Richmond heads into its AFL pre-season as premiers for the second time in three years, but captain Trent Cotchin is confident the Tigers won’t be resting on their laurels.

Senior players kicked off pre-season training on Monday, a little more than two months after winning last season’s grand final.

“I think you can look at it from two different aspects,” Cotchin said.

“One is that you can rest on your successes or you can be motivated by the experience that you had; and I know that the group we have at this footy club are really hungry and will be doing everything that we can day in day out to continue to grow and get better and that’s what excites me as the leader.”

The majority of Richmond’s squad was on hand for training after the first-to-fourth year players returned last Monday, with its new draftees on hand for their first session.

Toby Nankervis, Dion Prestia, Bachar Houli, Dylan Grimes, Shai Bolton, Nick Vlastuin and Jack Graham were on light training duties for various reasons, while Sydney Stack (returned to Western Australia for a funeral) and Jack Higgins, who is training part-time, were absent.

One welcome presence was key defender Alex Rance, who missed most of the 2019 campaign after tearing his ACL in Round 1.

The Tigers will welcome back the five-time All-Australian full-back for their flag defence as virtually a new recruit in 2020.

“We’re excited,” Cotchin said.

I know there’s some commentary around the draft and we get a new draft pick in Alex Rance next year, which is really exciting for our footy club.

“But his mountain of work that he did, not just on the field, particularly with our VFL program last year, that’s going to be amazing for us and his development this season and he’s as fit as ever.

“I think he had a little tidy up but ready to go.”

Meanwhile, Cotchin confirmed Dustin Martin had picked up his car from the MCG after he famously left it at the car park for weeks after the grand final.

“It’s not at the ‘G any more. He did pick it up and he actually went and picked it up himself, so that was a surprise,” Cotchin said.

-AAP