The endless passion and other sides of dual international turned Collingwood netball coach Nicole Richardson

The answer: Nova Peris, the Hockeyroo-turned-sprinter who was at the 1996 Atlanta Games where Richardson won bronze as a softball centre fielder, before claiming netball gold with the Diamonds at Manchester 2002.

Yet if she was coming through now, the daughter of former Richmond footballer Rodger Richardson (one senior and 36 reserves games before joining VFA club Prahran), niece of “Bull” and cousin of ex-Tigers’ great Matthew, would have loved to also play AFLW.

And would absolutely be trying, she declares, in keeping with the “dare to dream” life motto that is also written on the back of her parents’ caravan.

Still, “Richo”, as she is known to all, is as close to footy as she will get: approaching the midpoint of her third season as head coach of Collingwood’s netball program and preparing for the inaugural Anzac Day double-header, in which the Pies will play the Sunshine Coast Lightning at John Cain Arena, before walking to the MCG for the club’s annual AFL extravaganza against Essendon.

“Standing on the court arm-in-arm with my team, listening to the Last Post, able to reflect on the servicemen and women who were so brave and so courageous, who have fought to protect our country, to be able to experience that now, on Anzac Day, what an opportunity, what an honour, what an experience,’’ Richardson says.

Yet it’s not her first stint in black-and-white stripes. The 52-year-old shared with the netball group at an internal “Who Am I” team-building session an old photo from her junior footy days at Clayton in Melbourne’s southeast, sporting the famous Collingwood strip.

“I absolutely love footy,’‘ says Richardson of the sport she played first, and until she was eight or nine. “At the time, I used to call myself the ruck girl, because I was bigger than the boys and I wasn’t afraid to tackle them; they probably had a bit more fear of tackling me.

“Then I got banned during my third season for being a girl, and that made the (local) paper … Mum and dad said to me, ‘We’ve got something to tell you but you can’t cry’, and I said, ‘I’m a tomboy, I’m not gonna cry’, and they said, ‘You can’t play football again’.

“So I went bawling down to my room and closed the door and didn’t come out for a couple of days.’’

The tears may come as a surprise to her Magpie flock. The passion will not.

“Netball is her world, and so that’s something that I always joke around with her, like, ‘Richo, just have a day off’,’’ says wing defence and close friend Ash Brazill.

“But she just loves it so much and she’s a big reason why I’ve stuck around at Collingwood, because I love the way she coaches, I love the way that she’s (got) a defensive mindset.’’

Adds co-captain Geva Mentor: “She wears her heart on her sleeve, Richo, and she is dedicated to every aspect and if she could be out there on court, still, she definitely would be.’’

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No arguments about that from Richardson, an admitted “hothead’’ as an athlete who would choose competing over coaching any day. “I get a bit off my head in the coach’s box, too, actually!’’ she says, her emotions most recently on display during the centre-pass debacle in round two.

A former goaler turned defender, who eventually became a WD/C when at the AIS, Richardson retired from netball in 2003 after seven seasons with the Melbourne Kestrels in the original national league, the last three as captain under her long-time mentor Marg Lind.

Also influenced by the great Joyce Brown about the importance of relationship-building, she coached state junior teams up to 21/U level, continued her apprenticeship with Victorian Fury in ANL, and was a West Coast Fever specialist defence coach under Stacey Marinkovich before Brazill recommended her as Rob Wright’s assistant at Collingwood for 2019.

Something Richardson says she “fell into” while still playing, rather than forging a deliberate career path, cast its spell during her two “best gig ever” FIFO seasons with Fever.

“Once I had the taste of that, I was like, ‘You know what? I reckon this is for me’,’’ Richardson smiles during a long interview at Pies HQ. “I loved the high performance environment. I’d been there as an athlete but to be there as a coach, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I really like this’.’’

The top job was hers after Wright’s horror one-win season in the Covid hub in 2020. “It’s interesting because, as an athlete, I had to play for Australia. I had the blinkers (on) and that’s all I had to do,’’ she says.

“In coaching, whether it’s because I was so exhausted from being so tunnel-visioned in two sports for so long, I got involved with City West Falcons in the VNL, loved that environment. I probably would have been content there as well.

“I wasn’t searching for anything. I wasn’t ambitious. It was kind of like if I wasn’t playing for Australia as an athlete, it was the end of the world, whereas my coaching pathway was a little bit different. If it happened, fantastic, but if it didn’t, life went on. But as a player, life wouldn’t go on!’’

Having been driven to compete at an Olympics after watching Jon Sieben’s famous gold medal swim at the 1984 Games, Richardson likes to think her general philosophy is one of demanding excellence and hard work, embracing individuality while promoting the will to perform as part of the team, empowering athletes for total by-in and supporting them to maximise their potential.

Yet she disputes slightly the references to her defensive focus, arguing she has a lot to offer on the attacking front as well.

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A change that Mentor has noticed has been Richardson balancing her demanding, hard-nut-former-player mindset with a more holistic approach.

“We’ve built it into her a bit, because she’s so, ‘Netball, netball, netball’, would sometimes call us at 9.30 at night and talk over bits and bobs,’’ the Super Netball veteran said last year. “So we’re still working on her being able to switch off, cos we think there’s a healthy balance there.’’

Richardson replies slightly sheepishly that, “I have calmed that down, yes. I will occasionally give some of them a call”; but has learned to pick her moments, and argues the majority of coaches in most sports would find down time a foreign concept.

