2006's Top Recruit
Our greatest recruit we got in 2006! 1973-1974 player FRANCIS JACKSON was appointed Richmond Recruiting Manager after spending 12 months in the role on a part time basis this week back in 2006.
The rest is history! What an impact this man has had!!! Seasoned Richmond fans shudder at the thought of Richard Lounder and Anthony Banik, botched No.1 selections in the formative early days of the draft (1987 and 1989), when, to be fair, it was still heavily compromised by recruiting zones, and wasn't the sole means of player distribution and exchange. More recently, Aaron Fiora and Richard Tambling, picks three and four in strong drafts (1999 and 2004), have headed the litany of recruiting turkeys, along with Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls (pick No.8) from the national draft wipeout of 2005. Terry Wallace was arguably doomed from the outset by the fateful 2004 draft, in which five selections in the first 20 yielded only one player still on the club's list, No.1 pick Brett Deledio. In 2005, Jackson was working as a teacher at Brighton Grammar and was a very part-time recruiter at Richmond (the only one we had), which spent only a five figure sum on recruiting at a time when Collingwood was investing more than 15 times that amount on finding talent. Jackson WAS the recruiting department. Jackson was made a full time recruiter this week in 2006 and we have not looked back!
