Not since Damien Hardwick first arrived at Punt Road has Richmond been as invested in a national draft, and the club admits the pressure is on its recruiting staff to make the right selections.
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The Tigers are expected to take five selections to next month's national draft, which would be the most the club has made since the 2010 draft (when Hardwick took over as coach) that landed Reece Conca (pick No.6) and Jake Batchelor (pick No.30).
Since then, the Tigers' strategy has been to bolster the depth on its list by adding players from rival clubs to play specific roles, such as Bachar Houli and Ivan Maric in 2011, Troy Chaplin and Chris Knights in 2012 and Shaun Hampson in 2013.
There was an expectation the Tigers would continue to bring in ready-made talent during the recently concluded trade and free agency period - so as to not let the club's blazing end to 2014 Band-Aid over the holes in the list – however the Tigers were unable to close any deals for established players.
Richmond had identified the need for another inside midfielder to support Trent Cotchin and Anthony Miles, and thus allowing the likes of Dustin Martin, Brett Deledio, Conca and Brandon Ellis to become more damaging on the outside.
The Tigers went close to securing former Melbourne captain Jack Trengove for that purpose – although a medical examination of his troublesome foot injury raised too many alarm bells – and reports also linked the club to North Melbourne's Levi Greenwood and St Kilda's David Armitage.
Despite the attempts made during the trade period, the Tigers will now turn to the national draft on November 27 where it will hold picks 12, 33, 52, 70, 88 as their top selections to fill vacancies on the list.
Football manager Dan Richardson said the Tigers had their eye on "three or four" talented young midfielders that are likely to be available for the Tigers' first selection.
The plan will then be to add genuine outside speed with the later picks.
Richardson admitted late last week that "the pressure is on our recruiting staff to do that come November".
The Tigers say it was inevitable the club would invest heavily in the draft sooner or later, given it had made more changes to its list since 2009 than most other clubs.
The club's list build came under intense scrutiny in the middle of last season when Hardwick's team slumped to 16th after round 14.
Even though Richmond pulled off one of the greatest late-season runs ever to claim eighth position, they were thrashed in the elimination final against Port Adelaide and the Tigers were warned not to be seduced by the fast finish in analysing the state of the list.
