Michael Roach (footballer)

Michael Terrence Roach (born 5 October 1958) is a former Australian rules football player who represented Richmond in the Victorian Football League (VFL) from 1977 to 1989.

Remembered for his long, accurate kicking for goal and strong marking, for a brief period Roach was the best forward in Australian football. The second of four key forwards recruited by Richmond from Tasmania (the others being Royce Hart, Matthew Richardson and Jack Riewoldt), Roach was an enormously popular player whose career did not quite live up to expectation because of injury and constant shuffling of his position by the club. Nevertheless, he achieved many honours in the game and became one of the first players from Tasmania to play 200 VFL games.

As a junior player at Westbury in Tasmania, Roach won state representation and he was selected to play senior football for Longford in 1975, aged only 16. He impressed by winning the club's goalkicking award in his two seasons and was selected to represent both the league and Tasmania, in two interstate fixtures. Richmond talent scout Harry Jenkins, who had discovered the by-then legendary Royce Hart, rang the Tigers with a succinct message: "I got another one for you."

Richmond rushed the young Roach over to Melbourne for the 1977 season. Expectations of the 18-year-old recruit were high. Initially, Roach's rise in the game was much quicker than Royce Hart's had been. At 193 cm, Roach was taller than Hart and had a much more developed physique. In addition, he was very mobile and agile for his size. With Hart in his last season, the Tigers decided to ease Roach into the game slowly and he played nine senior games on the wing, thus emphasising his athleticism. At season's end, he played well on a forward flank in Richmond's reserves Grand Final win over Footscray. But 1978 proved a big let down, and injuries and ordinary form kept him to just three games.