Before the ball was bounced, Marlion Pickett was the story when he became the sixth player to debut in an VFL/AFL senior grand final – the first in 67 years. Sure the #bigbigsound was a cultural force as much as it was a hashtag, but Pickett is the story of the 2019 grand final
– not just on a personal level, but for what it says about the Richmond Football Club.
In May this year, Richmond used its only pick (number 13 overall) in the 2019 mid-season rookie draft to select a 27-year-old midfielder from South Fremantle. Pickett was twice South Fremantle’s club champion and impressed during last year’s WAFL finals series, particularly in the qualifying final against West Perth when he touched the ball 26 times and kicked four goals. His is a resume that makes the Tigers’ pick a somewhat straightforward one.
But Pickett also played for an amateur football side at the Wooroloo Prison Farm after being charged with burglary-related offences in 2010.
Footballers overcome all sorts of hardships to win a premiership, but in Australia there are few obstacles as big as being a blackfella with a criminal record, fated to forever be judged by your past and the colour of your skin. When he was overlooked in 2018’s AFL and rookie drafts, the quiet father of four’s cards appeared marked.
But this era of the Richmond club has come about from not conforming to stereotypes. And selecting a mature-aged recruit with only four months in the AFL system to be the first player to debut in a VFL/AFL grand final in 67 years - and only the sixth ever - is to differentiate from the mean. Even considering his Norm Goss Medal for the best player on the ground in the grand final win over Williamstown it was a risk that not many clubs would take.
In many ways, Pickett’s selection represents these Tigers – a club that is prepared to take a punt, have faith and back their players in. They are a club, and a coach, that has learnt to let go and to enjoy their football. And to watch Marlion Pickett play, is to enjoy football.
Richmond defender Dylan Grimes told SEN that Pickett reminded him of Andrew McLeod. And early in the second quarter, it didn’t seem so hyperbolic when Pickett got the ball in the middle, spun and glided around the Giants’ Lachie Whitfield as if the wind had blown him there before setting up Jason Castagna.
Pickett is as smooth as jazz, but scratch him and you may nick a vein of a man who has had to compete like hell for everything he has got.
Pickett’s statistics on Saturday were impressive enough – 22 possessions, nine score involvements, a goal and 559 metres gained (only Castagna and Nick Vlastuin had more) but it was something that cannot be measured - his composure in his AFL debut in front of more than 100,000 people - that was simply remarkable.
Pickett has only played one game, but it was the one game of the year where you can find out in a single afternoon who a footballer really is, and every member of the crowd walked away from the MCG astounded by what they just saw.
And for this we owe a debt of thanks to Damien Hardwick. After a disastrous 2016 season, the Richmond mentor came to understand that he had perhaps coached his players to be a little too cautious and to hide their footballing light under a bushel.
Hardwick today is a coach that while methodical (and his coaching from quarter-time onwards was evident of this) is a man who appears to say, “let’s have fun and give ourselves something to remember.” Richmond fans now have two premierships that they will never forget.
For those of us who aren’t Tigers fans, Marlion Pickett’s performance has given us something we will always remember from a grand final where the scoreline could have made it one we’d easily neglect.
After just one game, Pickett is a premiership player and a Richmond life member. He has also played a game that nobody who saw it will forget – not even Giants fans… particularly Giants fans.
He is forever a part of football folklore. That is the story.
