Richmond coach Terry Wallace says there is no doubt his team is better placed to capitalise on another ninth-placed finish this season, come 2009, than it was in past years due to the amount of talented young players it now has on its list.
The Tigers' slim finals chances ended when St Kilda beat Adelaide on Sunday and provided the club, as expected, rolls over likely wooden spooners Melbourne on Sunday at the MCG then Richmond - which has made the finals just twice since 1982 - will be condemned to its sixth ninth-placed finish in the 15 seasons since the top eight was first introduced in 1994.
But while only two of those previous ninth-placed finishes - 1994 and 2000 - laid the foundation for finals appearances in the following season, Wallace is confident the club's latest near miss will be the start of better things to come next year for long-suffering Richmond fans.
While aware his team also finished ninth in his second season in charge in 2006 - before falling to last place in 2007 - Wallace says this time he has finished ninth with a team on the up rather than one in decline.
"Everyone keeps talking about the ninths but I think it's a nonsense myself," he said.
"What has happened in the past has nothing to do with what's going to happen in the future."
Wallace said most of Richmond's previous ninth-placed finishes - in 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2006 - had been with ageing teams that had not quite been good enough to make the eight.
"In most of those years the team had played well early but then faded away and finished ninth," he said.
"But this time around we have done it on the back of young talent and ridden it home (with seven wins in the last 10 matches) in the latter part of the year."
Wallace said his ninth-placed team of 2008 could not be compared to the one of 2006, which then collapsed to finish with the wooden spoon the following season.
"The difference between those two teams is this is more sustainable," he said on Tuesday.
"We did that (in 2006) with the second or third oldest team in the competition and were not able to achieve finals so you would think in that situation you are more likely to go down and up."
"But this time around we have got some good young players and along with Melbourne we had the most players running around in the competition last week with 50 games or less to their names."
Wallace said that with the natural improvement of his talented crop of youngsters - including players such as Nathan Foley, Trent Cotchin, Brett Deledio, Shane Edwards, Luke McGuane, Kelvin Moore, Mitch Morton, Andrew Raines, Jack Riewoldt, Will Thursfield, Richard Tambling and Matt White - plus the fact that he is not expecting any retirements out of the club's senior core of players, the club was capable of further improvement next year to end the club's finals drought.
"We are on an improving graph and our challenge now is to ensure that continues," he said.
"We are not accepting of ninth place and nor should we be and we have got to start marching up and playing finals footy."