Who are they going to overtake?Doubt it.
Richmond got worse in the short term over the off season just gone, not better.
Draftees take years to have a consistent impact on games and whilst it'll be good to see glimpses from them this year for Tiger fans, expecting them to win games off of 'natural improvement', when they haven't even done a full preseason is setting expectations too high, I'm afraid.
I think Lalor will be a great player, for example, but a late switch to footy from cricket + injury in the latter half of last year, means that he's coming off a very low base.
Will probably take him until at least season 3 before he starts having any kind of consistent impact on games at AFL level, same with Smillie.
Then there's just learning the game fundamentals to begin with.
Look at how good Sheezel and Wardlaw are, plus they have LDU in his prime, as well as an AA calibre ruckman in Xerri and and AA FF in Larkey yet North still only won 3 games last year.
North have had way more access to top end talent than Richmond and couldn't win more than 3 games last year and would've collected a 4th spoon in 6 years if not for Richmond capitulating through injury and form.
WCE only won 5 games last year and one of them was with 20 seconds to go(vs North), despite having an AA forward, the AA CHB and one of the strongest spines(sans ruck) in the comp and that's with Yeo and Kelly(both AA players) playing as the main mids, with the addition of Harley.
Richmond are at ground zero. Tiger supporters need to temper their expectations.