Richmond has moved into equal third place on the AFL/VFL competition’s all-time premiership ladder following its 2020 Grand Final triumph over Geelong at the Gabba.
The Tigers join Hawthorn on 13 premierships in league football ranks, two behind second-placed Collingwood and three away from equal leaders Carlton and Essendon.
It’s interesting to note that Carlton, an inaugural member of the VFL competition in 1897, won five premierships up to 1915, while Essendon, also one of the original league teams, had secured six flags by the end of the 1924 season. And Collingwood, which entered the competition that year, too, had 11 premierships to its credit by the end of the 1936 season.
Here is the all-time premiership ladder, with the number of seasons in the competition alongside each team . . .
16 – Carlton (124), Essendon (122)
15 – Collingwood (124)
13 – Richmond (113), Hawthorn (96)
12 – Melbourne (121)
9 – Geelong (121)
5 – Sydney/South Melbourne (123)
4 – North Melbourne (96), West Coast (34)
3 – Brisbane (24)
2 – Western Bulldogs/Footscray (96), Adelaide (30)
1 – St Kilda (122), Port Adelaide (24)
0 – Fremantle (26), Gold Coast (10), Greater Western Sydney (9)
If you take the premiership ladder from 1967, when Richmond broke a 24-year flag drought, the Tigers are in equal-second place with Carlton.
They have won eight premierships all-up during that time.
Remarkably, if you take out that 24-year drought, and the recent 37-year drought that was thankfully broken in 2017, Richmond has, in fact, won eight premierships in the space of just 18 seasons – five from 1967-1980 (four under Tommy Hafey’s coaching guidance and one under Tony Jewell) and three over the course of the past four seasons (2017, 2019 and 2020 under Damien Hardwick).
The full premiership ladder since 1967 is:
12 – Hawthorn
8 – Richmond, Carlton
4 – Essendon, North Melbourne, West Coast
3 – Geelong, Brisbane
2 – Collingwood, Sydney, Adelaide
1 – Western Bulldogs, Port Adelaide
0 – Melbourne, St Kilda, Fremantle, Gold Coast, Greater Western Sydney
