THEY did not come to play ....
In sport, such a stinging claim - of a team physically being present but mentally out of tune with the demand of a contest - will torment a coach after a week of intense preparation. It will frustrate the fans. And confuses the critics.
In 1997, Richmond did not come to play Port Adelaide in the highly anticipated trial game at Alberton Oval in early February - the first display of the inaugural Port Adelaide AFL squad against a national league rival.
The Tigers simply did not come to play.
For seven hours, premiership coach Robert Walls and his Richmond squad either sat on the tarmac or at the departure gate at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne while engineers struggled with two different electrical faults to their Ansett Airlines jet.
At Alberton Oval, the enterprising man who seized opportunity to commemorate a "first of firsts" for Port Adelaide did not realise just how his souvenir T-shirts would become a true collectors' item.
Richmond did not come to play ... They just did not arrive.
The call came to Port Adelaide chief executive Brian Cunningham from AFL House just before 10am ... and it left Cunningham wondering what more could go wrong on the long path the Port Adelaide Football Club had endured in moving from suburbia with the SANFL to the national stage.
"After all we had been through (from the thwarted 1990 bid for a VFL licence) to the weak concessions we were handed with our AFL licence, we are at the moment where we finally get to present ourselves as an AFL team on the field," recalls Cunningham.
"We have been belted left, right and centre in getting to the AFL. We are getting the weakest concessions handed to an AFL club as we are putting together our playing squad and those concessions are still being weakened even before we get into the league.
"And I get the call from the AFL to say, 'Richmond aren't coming'. I am thinking, can you give us a break? Here is another unforeseen issue ..."
The invitation to Richmond - that eagerly accepted playing at Alberton Oval when other AFL club's had sought trial games at Football Park to gain conditioning at the West Lakes ground - reminded all how the traditional VFL club was the only approving vote for Port Adelaide in that 1990 vote to approve a national league licence be established in South Australia.
Port Adelaide was told a toilet on the plane assigned to Richmond was not functioning. And from this episode, AFL officials were given more reason to argue the case against teams travelling on match days.
"The flight was cancelled and the later flight would get to Adelaide too late for the game," Cunningham said. "From an AFL perspective, there was a lesson on why it is too risky to travel on the day of a game. The league had been happy to let Richmond fly, leave the airport and change at Alberton before playing and flying out again ... but a whole lot of good work was undone by that plane not being able to fly.
"We had Alberton Oval perfectly decked out for at least 8000 fans. And it all fell flat. We had the gates opening, people lined up to hand over their money and take their favourite spots as they had for SANFL games for years and years.
"We just had to get to all those gates - and I was among the staff doing this - to say, 'Sorry, the game is postponed - come back tomorrow, it will be a great day'.
"And it was. It was a very good day. Those 8000 turned up again as we started the game at 11 on a Sunday morning. And we won."
The re-scheduled match - played the next day - did end with an encouraging eight-goal win for Port Adelaide (14.6 to 6.3).
As destiny - and the bizarre ways of AFL fixture control would have it - Port Adelaide opened and closed the pre-season against Richmond. The summer finale at Port Lincoln also was tainted with controversy. It was the game that denied inaugural AFL captain Gavin Wanganeen the chance to lead Port Adelaide to the MCG for the premiership-season opener against Collingwood. He was reported - and subsequently suspended - for striking Ashley Prescott and the Brownlow Medallist added to those headlines when he re-enacted the moment with reporting umpire Michael Avon to suggest it was not a punch but a push to Prescott's chest. The AFL took no action against Wanganeen for contact with an umpire (an issue that became more serious a week later with Carlton great Greg Williams who copped a nine-match ban for his push of field umpire Andrew Coates).
Port Adelaide-Richmond encounters for AFL premiership points began in round 6, 1997 at Football Park with John Cahill's crew rising to fifth on the AFL ladder with the 64-point win at West Lakes (19.8 to 8.10).
Today, in the lead-up to Saturday afternoon's clash at Adelaide Oval, the ledger still favours Port Adelaide with 24 wins against 16 losses with one of the 41 games ending in a draw (in 2012).
Perhaps that false start in 1997 at Alberton was an indicator to how Port Adelaide-Richmond games would not be short of headlines in the future. Nor pain.
It was Richmond that ruined the celebration of Port Adelaide's 140th anniversary with a 47-point win in the heavy rain at Football Park in May 2010.
There was in 2014 the outrage at Port Adelaide being asked to wear its "away" guernsey while hosting Richmond in the first AFL final played at Adelaide Oval. The fall-out had Port Adelaide wear its traditional black-and-white bars jumper - and win the elimination final handsomely, by 57 points after eight-goal start against a Richmond team that forfeited first use of the breeze after winning the toss at the Oval.
And there was the controversy created by the free kick - for the handball across the boundary line by Port Adelaide defender Hamish Hartlett - in the 2020 preliminary final at Adelaide Oval that ended with Richmond scoring a six-point win.
And now to Adelaide Oval on Saturday afternoon for game No.42 with no-one doubting - after its stunning upset win against Carlton at the MCG last week - that there is a young Richmond team that is coming to play ....
