A FEW minutes before 11am yesterday, Trent Cotchin was on the MCG, wearing a Coburg jumper, warming up and running through his plans for the VFL match.

About a month ago, as the teenager played his first football for the year after a summer full of injury, he was told to aim for Richmond's round-nine clash with Essendon as a possible AFL debut. One more good game, he thought yesterday, and it might finally be time.

Then, those plans changed. Or threatened to change. Ten minutes before Coburg played Geelong in the curtain-raiser, Cotchin was told to get out of his No. 50 guernsey and get back into his tracksuit: that he might not be called up into the senior team, but there was a big chance he would.

What to do? "All I could think was 'Oh my god'," said Cotchin, who jumped on the phone to his parents, already huddled in the rain with his sister and grandfather, who weren't sure whether to keep braving the conditions or head home. In the end they scored a seat upgrade, and put in a seven-hour day at the footy.

After a quick chat with Terry Wallace, Cotchin headed to the club's Punt Road headquarters, still unsure if he'd be called up, and wondering more than anything what he would have for lunch. "I hadn't thought to pre-make it," he said.

Two jam sandwiches and some ice baths later, he knew he would wear his No. 9 Richmond jumper for the first time, with Wallace deciding to replace the taller Adam Pattison with the No. 2 draft pick whose sharp work around stoppages had stood out in his four VFL games.

Almost six months after joining his new club, and almost six months after injuring his Achilles in his very first running session and having to sit out the pre-season, everything happened in a hurry.

"I was pretty nervous, and it was a weird feeling," he said. "I could have been playing today, or not playing. I spoke to Plough and he just said, 'If you need to, leave, go away and relax your mind, then come back and prepare for your game all over again.' It was a bit different."

By the time his second, actual match came, Cotchin's parents were in warmer seats, a friend had made a quick dash down from Echuca, and he was feeling more excited than edgy. He felt better again when the ball dropped into his hands, a few minutes in and a few metres from Richmond's goals, and his snap skidded through.

"It was a bit of a battler, but it got through, so it was OK," he said. "That was my job, to crumb, so I got front and centre and took the opportunity, so it was good. All the boys got around, and that was good too. It made you feel ready."

Cotchin sampled a few parts of the ground in game one, tried out a handful of opponents (Jimmy Bartel, Joel Corey and Darren Milburn) and showed off a few of the traits that made him such a high draft pick. There were a couple of swooping gathers, a few neat passes, a clever trap against the boundary and two goals, which made a third, sprayed shot from a couple of metres out easier to forget.

"Once I kicked it I thought I should have just dribbled it through. I probably had a bit more time than I thought," he said. "But the day was good. It was different — it's a lot quicker and even the ball use was probably better than Coburg, and it's such a wet day. It was very different, but I enjoyed it."

In Cotchin's first game he played against Geelong, the team he grew up barracking for, and alongside Brett Deledio, the player who, as an under-16 player two years ago, people told him he played a little like.

His coach was glad to spare the recently turned 18-year-old a restless Friday night, and thought the Cats were a good team to start out against. "To get Trent in and give him his first feel of footy against the premiers, I think that will hold him in good stead," said Wallace, who made the call not only because the rain made Pattison less useful, but because it meant the match wouldn't move too quickly for his first-gamer, either.

"He's been down on a bit of run and carry because he hasn't done the pre-season, but the things he's done well at the lower level are his stoppage work, his ball use has been good and his decision making has been good. With the wet conditions, that was always going to take the run and carry out of the game and bring him to the fore.

"Sixteen possessions and two goals in a losing side, in pretty tough conditions, is an admirable first-up performance. He had the equal amount of ball-gets of anybody in our side, he actually won his own footy, which was a pleasing factor."

Now, Cotchin's plan is to work out how to get more of it. "I suppose the next goal is to start learning even more of the game plan, and more of how the boys play," he said. "And just to make the most of the opportunity. I think that's the most important thing."