Ah, here we are again; it's the perennial underdogs, Richie's tigers taking on the Freo dockers. I'd make a cat and bird joke here, but I'm too busy focusing on the performance gap.
The good book leaves us with the parable, 'can the leopard change its spots?'. Sadly for the Tigers, unless that change includes handballing accurately under pressure and giving a decent, convincing chase, I would say it's gonna be a resounding 'NO'. Those blokes would have to pull a Houdini to transmute their 2-13 regular season record into something that could intimidate the steamroller Fremantle has been this season.
On a stroll down memory lane, we see that the last encounter had Dockers out-rocking the Tigers with a tidy 54 point lead. The Richmond lads managed a comeback in 2023, but earning those historical laurels doesn't bode 'roarin' in 2024. Fast forward to the present and we have the Dockers glowing bright at #5 in the AFL standings with a full chest thumping victory momentum echoing in their recent results.
Our Richmond troupe, on the other hand, faces the epilogue of a rather 'mournful violin solo' kind of season curled at the #18 position. Their most recent performances aren't exactly serving as a beacon of hope to their supporters either.
Given the Dockers' clear upper hand, a miraculously generous spread and those horrid tigers' form... I have a feeling this is going to be more of a mauling than a match.
Albert’s Prediction: Fremantle Dockers by 46