Who finishes higher in 2018? Richmond, Adelaide, Port Adelaide

Of course Cat is going to call Motlop a flake now after praising him from the rooftops when he was a Cat! Outrageous Cat! Haven't recovered clearly from your Sticks Kernahan faux pas!

Richmond – Can Martin and Cotchin again have career years that carry the club? I don't think they will. Combine their likely drop off (even a 5% drop from Martin would see Richmond lose several more games) with being the hunted and every club focusing on dismantling them, I think Richmond will drop a few spots (but still likely make finals). Port Adelaide – Motlop is a flake. He can look brilliant one passage of play and take the next five off. Port's record of not beating any side that was in the top 8 when they played Port last year won't improve because of Motlop and Watts. Until Port stops downhill skiing and is willing to run hard both ways, especially when the game isn't going their way, I'll keep writing them off. Adelaide – I expect them to be right around where they were last year. The concern is defense though. Lever gone and Smith rehabbing his ACL means a lot of rebound has been lost. In the past when you stop Adelaide from rebounding, their forward line became impotent.

Crows need some hard close games this year, so they develop some mongrel to claw out a win when things aren't going their way. Which means they may not be minor premiers, but will have a better chance of going all the way. 1st or 2nd. Port looks scarily good. But I see them 1 year away from coming good on this. 3rd to 6th. Richmond's high intensity game, can it last. Most teams can't keep it up. But they do have two of the best players in the comp. That accounts for a lot. 1st to 8th.

I tend to think the similarities betwen the Dogs and Tigers are a little exaggerated. Sure, they both heaped the pressure on their opposition but both teams have completely different playing styles. The Dogs were employing a novel on-ball structure that continually gave their midfielders a qucik handball option on the outside. Time and rime again we watched one Dog get tackled only to feed it to the next bloke then the next bloke then the next bloke, etc. They ran and carried and handballed like crazy. Contrast that to Richmond who were playing a hard-nosed brand of footy.that culminated in 'kicking it long'. Richmond were happy to scrap for the contested ball but had an inpressive defensive structure in place to chop off any opposition forward entries and quickly move into a counter-attack which emphasized quick entry into their forward line. They didn't need to run the ball into their forward line, they just kept kicking it long and letting their smalls fo to town. Obviously there are superficial similarities, but their structures and execution were completely different.

I read somewhere that richmond's recruiting and drafting strategy going back over the last few years was to focus on middle distance running players. That would absolutely support the gamestyle they play and I think that therefore there might be a little bit more substance to it than with the bulldogs - who were very good but were a bit more hot and cold. Don't forget that as good as the crows were in the back half of the season, Richmond were equally as good and they swarmed the crows on GF day. Unless injuries occur, I see no reason why Richmond can't again be one of the teams to beat

Richmond’s game style won’t just fall over Just like the Bulldog's style last year? A game built on high intensity with less skill does not take much to drop a couple of % and fall away. Lack of desire can come from winning a premiership the year before! An injury to the thin list of elite players would cause a drop as well. Every coach and tactition will have been studying the game plan to look for counter measure as well (like the Tigers did to the Adelaide game plan). Yes, I am still upset about the GF :-( But I did bet my Tigers mate that the Crows would not lose to the Tigers in 2018. Port Adelaide? Who knows? The players they have added should help. But I am not convinced that Ken actually knows how to coach.

Mind you Milo the youth of the side could be as good a reason for them to slide as improve this year, given ups and downs are part of the way da yoof rolls. Also on the best 2017 team thing (although ultimately it's hard to argue against coming away with the prize everyone plays for), you'd have to admit Richmond got the rub of the draw, playing Carlton, Brisbane and Freo twice.

Depends on injuries but these three will be in the top four along with the Bombers. Positions are largely irrelevant as these will be the preliminary finalists.

From memory, the Tiges are 13th for average age (bottom third) and 10th for average games (bottom half). Last year's first game saw them play a "young" Blues team, according to some in the media, which was actually older than they were.

The ladder predictor that is being used as a template in this series is pretty much based on the 2017 ladder, except for two significant outliers, that is, that West Coast fall and Port Adelaide rise. I'm not saying that these won't happen, but of the plethora of things that might happen, why are we being asked to assume that these two outcomes will happen ?

A couple of inaccuracies in the article: ' With a rather mature side...' Richmond has actually a rather young side with the same average age as Fremantle. They sit ninth or tenth on the age ladder only a point off the Blues. Given Gibbs move to Adelaide at the end of last season, and no retirements from the RFC's premiership winning side, its likely the two teams were around the same age mark in 2017 in their best 22s. https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/the-age-and-experience-ladder-for-2018-where-your-club-sits/news-story/ec1626ea2a37e51263bd10b9084fc31d 'After being the best team last season...' Adelaide wasn't the best team last season. They were the team that was (slightly) best in the Home & Away by percentage only from Geelong and two points from Richmond and GWS. Had the Tiges kicked an extra goal in one of three games earlier in the season, they would've finished two points clear on top. Wouldves Shouldves and Couldves aside, the season consists of five months of H&A and one month of finals. Taking those together and throw in the winning margins in September against the other top four sides and RFC can justify saying it was the best side of the 2017 season. As to the question the article poses Id opt for Port. On paper they have what it takes but delivering is always another story. Both the Adelaide teams enjoy a huge home ground advantage and Power should really benefit from Rockliff adding more grunt in the guts albeit not as much from Watts or Motlop. The latter may pick up two or three goals in a handful of games but Watts may prove as valuable as Vickery was at the Hawks. If the Tigers are to do any damage at all in 2018 they need to finish top four and to do that also need an injection of at least four new players the best 22 IMO. Whether Hardwick has the b@lls to bring in some young quality again at the expense of one or two of the premiership heroes is the question. As for the Crows led by that embodiment of grace and humility as captain ? Well the Power Rangers have gone to Super Shoppers. Enough said.

Richmond's game style won't just fall over as they have a very fit team that can press all over the ground and they have some real top end quality so I think they will be around the mark again. The crows have strengthened their already extremely powerful midfield with Gibbs and have added a genuine lock down player which was one glaring weak spot from last year so they will afford the best forward line in the comp a mountain of ball and therefore I see them right at the top fighting with Richmond, Sydney and Geelong for the minor premiership. Port are the big unknown. They battered the lower ranked teams last year and have strengthened this year particularly with rockliff and motlop but the strongest teams tended to get a hold of port in the middle and it is their defence that is suspect as they rely on their midfield to help out so much. If they had strengthened in defence in lieu of attack I think they would have been a bigger threat. Top 8 for them but not top 4

In the last 17 seasons (those this century), the reigning runner-up has featured in only six grand finals (and one of those was a replay). Against that record (of, ultimately, less than one third attendance), the reigning premier has featured in nine grand finals (more than half). That bodes well for Richmond, not so well for Adelaide. As for Port, who knows? Rockcliff is quality. Watts is quantity (of experience - I'm trying to be positive here). Can they finish higher than Adelaide? Quite possibly, they can. It's still Richmond, though.