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But before the Tigers could watch him he hurt his ankle, his season ending after just three games.
By the first round of 2023, Coulthard was at Glenelg, again in yellow and black, playing reserves against Sturt.
By then the Tigers well and truly had their eye on him.
He gained permission to return to the Southern League for a kick with Happy Valley as it was a Gather Round weekend, and he had missed the previous week through suspension.
“He was an excitement machine. He sat on a couple of shoulders and was a class above. It was good for him to come out and play and the boys saw him in action,” Ridgway said.
Back with Glenelg he impressed, but he needed to play three state league games to be eligible for the mid-season draft. Another bye for a state game made it tight, but he just squeezed in when he kicked four goals on the weekend before the Tigers used pick four of the mid-season draft to add him to the list.
It was his third debut for a different club this season – all with yellow and black jumpers, all rapt at the chance the speedster has taken, working through the grades from local football to the MCG in one season.
Ted’s excellent adventure
The idea started, as most good ones do, as a conversation among mates.
With so many amateur footballers ducking over to Europe mid-season and clubs such as Old Scotch looking for players to fill in, Sydney premiership defender Ted Richards agreed to play after a chat with a friend at his son’s school, Andrew Quail.
Richards told Quail he would play if Quail played. All of a sudden, the talk escalated and Hawthorn premiership player Jordan Lewis was also on the comeback trail. Then Richards’ premiership teammates Nick Smith and Heath Grundy were threatening to fly down from Sydney to play.
Ted Richards holds the trophy aloft after the Swans’ 2012 grand final victory.Credit: Joe Armao
Smith, who went to Old Scotch, couldn’t make it and Grundy decided not to be a fly-in, fly-out player. Lewis, who had the clearance from Buchan approved, then hurt his calf running on a treadmill in the week leading into the match.
“Blokes were falling over before the start line,” Richards said.
So, it was Richards and a few other 40-somethings lining up on an oval in Camberwell for the first bounce at 9.20am Saturday in the VAFA thirds against, coincidentally, Old Xavs thirds.
As a Xavier old boy, what Richards was doing close to sacrilegious.
But he soon realised being in charge of the Melbourne Office of Wilsons Advisory, a financial investment and corporate advice group, might limit the abuse he was about to cop as his opponent made clear with a joke before the first bounce.
“I don’t know how I am going to handle playing on you today because I might need a job at Wilsons one day,” he told Richards.
Richards kicked goal within minutes. It was, in hindsight, a bad development.
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“My mind started ticking over, saying if I can keep this up, I am going to kick more than 10 [goals] today,” Richards said.
“Then, it was like the footy gods saw me think that and thought ‘oh well, we’ll put you in your place’ ... the calf went in the next contest.”
Old Xavs, with prominent player manager Paul Connors watching his son Charlie play, was happy to join in the healthy banter as Richards left the ground and headed to the pie stand to fill an empty stomach.
“For a few minutes there I thought I was 22,” Richards said.
It may or may not be the end for Richards, who was an excellent performer in two AFL grand finals for the Swans. But it may keep the debate around whether he was wasted as a full-back at Sydney during his AFL career. Maybe he should have played forward instead in his 228 games.
“It’s the third time I have said ‘never’,” Richards said.
On the coach’s whiteboard
Before you go, here are ...
Five key lines Snap Shot suggests Hawthorn could use to justify the move to Dingley to their members:
- Members of Australian rock band Jet grew up in Dingley.
- Damien Fleming, who barracks for Hawthorn, was from Dingley.
- We can’t do a Dan Andrews and call the whole thing off.
- Dingley = Tasmania when it comes to proximity to Melbourne.
- Dingley Village is a cool name for a village.
They said
“July’s a good time to be ranked one,” Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley ahead of last week’s top-of-the-table clash against Collingwood.
But they forgot to say
“July’s a good time to be ranked one. We were ranked one in May, June 2014. We were also ranked one from March right until late in September in 2020. Unfortunately, we haven’t been ranked one when it matters yet.”