Bowing out of curtain raiser Cotchin takes centre stage
Filed Under Country Curtain | Posted on May 17, 2008
Trent Cotchin was on the MCG, wearing a Coburg jumper, warming up and running through his plans for the VFL match.
About a month ago, as the teenager played his first football for the year after a summer full of injury, he was told to aim for Richmond’s round-nine clash with Essendon as a possible AFL debut. One more good game, he thought yesterday, and it might finally be time.
Then, those plans changed. Or threatened to change. Ten minutes before Coburg played Geelong in the curtain-raiser, Cotchin was told to get out of his No. 50 guernsey and get back into his tracksuit: that he might not be called up into the senior team, but there was a big chance he would.
What to do? “All I could think was ‘Oh my god’,” said Cotchin, who jumped on the phone to his parents, already huddled in the rain with his sister and grandfather, who weren’t sure whether to keep braving the conditions or head home. In the end they scored a seat upgrade, and put in a seven-hour day at the footy.
After a quick chat with Terry Wallace, Cotchin headed to the club’s Punt Road headquarters, still unsure if he’d be called up, and wondering more than anything what he would have for lunch. “I hadn’t thought to pre-make it,” he said.
Two jam sandwiches and some ice baths later, he knew he would wear his No. 9 Richmond jumper for the first time, with Wallace deciding to replace the taller Adam Pattison with the No. 2 draft pick whose sharp work around stoppages had stood out in his four VFL games.
Almost six months after joining his new club, and almost six months after injuring his Achilles in his very first running session and having to sit out the pre-season, everything happened in a hurry.
“I was pretty nervous, and it was a weird feeling,” he said. “I could have been playing today, or not playing. I spoke to Plough and he just said, ‘If you need to, leave, go away and relax your mind, then come back and prepare for your game all over again.’ It was a bit different.”
By the time his second, actual match came, Cotchin’s parents were in warmer seats, a friend had made a quick dash down from Echuca, and he was feeling more excited than edgy. He felt better again when the ball dropped into his hands, a few minutes in and a few metres from Richmond’s goals, and his snap skidded through.
“It was a bit of a battler, but it got through, so it was OK,” he said. “That was my job, to crumb, so I got front and centre and took the opportunity, so it was good. All the boys got around, and that was good too. It made you feel ready.”
Tags: achilles, afl, clash, curta, curtain, curtain raiser, debut, draft pick, fathe, footy, game, geelong, good game, guernsey, hurry, jumper, match, mcg, pattison, plough, punt road, richmond, sandwiches, stoppages, terry wallace, tracksuit, weird feelingRelated posts
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