I think it was a good idea by the club to include Cotchin in the interviews with Mini and Yze. If Yze is successful, Trent will no doubt tell his former teammates who may have been pushing for Mini how impressive Yze was in his his interview.
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Trent Cotchin was a surprise face involved in the Richmond coaching search earlier this week.
In what was described as an “unusual” situation, the recently retired Tigers premiership captain sat in on interviews with prospective coaches Andrew McQualter and Adem Yze.
Joining him was Collingwood great Nathan Buckley, the pair tacked on to the existing sub-committee that was previously assembled to find Damien Hardwick’s replacement.
Cotchin provided some insight into the role he and Buckley have played late in the piece.
“They just wanted a more recent insight from a playing point of view, but also ‘Bucks’ has had his own journey as a coach and was a brilliant player himself,” Cotchin said on Channel 7’s Talking Finals.
“So just getting some insights from us, from our point of view, but also knowing they have a great selection committee that are going to make the right decision for the Richmond footy club.”
Given Cotchin played under McQualter this year and has worked alongside him at Punt Road for almost a decade, he had to put his loyalty aside when helping conduct the interviews with both he and Melbourne assistant Yze.
“It just comes down to the maturity of it, I’m not suggesting that I’m a very mature person…,” he laughed.
“But I love ‘Mini’ (McQualter), I think he’s a fantastic person, I think he’s a brilliant coach. Whether it’s the Richmond job or another senior gig - he will be a senior coach at some stage.
“Obviously the rooms were very different, because (there was) someone who has close relationships with a lot of people inside the room, and then someone who is new to that environment.
“They were different interviews but both really impressive.”
Cotchin was asked if it was a risk to bring in somebody from outside the Richmond system to help the club move forward following their era of success under Hardwick.
“I don’t know if it’s a risk,” Cotchin said further.
“Sometimes I think when you’ve been successful you do need to evolve. Whether that’s someone who has been inside of your system and has some ideas that now with a senior coach role they can potentially start to implement some of those.
“Or it’s someone who has been in a different environment that can bring a different element of freshness with some new ideas that they’ve seen across their journey.”
Richmond will make a call on McQualter or Yze next week."
The Tigers great has been added to the process late in the piece.
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