from playing basketball in Hawaii.”
Hartley also touched briefly on the pitch for North Melbourne’s no.1 draft selection.
It was reported that the Tigers offered picks 7, 15, 26 and Coleman-Jones in exchange for the Roos’ no.1 draft pick which would lead to talented South Australian youngster Jason Horne-Francis.
“We never like to go into specifics, but we would have been silly not to ask the question,” he said further.
“It’s a little bit ‘no risk it, no biscuit’. They spent about four seconds thinking about that one, but we did ask the question.
“He’s going to be a fantastic player and they’ll be very lucky to have him if they select him at one.”
Tarrant aside, the Tigers have not been all that active in the trade period with Hartley explaining why that has been the case.
“With the CBA adjustment at the beginning of the year with clubs asked to defer their player payments into 2022, I feel like that’s impinged on player movement this year,” he said.
“It’s probably made things a little more quiet, particularly for those middle tier players who are looking for more opportunities elsewhere.
“I think there’ll be some things that pop up, but I’m not sure that there’ll be anything we don’t already know about.”
As for next month’s draft, Richmond finds itself in a strong positon with four selections inside the top 30 made possible by some pick trading last year.
Hartley admits that without junior football in Victoria, there has been a lot of vision of interstate players taken in.
“We made the decision to trade into this draft. At the end of last year we traded our first round to take Geelong’s first round to give us those two picks in the first round thinking we’d be able to watch the guys a little more this year,” Hartley added.
“We didn’t quite get the same result in Victoria, but we did get to see them play a little bit more at the start of this year. The boys in WA and SA have been playing all year so that gives us some confidence.
“We’ve got a great team led by Matty Clarke and Will Thursfield who have been ploughing through the vision all year and we’re confident it has put us in a decent position.”
The Tigers will take picks 7, 15, 26, 28, 38, 40 and 83 into the 2021 draft.