It took esteemed Richmond stalwart Chris Newman an all-time league record 233 games, before he played in his first finals match – the 2013 elimination final v Carlton.

Newman subsequently passed the unwanted record among the competition’s current-day players on to teammate Nathan Foley, who wasn’t a member of the Tigers’ side that was beaten by the Blues in last year’s cut-throat final.

Pleasingly, after 153 games, Foley is now poised to make his first finals appearance, in Sunday’s elimination final against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.

Meanwhile, Foley’s young ‘ball-magnet’ midfield teammate, Anthony Miles, will make his AFL finals debut, after just 12 games with Richmond (to go with the 10 he played at GWS).

Miles is going to enter the September action with a highly-impressive 75% winning strike-rate in those dozen matches, too (the last nine on-the-trot).

Richmond has five changes to the team that lost the 2013 elimination final, for Sunday’s clash with Port Adelaide.

Coming in are Foley, Miles, Ben Griffiths, Jake Batchelor and Nathan Gordon.

Going out are Daniel Jackson, Jake King, Ty Vickery, Aaron Edwards and Shane Tuck.

The player with the most finals experience in Richmond’s line-up on Sunday is key defender Troy Chaplin with six games (five of them when he was at Port Adelaide).

He is followed by Shaun Grigg, with two finals to his credit (one while at Carlton).

Richmond and Port Adelaide will meet in a final for the first time, when they do battle at Adelaide Oval on Sunday.

It’s taken 17 years for this to eventuate, with the Power not entering the league football competition until 1997.

This reduces the number of league teams the Tigers are yet to play in a final, to seven.

Five other interstate teams are on Richmond’s September ‘to-do’ list – West Coast, Fremantle, Adelaide, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney – along with two Victorian ones – Western Bulldogs and, most surprisingly, Hawthorn.

Given the fact Richmond and Hawthorn won six premierships between them in the 10 years from 1971-80, it’s staggering to think they have never met in a final.

Richmond’s only previous interstate final was the 2001 preliminary final against Brisbane at the Gabba.

The Tigers lost that match, which was the last in the illustrious league careers of star pair Brendon Gale and Paul Broderick, by 68 points.

A highlight in the lead-up to that final, was the convoy of buses that transported Richmond supporters from Punt Road Oval to Brisbane, following the dramatic collapse of what was then Australia’s second largest airline, Ansett.

It’s been 70 years since Richmond last played finals, but its two fiercest rivals Carlton and Collingwood didn’t.

In the final round of the 2014 season last weekend, the Tigers grabbed eighth place on the ladder, courtesy of its thrilling three-point win against Sydney at ANZ Stadium.  The Blues (13^th) and Magpies (11^th), however, both missed out on the top eight.

You have to go back to 1944 for the previous occasion Richmond made the finals, while Carlton and Collingwood were spectators in September.

The Tigers finished runner-up to Fitzroy in ’44, with the Blues in fifth place and the Pies in 10^th spot.