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The 2017 Tigers were subjected to the frightening Crow stance and won running away by 8 goals after trailing by 2 goals at 1/4 time.More interesting question than it first appears this one. The question asks which premiership team were the best....
So to answer it strictly, Eagles get no allowance for missing Gaff, Naitanui and Sheppard, you have to judge them on the 22 who played in the Premiership team.
Similarly Bulldogs no allowance for missing Murphy, Wallis, Suckling, Adams. Richmond 2019 get no allowance for missing Rance, Stack, Graham, and you could probably include Ross in that list.
Then if we are judging the best premiership team of the four, is it just who played best on the day, or best in the finals, or over the season, or just in terms of what the individual players have achieved or look like achieving over the course of their careers and where they were compared to their best on the day?
Best Grand Final performance
I am going to give this to Richmond 2017. They took on a minor premier who had cruised through the finals, albeit without Smith, McGovern, Milera(the last 2 were second year players.) Also missing for the Crows were Jenkins, Walker, Otten, Sloane...
I think this is superior to the Richmond 2019 GF win because I just don't think GWS were anywhere near right on that occasion, so it is very difficult to judge how good the Tigers' performance was. GWS had a very tough 4 final campaign, had players carrying injuries and a terrible slog in their prelim in the wet.
Eagles 2018 GF performance, they fell in v a Collingwood team that was very makeshift in key positions, missing Reid, Dunn, Moore and also had a decent bit of salary cap missing in Wells. The Pies were playing their 3rd consecutive knockout final and fourth final in all and I don't rate the Eagles overall performance in this GF really highly.
The Dogs took on a Sydney team in its fourth final, missing Sinclair, Aliir, maybe you could throw in Ted Richards and Tippett was not near 100%. So the Swans were unable to exploit the Dogs key position weaknesses. Still, this Sydney team were off two strong wins and the Bulldogs GF win had decent merit.
Best Finals performance
I have to give this to the Dogs in 2016, ahead of Tigers 2017 and Tigers 2019 which I think were hard to split. The Dogs had 3 brilliant wins leading to the GF, beating three teams at their preferred venues, Eagles in Perth, Hawks at the MCG, both easily, and Giants at Spotless in a tough thriller. From where they commenced I would have to say that is the best 4 match finals performance I have seen in my lifetime - born mid 60's.
Richmond 2017 involved 3 smashing wins, all at the club's preferred venue, the MCG. But no team got within 6 goals and it was total dominance against some pretty strong outfits, Cats, GWS, Crows.
Richmond 2019 was also a great finals run, beating Brisbane in Brisbane by 8 goals, taking the minor premier Geelong down in a come from behind 3 goal win and well, impossible to judge how good the GF was imo, GWS were clearly spent.
Eagles 2018 had a two goal win at home v the Pies, dispensed with Melbourne(who had beaten Hawks and Cats easily) easily at home in what I thought was a meritorious win, and fell in against the Pies in the GF, which I have already written about.
Over the course of the whole season, well that is very tough to judge with loaded fixtures, and all sorts of things coming into play, too difficult to assess readily, opposition injuries etc etc. All four sides had 15 or 16 wins and percentages in the 113-121 range. None were especially dominant and I would not like to try to separate them on the grounds of performance over the whole season.
The most noteworthy thing may be Richmond 2017 where they won 15 matches, lost 3 by a kick, and another two by 9 and 14. The only thing though is the other two losses were by 76 and 67 points, so fearful hidings. Their narrowest win was by 11 points. So in 21 of 25 matches across the whole season they won or lost by a kick. Having said that, with a percentage of 115 they were not especially more dominant. Richmond 2019 once they put together close to their best team after the bye strung together 12 consecutive wins with a percentage above 170% I think. They had 3 matches away from the MCG in that time, all very strong wins against top middle and lower rated teams.
In terms of the playing personnel and what they have achieved in the game, the Bulldogs were largely a bunch of no names. Roberts, Biggs, a very young and inexperienced T Boyd, Cordy, Daniel and Dunkley. Players like Biggs, Boyd, Roberts, Smith have barely scraped 50 games in their full careers, and Dickson scraped over 100. They lacked a ruckman and were weakish in all key positions. Incredible job to win a flag when you reflect on that but their actual 22 would be made up of the lowest rated players.
I would say the Tigers 2019 team was superior in personnel to their 2017 team and this is borne out by a player like Macintosh playing in the 2017 team but missing selection in the 2019 team. The 2019 team lacks Rance but adds Lynch, and is just more mature and better overall. The addition of the second ruckman strengthened the 2019 team as well.
But how does that compare with he Eagles 2018 outfit which also contained a lot of stars?
Shuey, Kennedy, Hurn, Barass, Yeo, Darling, McGovern, Jetta, LeCras, maybe Sheed have been or looked like being top class at least at stages of their careers. You could possibly add Cripps, Rioli, Ryan to that. At the other end of the scale perhaps Vardy, Hutchings, Cole, Venables have not forged great careers or not yet established. Mastern and LeCras may have been a bit past their use by dates as well.
The Tigers 2019 have Grimes, Houli, Edwards, Martin, Cotchin, Riewoldt, Lynch, Lambert, Vlastuin, Prestia who form the top end of the team. All have either been or looked like being top class players at stages. The Tigers bottom end is probably made up by Castagna, Soldo, Bolton, Broad, Baker.
I think when you look at it in these terms and consider maybe Kennedy and LeCras of the Eagles top end types were past their best at the time of the GF's, I think the Tigers 22 on GF 2019 is a better team overall in terms of personnel than the Eagles 2018, but not by much.
All of those things considered, GF performance, overall finals performance, season performance and quality of personnel overall, if you asked me to rate these GF winners(based on the 22 who took the park) say to play in a mythical match v Cats 07 in a GF, I would rate them:
1. Richmond 2019
2. Richmond 2017
3. Eagles 2018
4. Bulldogs 2016
But if I wanted a team to put together a remarkable finals run against the odds, Bulldogs 2016 every time, absolutely amazing performance.
