Mark Coughlan
By Chris Greenway

Richmond picked up a tough blond headed kid by the name of Mark Coughlan in the 2000 draft. I don't remember a lot about him at the time other than we'd used the draft pick everything thought we'd use on Jason (son of David) Cloke and that he didn't seem to be all that thrilled at being picked up by the Tigers. He is a West Australian so I suppose that is understandable. He only played a couple of games that I can remember in 2001. The first one was against Melbourne and he didn't do a lot, but I remember him running down Jeff Farmer and thinking: 'this kid has a bit of toe'. The following game he seemed to be a touch slower, but had great hands and feet. He really got noticed in the 2nd half of 2002. We'd tried everything else in the centre. Cogs was supposed to be a midfielder, why not? This kid was born to play centre. He's tough, hard, quick, smart hands and feet, loves a goal. He did so well that he polled highly on our best and fairest count even though he hadn't played more than half the games. This year though has really been the making of him. With Johnson to bring him on he has grown in stature and ability. He's what we call a gun player. This is a big call, but I'm going to make it anyway: give him 5 years maybe less and he will be to Richmond what Michael Voss is to Brisbane and will be mentioned by all supporters in the same breath. Mark my words.