Rucci on Saturday: Port Adelaide has turned into the old ‘ninth’ Richmond Tigers
Port Adelaide has ranked 10th again in 2019, the fifth time in the past decade. The Power is the old Richmond that would finish ninth ... until the Tigers became ambitious, just as Port must do.
Michelangelo Rucci
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Port Adelaide is the old Richmond, the AFL club trapped in the “death zone” as president David Koch puts it.
In the 15 seasons between 1994 and 2008 - two years before Damien Hardwick became Richmond’s senior coach after interviewing for a poorly defined “succession plan” to Mark Williams at Alberton - the Tigers ranked ninth six times.
Everyone remembers the jokes that came with finishing ninth again and again (as the AFL grew to 16 teams with Fremantle and Port Adelaide).
Since the 2007 grand final disaster, the Power has in 12 seasons ranked 10th five times (2009, 2010, 2016, 2018 and 2019) and ninth once (2015) while the AFL has expanded to 18 teams.
And these underwhelming results come from a fully funded football program since 2013 when Koch was the AFL’s hand-picked man to stop the Port Adelaide Football Club from needing to be rebranded, relocated and refitted away from SANFL control to satisfy the AFL’s agenda.
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“We have to figure out how we get out of that ‘death zone’ between seventh down to probably 13th (on the AFL ladder),” Koch said 12 months ago.
“We’re mediocre ... we’ve got to have a ruthlessness ...”
A year later, Port Adelaide is ... 10th, again. The old Richmond ninth.
It took Richmond eight years to get out of the “death zone” - after boldly putting forward a strategic plan that like the jokes about the Tigers finishing ninth drew much derision.
In his first major act as Richmond chief executive, former Tigers ruckman Brendon Gale, drew up the “Winning Together” strategy - 75,000 members, debt cleared and three AFL premierships by 2020. In the first three years, Richmond finished 15th, 12th and 12th and had membership steadily increase from 35,960 to 53,027.
Today, the Tigers have two of those three targetted flags, no debt and outgunned Collingwood, Essendon, Hawthorn and West Coast to 100,000 members - real members too (rather than free sign ups on digital plans).
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Imagine if Koch, in his true salesman style, started Port Adelaide’s 150th anniversary next year declaring that by 2027 (the 30th year of the Power in the AFL) his club would be free of its debt ($9 million-$12 million, depending on who is counting), had 70,000 members and had won three national titles.
Many would laugh - just as they did with Richmond in 2010.
Port Adelaide will need to be creative in list management in the next three years. To this end, list manager Jason Cripps is not short of bravado and dare for this month’s AFL trade period in which he will not fear testing the market.
Port Adelaide 2004 premiership hero Kane Cornes last week picked his best 22-man line-up for the Power’s 2020 campaign.
“Ordinary with no proven stars,” he accurately concluded.
It is a middle-of-the-road team that will most probably finish in the “death zone” again as the bright stars of Travis Boak and Robbie Gray dim after more than a decade in teal.
Port Adelaide needs a bold strategic plan. The Power is more likely to be distracted by side shows, such as the captaincy question. (There will be one rather than two captains at Alberton next year, restoring a broken tradition).
Take note that Richmond’s dual premiership captain Trent Cotchin in 2013 did not follow Wayne Campbell, Kane Johnson and Chris Newman in adopting the No. 17 jumper of Tigers giant Jack Dyer.
Cotchin stayed in the No. 9 jumper he had carried since his junior football days.
The “death zone” has a vice-like grip on Port Adelaide. Someone at Alberton - as Gale was at Punt Road - needs to be as adventurous as the club was in 1990 when it had the ambition to be in the big time.
And, just as in 1990, Port Adelaide needs to be strong in the stormy weather than comes with living up to big dreams.