Jay Schulz
By Chris Greenway

I remember when the Tigers drafted young Schulz at number 12, there was a bit of a buzz, because it was felt that he did not really justify the high selection. Greg Miller explained it at the time as needing a bit of height and it was felt that Schulz was the best tall (192cm) available at that stage of the draft. Despite playing most of his junior footy in attack, Richmond put it about that Jay was being groomed for a key position in defence. His first game was in 2003 in that memorable victory over Essendon, I think he had all of five minutes on the ground, so it was kind of hard to tell much from that. I recognised him right away because he wore 25, the number previously worn by one of my favourites: Benny Gale. He played four more games in 2003 and spent most of the time he got on the ground drifting around the forward line where he took some strong grabs and kicked a few goals, so much for grooming him as a key backman.

He made more of a mark in 2004, again playing mostly in attack, he put in 2 contenders for mark of the year, became a bit of cult figure with the faithful and picked up the nickname of Sarge (Sgt Schulz from Hogans Heroes), things got really exciting one night at the Gabba. The struggling Tigers playing the all conquering Brisbane Lions at the Lions home ground and without star forward Matthew Richardson, it was considered lambs to the slaughter, the Lions were lucky to escape with a hard fought 3 goal win, the big reason was a 6 goal performance by Schulz at full forward, it also earned him a Rising Star nomination. He was unfortunately unable to reproduce the performance, an injury soon after and the lack of any cohesive game plan probably contributed to that. With the arrival of Terry Wallace Schulz's game is about to alter. Wallace has stated an intention to make Schulz a centre half back, he's got the size and the speed, whether he has the mindset we will see this season. I know it's early in the young man's career, but this will be a make or break year for Sarge.