Whatever upside you see with Mitch, I think his down side negates it. He has an extroverted, almost ADD type personality and I think in that he is hard to mould in with the playing group. I think the club would find the additional disturbance for the lack of a better term a lot to manage. In addition, he isn't the kind of player who thinks his way through things and he really only has one speed. He will line someone up and get out of position which opens up the midfield for the other team, and when he does get the ball he generally just throws it on the boot. Its really a roll of the dice when this happens - sometimes it ends up in our players arms but very often itll end up in the oppositions hands and as all our players are on the attack we get opened up on the rebound.Regarding Cotchin, He did have a niggle early in the year but nothing too serious and it only effected him 2-3 weeks
The biggest problem with Cotchin is actually not cotchin himself but the way Richmond used him in the first half of the season with Jackson,Delidio both out trent was getting hammered on the inside with no support.
If you go back to the brownlow count after Delidio & Miles were in the team, Trent spent more time outside and his kicks were alot better and longer and he become more damaging - And got alot more bog's and came home strong )brownlow/jack dyer both reflected that
I am a massive supporter of getting Mitch Robinson to richmond as i believe he would really add alot to the midfield in the rotations aswell as having the ability to go foward & kicks goals when Dusty,Lids,Trent are in the middle - But the best part would be that it would allow our better players to be played more upfield /outside and be more damaging.
But looks like its not happening
From our clubs perspective I know we were super surprised he was still available at pick 40 in the draft when we got him and a lot of clubs probably did stay away based on their interviews with him. I reckon we hoped he would mature over time and what transpired with him lying to the club really showed that even after 100 games he wasn't going to smarten up, either off or on the field. He needed to become smarter and think his way through situations and he is just a very reactionary type of character. As much as you see a need for him, as much I dont hold a grudge against him and hope it does work out for him elsewhere because I did genuinely enjoy his character, I think you will be better off without him.
He was the last of the disturbing personalities at our club - Fevola, Waite and Robinson were all hard personalities to deal with for one reason or another. We are going to be a far more professional and coachable side as of 2015 as MM will know what he is getting out of every single player that takes the field every week and being able to rely upon that alone will provide us with so much more stability that you can create a game plan and not have to change things on game day because one of your pieces on the field isnt performing or doing the job they were charged with doing.