Re: DELEDIO & TAMBLING
It's Tiger territory from Kyabram to the Top End
By Emma Quayle
November 21, 2004
Brett Deledio and Richard Tambling imagined their AFL careers at opposite ends of Australia.
Deledio kicked his first drop punt in the small Victorian town of Kyabram, where he became a fast bowler each summer. He ditched a promising cricket career at the start of this football season.
Tambling enjoyed a warmer childhood, in Darwin, his ability so well known and appreciated that he is known simply as "Richard", and stopped on the street to talk footy by people he does not even know.
Deledio knew he would be wearing a Richmond jumper next year long before the club's recruiting manager, Greg Beck, announced his player registration number - 110398 - in the first few seconds of yesterday's national AFL draft.
Beck had called the 17-year-old late on Friday night to let him know the Tigers would use their first No. 1 draft choice since 1989 to get him to Punt Road. The teenager, who had finished year 11 the same day, hugged his parents and went to bed. "I was relieved," said Deledio yesterday. He was clad in yellow-and-black and flanked by Richmond coach Terry Wallace and fellow draftees Danny Meyer and Tambling at his first official media conference.
Tambling arrived at the draft feeling slightly more uncertain. His heart soon raced faster when Hawthorn, the club tipped to take him at pick No. 2, opted for the taller Jarryd Roughead.
The speedy midfielder was grabbed by the Tigers two picks later and, at the end of it all, he was happy to wear any colours. "I'm just happy to have an AFL club," he said.
Tambling and Meyer, a South Australian, are not the only young men who must pack their bags and leave home to continue their footballing dream.
Thirty-three of the 71 players drafted yesterday must cross a state border to join their new club.
The Western Bulldogs' No. 3 pick, Ryan Griffen, lives in Goolwa, an hour south of Adelaide. No. 3 pick Lance Franklin, must move from Perth to Hawthorn, while Geelong ruckman John Meesen became an Adelaide Crow at selection No. 8.
Eight players cut by their clubs at the end of last season were granted a fresh chance. Geelong midfielder David Spriggs will start over in Sydney, while former Collingwood player Mark McGough and Port Adelaide ruckman Cain Ackland will join their new St Kilda teammates at a training camp in South Africa this week.
The Saints also sprang the draft's biggest surprise, naming with their final selection Noble Park half-back James Gwilt, the son of an English father and Papua New Guinean mother, who has not played his way down the traditional junior path.
Tiger coach Wallace will play any of the seven young players he picked up yesterday as soon as they are ready, but he does not expect them to drive the bottom-placed team immediately back up the ladder.
"They're not trophies," he said. "We've got an investment here and we're hoping these guys will be 10-year players for the Richmond footy club."
Deledio already knows how soon a start can end. His father, Wayne, made the Carlton side in 1975, but was dropped after just one match.
"It's a different world to what I went into... but Brett knows how hard he has to work," said Deledio senior. "He's a kid who gets on with what he's got to do. He's had a dream, and now he has to make it happen for him."
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2004/11/20/1100838277856.html
