Matthew Richardson
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Matthew Richardson (born March 19, 1975), is a professional Australian Rules football player for the Richmond Football Club in the Australian Football League. He has been the club's key forward through the late 1990's and the 2000's, as the club's leading goalscorer seven times. He has been selected in the all-Australian team in 1996 and 1999.
Richardson was the fourth draft pick in the 1993 AFL draft, recruited from Devonport, Tasmania. Combining a 196 centimetre frame with exceptional speed and athletic capacity for a large man, on his day he has been a dominant presence for the Tigers. However, Richardson's form is notoriously uneven, to the frustration of long-suffering Tiger supporters and coaches. Through 2002 and 2003, these fans jammed talkback radio suggesting that Richardson should be traded to another team.
In 2004, a decision to step back involvement in the Tiger "leadership group" (the small group of senior players who help lead the club on and off-field) and focus on additional strength training seems to have paid off, with a flurry of goals in the early part of the season after returning from injury.