Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video The last team so obviously ahead of the pack was probably Geelong of 2008, which, as we know, flunked the final exam and were taken down, inexplicably, by a more accurate and disruptive Hawthorn. One former Hawthorn insider reckoned that the Hawks were better in 2012 – when, like the Cats in ’08, they blew it on the day – than in the subsequent premierships. So much can change in the last third of the season. No team illustrates this reality more than the Tigers of 2017, who gathered momentum like a boulder hurtling downhill. Next weekend marks the anniversary of St Kilda’s flogging of Richmond at Etihad – an event that, in hindsight, is harder to comprehend than Mark Latham’s stint as leader of the Labor Party. The extent of Richmond’s lead is demonstrated by a simple question: who’s the main challenger? If the top eight aren’t quite Richmond and the seven dwarves, the Tigers do stand a head above.

West Coast went on record describing this season as a ‘‘reset’’ following the culling and retirements of senior players. The Eagles have a tremendous top eight or nine players (with Jack Darling and Josh Kennedy playing), but they have a tough draw and even if they made the grand final, who would back them v the Tigers at the ’G? Sydney don’t score much and we saw how far off the Tigers they were on Thursday. Melbourne, who have talent, are not seasoned. Collingwood, who had emerged as smokeys, remain an unknown and will be hamstrung by Adam Treloar’s awful double-hammy. Loading Geelong gave the Tigers a contest before falling away at the end. Their bottom seven or eight are not as reliable as those of Richmond, who have superior depth – Shai Bolton, Kamdyn McIntosh, Jacob Townsend, Corey Ellis, Anthony Miles and Sam Lloyd were running around in the twos yesterday. Port Adelaide have been impressive and are well-placed to make the top four. But the Power are unlikely to dislodge the Tigers from the top two and their conquest of Richmond was (a) in Adelaide, where they have little hope of meeting the Tiges in finals, and (b) in the absence of Dustin Martin.

The Giants have the talent to upend anyone. But they are injury-prone and are no certs to make the eight. Hawthorn do not look flag-capable, with or without Cyril Rioli. The Tigers, as they’ve acknowledged, have been spared from the kind of injuries that have so hurt the Giants and which have contributed to Adelaide’s freefall. Continuity has fostered cohesion. Yet, the Richmond supremacy can’t be explained simply by personnel. The Tigers have four superstars, when most teams have only one, and have a group of undersold near-A graders (Nick Vlastuin, Dylan Grimes, Shane Edwards, Toby Nankervis, Josh Caddy), but few observers within the AFL think the gap they’ve opened up is based largely on talent. If there’s one leitmotif that emerges when you ask people within the club and well-placed observers outside about why the Tigers have a clear edge, it’s that they’re well-coached and play to their strengths. It’s easy to forget their high-pressure, speedy and territorial game style was developed, in part, because they didn’t have any tall forwards besides Jack Riewoldt. It’s easy to forget Dan Butler and Jason Castagna weren’t – and probably still aren’t – seen as particularly potent weapons, despite the havoc wreaked by their speed.

Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Richmond’s style, in the words of one of the competition’s better analysts, ‘‘allows them to show their strengths.’’ One former senior coach, who has studied the Tigers closely, said that they differed from most teams in that they put little time into negating the opposition, focusing almost entirely on ‘‘how we can win, not how can we break the oppo down.’’ Damien Hardwick, he said, ‘‘never shows an oppo goal, just the mistakes that lead to it.’’ If they focus on themselves, they also have the selflessness and team spirit great teams own. We saw this ‘‘connectness’’ – the word the players used so often in 2017 – on Thursday when the players congregated around a stretchered Reece Conca. We see it in the comic exhortations of Jack Higgins at half-time. We’ve seen it writ small in the more selfless Jack Riewoldt 2.0, whose inclusion in the leadership group might be another instance of a club recognising strengths, and worrying less about deficiencies. Whether the back-end of 2018 sees another insurgent gathering momentum and upsetting them, or the Richmond run is halted by injury, the fiscal year Tigers are working off a very inaccurate balance sheet.