SCOREBOARDS can tell lies deep into a game. But premiership tables do not by round 21. 

Port Adelaide can lament losing many games this AFL season by small margins of two goals or less. But there is no hiding from the real story of an 8-12 win-loss count that carried another defeat at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night, this time by 38 points to would-be finalist Richmond.

Port Adelaide has slipped - not just from the pacesetting form that delivered top-four finishes in 2020 and last season, but from the real contenders who chase top-eight finals berths.

Why? It is a question that needs to be answered with list-management moves in October and November when Port Adelaide will need reinforcements in all three playing zones. It is a theme that dictates more work, both on skills and decision-making, needs to unfold on the track during the pre-season. And there will need to be a new edge from a team that appears to have lost its definition.

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After 20 games - with no match remaining against a top-eight challenger - Port Adelaide has a 4-10 record against the 11 teams ranked above it - and just one win against a team that is currently in the top eight (Sydney).

As much as the 0-5 start hurt, there is no dismissing Port Adelaide cannot stand alongside any top-eight side to say: "We measure up."

Richmond on Saturday night overwhelmed Port Adelaide with scoring power - and, quite differently for Richmond, clearance power at the contests.

Port Adelaide battled. But it never commanded the tone of the game nor its opponent.

Richmond's dominant seven-goal rush during the game-breaking third term had the Victorian club six points off the watershed 100-point mark at three quarter-time. Port Adelaide has not conceded so much (94 points) in three quarters in any other game this season.

Richmond's final score of 16.13 (109) is the second-highest score conceded by Port Adelaide this year - and had Richmond not been so inaccurate, particularly with Shai Bolton's 4.5, the 120 points handed to Hawthorn in round two might have been surpassed.

The premiership table cannot lie when Port Adelaide is 12th with a 8-12 record.