From seniors coaches, to Brownlow and Coleman medalists, to club best-and fairest winners and premiership players, it is an impressive roll call.

High on the list of players to make a name for themselves in the national competition is former Camperdown player Paul Broderick.

A star from an early age, Broderick was selected in the Hampden schoolboys team two years in a row and was quickly on the radar of then VFL clubs.

As a 15-year-old, he played a lead role in Camperdown winning the Hampden under 18s grand final in 1985, kicking three goals in an upset win over South Warrnambool.

He was promoted to the Magpies’ senior team and played in losing grand final teams against the Grant Thomas-led Warrnambool in 1986-87.

By this time, his sublime skills had led to Fitzroy recruiting him for the 1988 season. It was the beginning of a stunning career, spread between the Lions and Richmond.

While he never got to contest an AFL grand final, Broderick came close on two occasions and has strong links with the last two times the Tigers were successful on grand final day. Below he shares his thoughts with us.

Being in the crowd when Richmond won the 1980 premiership. 

"I'm very grateful to Fitzroy for giving me my chance to play AFL football. I coach juniors at the Fitzroy Football Club now and they wear the old jumpers so it's a nice link.

There has always been a strong connection to Richmond, I barracked for them as a kid, Maurice Rioli was my idol growing up.

I went to the 1980 grand final and remember the huge crowd and a big Richmond win, which hooked me in. It was nice to be back last year to see the next premiership.”  

Falling just short of the stepping onto the grand final stage. (Part 1)

We played in two preliminary finals in my time at the Tigers. In 1995 we got knocked out by Geelong.

We lost our first final and that swung us to the Cats’ side of the draw, which wasn't great because we had trouble beating them that season.

Our big moment in that year was the semi-final win over Essendon. Matthew Knights kicked three goals and Scotty Turner cleaned up David Grenvold and Gary O'Donnell.

It turned out to be our grand final in the end.

John Northey was our coach and he left at the end of the season and a few others things happened so we didn't get that second and third chance that most of the time you need to build to a flag.

Falling just short of the stepping onto the grand final stage. (Part 2)

In 2001, Danny Frawley coached us. ‘Spud’ was really passionate and invested in his footy but unfortunately we ran into the Brisbane Lions in the preliminary final and they were red-hot.

They had such a strong midfield.

I don't really look at 1995 and 2001 as lost opportunities, I think as a group we reached the limits of our abilities, we got the maximum out of ourselves. We were just unlucky to run into some exceptional opponents. 

Being part of a Richmond juggernaut.

Those finals series were exciting times, Richmond has a proud history and with Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon, was one of the big four clubs with a huge supporter base.

There was a lot of interest in what we did and when we were winning, the excitement built and built each week. 

Watching the Tigers win the 2017 grand final.

"Last year I admit I was like a lot of Richmond supporters, I was wondering when they were going to fall off the perch, when was this going to end.

Even coming into the finals it was a feeling that this is great but it will come to an end.

I was waiting for the wheels to fall off and for our hearts to get shattered again. But they just kept building.

I went to the grand final with a few former Richmond players from my era and it took until the last 15 minutes of the game when we really believed the Tigers were going to win.

It was an amazing feeling, looking around at the supporters and ex-players, there was hugging and tears, the emotion was flowing out.

We went back to Chris Naish's place for a barbecue that night and reflected on what was an incredible day. 

Richmond falling short of back-to-back flags.

Seeing the Tigers getting beat in the preliminary final shows the evenness of the competition. If you are slightly off on any given day then you can get rolled. Collingwood played really well while too many Richmond players were down on the night. It was probably the Tigers’ worst game for 12 months. I think the bye at the end of the home-and-away season is impacting on the finals. The way it is, if you get in the eight it doesn’t matter as much as it once did if you are top four or a bit lower down. Maybe it would be fairer to not have the bye but give the top four teams the first week of the finals off.

Even though they aren’t going to win the flag, I’m pleased Richmond have been able to have a really strong season coming off a premiership. There have been a lot of pluses and they are well positioned to bounce back again next year and be right up there again.  

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