AFL Power Rankings: Finals 2019

As they did with their drought-breaking premiership in 2017, Richmond came home strong with close to their best line-up to be the premier team of 2019.

As many people (cough cough) predicted, Richmond emerged from the 2019 finals with their second premiership in three years. The Tigers won their three finals by a combined margin of 155 points. This made it 12 wins in a row to finish the year with an average margin of almost 40 points per game (and an average ‘adjusted’ margin of about that much as well – see chart below).

Injuries would seem to explain Richmond’s year … wouldn’t they?

Richmond was a far, far stronger team after its bye in Round 14, before which they had been about average. Their side had been hit hard by injuries in the first half of the year. Straight after the bye though they brought in seven players that ended up being in their premiership team: Trent Cotchin, Shane Edwards, Kane Lambert, David Astbury, Jayden Short, Shai Bolton, and Ivan Soldo. Later they also re-gained one of their main forwards Jack Riewoldt, and their main ruck Toby Nankervis.

It would seem then that the Tigers’ turnaround could be mainly attributed to getting more of their better players back. This was surely true to some extent: Cotchin, Lambert, and Riewoldt are clearly more productive players than Connor Menadue, Dan Butler, and Noah Balta. It is interesting to note though that Richmond saw a similar jump in form towards the latter part of their previous premiership season in 2017 (see chart below).

Injuries would seem to have been less of a factor for Richmond in 2017, as their top players generally missed no or few games. Like 2019 though, the Tigers may have progressively worked their way towards close to their best side – Richmond fans will well remember they kept the same line‑up all the way through the 2017 finals series. Jacob Townsend, Jack Graham, and Nathan Broad settled into the team late in the season, with Townsend kicking 16 goals in his five games. Also most of the players that had missed some time during the season, such as Dion Prestia, Nick Vlastuin, and Edwards, had returned by finals time.

Last year the Tigers came bang out of the gate, but had trailed off a bit by season’s end. This year Richmond seemed to just get stronger as the season went on. Even for the Grand Final this year the Tigers still seemed to be working their way towards their best line-up, with mid-season recruit Marlion Pickett famously making his debut in the final game of the year. There was one player though that had still not returned, and whose absence was thought by many to be terminal to the Tigers’ flag chances in 2019.

Covering Alex Rance

Back in Round 1 Richmond lost its best interceptor in Alex Rance to a season-ending injury. At the time, I suggested that the Tigers may be able to cover Rance’s contribution to some extent, but that he may still be missed. HPN had a similar message, noting that Richmond had become less reliant on Rance in recent years.

As it turned out, that is kind of how it worked out. Richmond averaged easily the most intercepts per match in 2018, with 82 per game. In 2019 this dropped to 75 per game. It was a bit better after the bye, increasing from 73 to 77 per game, which suggests that part of the difference came not from Rance but just from having better personnel on the ground.

I have written before how important intercept/turnover differentials are to scoring shot differentials with your opponent, as an intercept ends your opponent’s possession ‘chain’ and starts one of your own. The 2018 Richmond team took the strategy of deprioritising the clearances and more than making up for it through forcing turnovers to new levels. This year’s Richmond side was relatively bad at winning clearances as well, finishing third-last in clearance differential. Where then did the positive scoring shot differential with their opponents come from?

Richmond still had a pretty good intercept differential after the bye (see tables below), although not as good as last year. What Richmond did do better than last year was prevent their possession chains from ending up in stoppages.

On average after the bye they had seven less ‘chains’ per game stopped than their opponents, more than making up for the five less per game they started through clearances. Whether this was because their opponents had difficulty catching them, or they were still able to progress the ball when caught (or both) I don’t know, but it helped them make up for not being as heavy on intercepts in Rance’s absence.

Still, things didn’t look that good at mid-year. As a Tigers fan I’m glad they found a way to peak at the right time for the second time in three years. Now enough numbers … I’m off to go look again through the premiership memorabilia and wait for the Richmond beer to go on sale. See you next season!