Two-time premiership-winning Tiger Marlion Pickett has announced he will retire at the end of the AFL season, joining a long list of departures from Punt Road at year’s end. The 32-year-old will play his 91st and final game against former mentor Damien Hardwick’s Gold Coast at the MCG on Saturday.

Pickett was famously a mid-season mature-aged draftee from Western Australia who quickly took the AFL by storm after he made an incredible debut in the 2019 AFL grand final win, earning Norm Smith Medal votes. He then went back to back featuring in the Tigers’ 2020 flag triumph. Pickett said his AFL dream always looked like a long shot and looking back is so happy with his short but successful AFL career.

“It’s been a good journey… I did not even think I was ever going to get drafted,” Pickett said. “My past and the way I grew up is different to everyone else’s and it was not easy to get drafted. I got overlooked for six or seven years, and in 2019 I was about to quit all my dreams.

“I had some people in my corner, and they told me to stick at it … they told me just to give it another year. The sacrifices that we made to come across … it was all worth it.”

Richmond coach Adem Yze said Pickett will get the opportunity to bid farewell to Tigers fans this weekend. “With his story and what he’s been able to provide our footy club, he just deserves to be sent off the right way,” Yze said.

“For him to be able to walk out with his kids for one last time will be something that we’ll be really proud of.” Pickett will be farewelled this weekend alongside retired champions Dustin Martin and Dylan Grimes and ruckman Sam Naismith.

Along with the retiring quartet, there are set to be several more players heading out the door at the end of the season. In-demand quartet Shai Bolton, Daniel Rioli, Liam Baker and Jack Graham could all be playing their final game for Richmond.

Liam Baker is expected to join West Coast or Fremantle and the Eagles are also chasing free agent Jack Graham. While Bolton has indicated he would be interested in a trade back to Western Australia, despite being contracted until the end of 2029.

But Yze said the decisions around those players will be made after their final match. “We want to harness that emotion and obviously let it all out in that last game,” he said.

“Post that, next week, in their exit interviews … we’ll have a function that we can get together and if any of those things start to come out and players make those announcements, we’ll be able to send them off the right way. But right now, they’re Richmond players and terrific Richmond men.”

The Tigers’ golden dynasty led by Dustin Martin, Jack Riewoldt, Alex Rance, David Astbury, Kane Lambert and Bachar Houli is well and truly in the past as the club looks set to usher in a new era under Yze. Richmond close their season against Gold Coast at the MCG while fighting an unlikely battle to avoid their first wooden spoon since 2007. They are four points and percentage below second-bottom North Melbourne, who play the rampaging Hawthorn.