“You might be thinking you have a day off, and then the phone rings or an athlete needs a chat or something along those lines. I have got better in it. Sometimes I’ll make myself not take my computer home and say, ‘OK, it’s a non-netball night’.’’

Yet wing attack Kelsey Browne can attest to her softer side. Such as a call she received from Birmingham last year, where Richardson was preparing for the Commonwealth Games in her role as the Diamonds’ assistant; one whose second job in 2023 will be at the Netball World Cup in July-August.

That time, the coach had seen on social media that Browne, a talented singer, was performing a set at Splendour in the Grass, so was checking in to see how it had gone.

“I’ve sat and cried to Richo a number of times and she probably doesn’t handle tears,’’ Browne adds. “She’s probably like, ‘Why is everyone crying?’ But she wants to listen, she wants to know who you are as a person, she’s genuinely invested in what you’re doing outside.

“The thing I like the most about Richo is you always know where you stand and she is honest and very authentic. She’s down to earth, you know what she’s passionate about, you know what she wants from you, there’s no guessing. She doesn’t change the goalposts. If you work hard, you’ll gain Richo’s respect.’’

You’ll also get her traditional motivational quote, regardless, many sourced from her love of American sports films — such as “Coach Carter” and currently, the Nike flick “Air” — and quite a few, apparently, from her devoted mum and the Pies’ faithful cookie-baker, Judy.

“I have a giggle every time and Kelsey and I always look at each other,’’ says Brazill of the Richo pre-game routine. “Every single time she’s like, ‘My mum has sent me this message’, and it’s so funny. I’m like, “Is it even from your mum? Did you even get a message?’

“But she’s big on family and her parents are there all the time and they all love it. I actually think if she could put on a dress and sub us off and put herself on, she would. I love that. I love that we have a coach that’s so passionate.’’

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Of the three new football-linked Super Netball franchises launched for the 2017 season, the Magpies are the only one yet to reach a grand final, despite a much ballyhooed entrance with their Diamond-studded original line-up.

“Initially in their first year for me, looking from the outside, yeah, you can pull all these Diamonds players but it doesn’t mean they’re going to gel straight away. They still need time on court to build connections,’’ says Richardson, part of the silver medal-winning world championship team in 2003.

“In saying that, that inaugural team lost by one goal in a semi-final. We’ve had six complete seasons and Collingwood’s played in 50 per cent of the finals and yes, we haven’t won a final but for a young club, playing in 50 per cent of the finals that have been played, I would say that’s a success, to a degree.

“But, yes, we need to win a final and yes, we need to win a championship.’’

In last week’s post-game review, Collingwood second-bottom with two wins and three losses, Richardson used an image of a set of stairs and a trophy to emphasise that they are just one game out of third place and two points out of the four, playing an exciting, high-energy brand of netball that, when executed properly, can beat any opposition on its day.

With six internationals in the starting seven, just Brazill is left from year one, with April Brandley (Giants) and Alice Teague-Neeld (Fever, reinvented as a championship-winning wing attack) still playing elsewhere, and Richardson the Pies’ third coach in six completed seasons. “Now that we’ve been able to have consistency and stability in support staff and athletes, I think we’re now starting to now see what we can produce.’’

And culturally? “I can only speak about my time at the club. I wasn’t involved in those first few years but I think in my time, we’ve evolved more around a ‘we’ mentality,’’ she says.

“We’ve developed genuine relationships. We understand the make-up of an individual and why they might respond in a certain way. We have a better understanding of viewing it from other people’s perspective.

“That’s the ‘we, not me’ and all of that; the more time we can spend together off the court, you develop that real connection and I think that’s been the key.’’

There is apparently a yin and yang element to her partnership with assistant Kate Upton, with whom Richardson shared the co-coach role for a month during Wright’s absence for family reasons in 2019, when the Pies made a stunning late surge into the top four.

“They’re such a good pair,’’ says Brazill, a famous cross-code star herself. “Richo is that hard-arse, she just wants the best of the best and just loves everything to be 100 miles an hour, and I think that comes from being an athlete, playing for Australia in two sports.

“Our training, sometimes I’m like, ‘Richo, these are too hard, like, calm down’. She’s like, ‘I would have loved this’. And I’m like, ‘I hate this session’.’’

If and when she does switch off, there is less time these days for her long and strong community involvement: volunteering in a fitness-through-boxing program at the Footscray Youth Club and with the disabled at a local tennis club, both endeavours still close to her heart.

Instead, it might be at one of her three weekly sessions of Bikram yoga, admiring former teammate Liz Ellis’ leadership in the jungle on “I’m a Celebrity”, hanging out with her “adopted” six-year-old neighbour Archie, or Sri Lankan netballing boarder Tharjini Sivalingam.

Then there’s the cats.

“The one worry I have for her is she’s got two cats at the moment; however, the neighbours’ cats come over and sleep at her place as well,’’ Mentor says. “So I’m like, ‘Richo, don’t turn into a cat lady now!’’’

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Or, as she laughs, a crazy cat lady, but so be it. Just as Brazill, as “captain” of the team song, also appreciates the fact her ever-animated coach is not embarrassed to sing it with the gusto she brings to the entire job.

“It’s just the enjoyment she likes to bring out of people, cos in the end, it’s a game of netball,’’ says Brazill, before hastily correcting herself. “Not to her. It’s only a game of netball to Richo if she’s not the coach.’’

And, on Anzac Day or otherwise, if she is? “Then it’s, like, do or die.’’