Port Adelaide and Richmond keep the bookies - and fans - guessing

PORT Adelaide - so bad against Fremantle - tackled brilliantly and won convincingly. Richmond, coming off two wins, collapsed. And the mysterious form lines of two also-rans continued, says Michelangelo Rucci.

Robbie Gray lays a strong tackle on Richmond’s Anthony Miles. Picture: Calum Robertson

• Boak brilliant as Port reigns
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WOULDN’T it be great to know – really know – what makes the Port Adelaide team tick? And for that matter, Richmond.

The battle to be the best of the also-rans – as measured by the AFL’s ninth ranking that was once the Tigers’ trademark and is now the Power’s calling card – on Friday night at Adelaide Oval reaffirmed why coaches go grey or bald – and why fans find themselves loving and loathing their teams.

And bookmakers (for whom sympathy should be low) struggle to draw markets for Port Adelaide … and Richmond.

Put them together and … well, crack open another Chinese fortune cookie for guidance.

At quarter-time, as the Tigers led by six points on the scoreboard and far more on the judges’ cards, the call was to tighten the odds on a Richmond win and spread the line on a Port Adelaide loss. Very silly boys, those bookies.

Port Adelaide’s second-quarter response to coach Ken Hinkley’s challenge was from the vault of that first-quarter onslaught in the 2014 elimination final at the Oval.

That was 8.1 to 1.1 – this was 7.0 to nothing in the first 24 minutes with total domination as measured by 14-0 inside-50s.

And why did it happen? Why did the Power respond and Tigers fold?

If Hinkley and his Richmond counterpart Damien Hardwick had the answer to that long-standing mystery, this game would have been the battle for a top-four spot that seemed on the agenda when the season began four months ago.

Sometimes it just takes a player – usually a leader – to change the agenda.

In a year when Power captain Travis Boak has been challenged to live up to a reputation, he took the game in his hands – as measured by his monopoly on the ball on the second term (a quarter-high nine touches).

And a player who does not have (nor had) a “leadership group” title, Matthew Broadbent, won four clearances to change the agenda in a midfield Richmond commanded in the first term.

Most telling for Port Adelaide, however, was that manic tackling seen against the Western Bulldogs three weeks ago at the Oval – and not against Fremantle in the Power’s last start – was back (65 in the first half, 106 in total).

And on the flip side, the Richmond players went from hot to cold … and again frustrated their club’s long-suffering fans and left the bookies to think, “When will we ever learn with the Tigers?”