(75th Eagles player)
Football journeyman Trent Nichols played just four games in two season on West Coast's list after crossing from Richmond ahead of the 1992 season.
Richmond career[]
Hailing from Sandy Bay in Hobart’s southern suburbs, Nichols played 56 games in five years on Richmond’s list between 1987 and 1991. His best year came in 1990, when he polled Brownlow votes in five games and got more votes than any of his Tiger teammates.
West Coast career[]
The diminutive midfielder shifted west at the end of the 1991 season. The move did not prove helpful for Nichols’ career prospects, which was not altogether surprising given the strength of West Coast’s midfield in the early 1990s. The Taswegian debuted in blue and gold against Sydney in the club’s opening game of the season but made just three more early-season appearances before being sent to East Fremantle to play out the year. He consequently missed out on the club’s history-making flag but got some consolation when he played in a premiership team with the Sharks.
Nichols spent the whole of 1993 with East Freo, failing to add to his tally of 4 senior games. At the end of the 1993 season lists had to be reduced from 52 players to 40 and Nichols, probably unsurprisingly, did not survive the cull.
North Melbourne and Richmond (again) career[]
North Melbourne threw him a lifeline in the 1994 pre-season draft and he played 33 games for the Roos. During the 1996 season Nichols, as he had in 1992, found himself on the outer as his team raced to a flag, but celebrating another medal win in lieu of an AFL premiership medal – this time the Gardiner Medal as the best and fairest in the reserves competition.
At the end of the 1996 season Nichols returned to Richmond where he played another 19 games before retiring after the 1998 season.
Post-VFL/AFL career[]
As late as 2011, Nichols was still playing football in Tasmania, for Dodges Ferry of the Southern Football League, remarkably at the age of 42. He was honoured for his contribution to Tasmanian football by being inducted into the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame.[1]
Stats[]
| AFL | Gm | G | B | K | M | H | D | T | WAFL | Gm | G | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 36 | 5 | 14 | 50 | 4 | EF | 18 | 16 | |
| 1993 | 0 | 19 | 24 | |||||||||
| Tot | 4 | 3 | 6 | 36 | 5 | 14 | 50 | 4 | ||||
| Avg | 0.8 | 9.0 | 1.2 | 3.5 | 12.5 | 1.0 |
References[]
http://afltables.com/afl/stats/players/T/Trent_Nichols.html