Retired Richmond great Trent Cotchin went to great lengths in his career to forge an identity he describes as “a pretty cleanskin kind of guy”.
It was a largely successful pursuit for the midfielder, who retired at the end of last season following 306 games, a Brownlow Medal and three premierships for the Tigers.
So his association and eventual close friendship with polar opposite Dustin Martin wasn’t part of the planning.
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That’s Martin of course of the countless tattoos, number of run-ins with officialdom and father Shane, who died in 2021 and was once part of the Rebels motorcycle gang.
Cotchin admits he “didn’t want to associate” with Martin when he arrived at Punt Road ahead of the 2010 season, Cotchin’s third with the Tigers.
It was also during Ben Cousins’ time at the club, with the former West Coast star spending two years with the Tigers after his 12-month ban over an arrest for drug possession in Perth before retiring after that 2010 season.
“It’s kind of black and white. The tattoo guy that has a little bit of attitude, comes across like he doesn’t give a s**t to anything or anyone in the world,” Cotchin told Sarah Grynberg on her A Life Of Greatness podcast.
“And then I’m this other guy trying to make everyone happy and no tattoos and pretty cleanskin kind of guy. Less partying.
“And when he first came in it was kind of like, he had the tattoo that was on the back of all the Ben Cousins stuff.
“I think Dusty’s said ‘Live free, die free’, obviously “Cuzzy” had ‘Such is life’ across his stomach.
“So he already had been tarred with this bad-boy brush, which I kind of didn’t want to associate with, to be fair.
“It wasn’t like I distanced myself or didn’t talk to him in the early stages of his career, but it was just like ‘oh, we’re different, he’s obviously got some great talent and we’ll be great mates on the footy field but outside of that we’ll wait and see’.
“Going through that process of learning about him and his back story and the relationship we forged, I can’t imagine living the life that he lived growing up as compared to what mine was.
“But that was what made it so beautiful, kind of understanding each other and learning more about him and what made him tick and then establishing how connected he is to this spiritual part of the world, which I don’t think anyone would ever believe me.”
Martin was caught up in a number of off-field incidents early in his career, perhaps most famously when he apologised after threatening a woman with a chopstick at a Melbourne restaurant back in December 2015.
Cotchin recalls “the odd occasion where Dusty ended up in the papers for an argument at a restaurant” and it resulted in himself and wife Brooke inviting Martin to move in with them.
“He obviously liked the idea and came along and I think that was a period in his life when he was probably in one of his lower points,” Cotchin said.
“I’ll never forget the day that his old man came over as well because Shane was a humungous Maori man, tattoos all over his face, his body, so a pretty scary and daunting kind of character.
“But for whatever reason, when he walked in our door I felt so much safer in my own home.”
Cotchin said they really began to bond during this period.
He spoke about a night Martin couldn’t sleep about 1am and woke Cotchin up to go for a walk and “scared the s**t out of me”.
“But they were the moments that started to really make our relationship go deep.”
Cotchin gave some more insights into the notoriously shy and reclusive Martin’s character, including his obsession with a documentary called Heal, which is about a scientific and social journey for the human body to heal itself.
While Cotchin has been busy promoting the release of his own book, From The Heart, the 33-year-old encouraged Martin to write a memoir of his life.
“I remember he had come over one day and he was just hellbent on Brooke and I watching this documentary and it was called Heal,” Cotchin said.
“He was like ‘this is amazing, you don’t need any kind of medication, you can heal yourself from within’.
“With all due respect, I must’ve been tired that day, and I think it was after one of our kids had been born, so I fell asleep towards the end of it.
“But it was about the fifth time he’d watched it and he was just obsessed with it, but that was the kind of spiritual connection he has.
“He got right into yoga and then when he had his injury more recently with his (lacerated) kidney (in 2021), he did this grape and fruit diet where he lost 12, 13 kilos because of these ‘wizards’ from overseas that he’d been following on Instagram.
“He wasn’t scared of trying those sorts of things … these are all the things that he was connecting to and were an important part of him feeling his best.
“I do hope that at some stage in his lifetime that he goes deeper on his whole story.
“I think he’s written a book and it’s probably more pictures and people speaking about his journey rather than him actually talking to it.
“But it would be an interesting read.”
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