Ok, so you can waste a week doing this but I have a quick look at the ladder predictor on the AFL site here: Ladder Predictor.

I thought it would be a case of scrounging 12 wins and making sure my September was free, however, it looks like GWS, Syd, Geel, NM, Haw, Adel, WCE, and WB may make it difficult to make finals unless we win 3 of our 7 games against the above 8 teams.

I have WB, Adel, and Haw at the G as must wins to make September. 

That and winning all those 'easy games' like the Lions and GC at the G, Fre and PA in NT, PA in Adel, and the Saints at Shittihad.

Essentially, if we lose to WB this week we have to 'sweep' the Hawks, or beat Sydney at the SCG, or WCE in Perth, or win again down at Mordor.

So unless one of those 8 teams collapses like Essendon during the 'Pep-tides Are Turning' years - we face a degree of error this young team will struggle to work with.

PS. I have created an entirely plausible season in the predictor where we win 14 games and still finish 9th. A game out, not even simple percentage...

I did a ladder predictor last night, and sadly I found that after just about every round...we were ninth. #Ninthbourne.

What a crazy year....to win 14 and still be 9th 

Unfortunately the bottoming out of teams like Richmond, Fremantle and Collingwood has gone a long way to embedding the top 6 teams on the ladder. The reality is that teams who want to play finals must win games like that Essendon match.

All interesting however I think once Collingwood and Richmond regain some names and form they'll start troubling some sides which could potentially change up positions 7-10

They're still clubs who are capable of playing good football. Just not presently.

It's as even a year I've seen for a long long time.

Yeah I think the 8 is set...

Adelaides start to the year was sopposedly the hardest and they have come through 4-3 so far so there draw will only open up.

GWS unless they run out of steam and injury riddled like last season they are in.

West coast- can't see them dropping out, especially with the amount of home games they have. 

Hawthorn is still good enough. 

Dogs unless injuries catch up to them and they fall away which I doubt.

Sydney, Geelong, North are locks.

We win 10-12 games I'm a happy man. Finals for me this year was always going to be if everything fell into place, losing games like Essendon isn't that. Next year.

52 minutes ago, Chook said:

I did a ladder predictor last night, and sadly I found that after just about every round...we were ninth. #Ninthbourne.

Not overly concerned to miss out on finals this year. 2017 and beyond will be out time 

We have to string three or more wins together. Preferably starting now.

Just did the predictor now and got..............9th....

It will depend heavily on how Adelaide goes is my view....assuming we win what I think we will win..

 

Frankly if we cannot win "must" games like EssUndone, then we don't deserve to play finals.  Not quite ready this year, unless we suddenly change and get some consistency, winning three or four on the trot more than once.

Greatly improved but without consistency then NQR, yet.

thing change very quickly, most teams will drop a game they have penciled in throughout the season. 

consider this. if we beat the dogs & cats beat crows all of a sudden the ladder start to look a lot more positive for us with just 2 favourable results

If we beat hawthorn I wouldn't care if we played finals.....

Building credibility is what counts.

1 hour ago, monoccular said:

Frankly if we cannot win "must" games like EssUndone, then we don't deserve to play finals.  Not quite ready this year, unless we suddenly change and get some consistency, winning three or four on the trot more than once.

Greatly improved but without consistency then NQR, yet.

While I agree with what you say here Mono, it should be remembered that the same point could be made about the 'Dogs last year. Early on, they were up and down and lost to us, a game they would have expected to win. Yet no-one would argue that they didn't deserve to make the finals last year,

2 hours ago, JV7 said:

Yeah I think the 8 is set...

Adelaides start to the year was sopposedly the hardest and they have come through 4-3 so far so there draw will only open up.

GWS unless they run out of steam and injury riddled like last season they are in.

West coast- can't see them dropping out, especially with the amount of home games they have.

Hawthorn is still good enough.

Dogs unless injuries catch up to them and they fall away which I doubt.

Sydney, Geelong, North are locks.

We win 10-12 games I'm a happy man. Finals for me this year was always going to be if everything fell into place, losing games like Essendon isn't that. Next year.

The first must still be a possibility (look what the loss of one player did to them last year - mind you, we are vulnerable in almost exactly the same way!)

The second may not be as bankable as you'd think, particularly against young, no-fears, no-baggage, confident teams, such as we are becoming? The return Saints game on 17 July and the Weagles at home on 23 July may be a pivotal fortnight.

Good to see the whole equalisation is achieving what it set out to do.

Freo play Adelaide, GWS, West Coast, Bulldogs and GC twice this season.

Who would have thought that would HELP them make finals?

We should roll the Hawks 

I think we are still prone to serving up the odd stinker against teams we should beat and that will cost us finals.

I also think playing home games against port and freo in the NT might cost us. Whilst they are both still very winnable,  we'd obviously be a much safer bet at the G. This place will go into meltdown if we drop one of those!

I did it as well and i think we'll win between 10 and 14 games, and miss the finals by 1-3 games 

I think our best is top 8 standard but our worst is bottom 4, we need to build that consistency if we are going to win often enough to make a serious play for finals.

having said that the improvement is obvious in attack, we can kick winning scores but we haven't got the defensive balance right just yet and i think when that comes so will the consistency. 

Massive weakness in mistakes kicking out of the back half resulting in goals, every game this year we have coughed up more goals as a result of our own errors than the opposition has scored outright, i know this is a result of opposition pressure but to me it's also an indication that we can defend but we can't always make the most of that good work in counter attacking moves, and those mistakes open us right up and allow easy goals.

2 hours ago, olisik said:

We should roll the Hawks 

 

Yeah they are totally 'gettable', just ask Dawesy

Not thinking about finals, it's all about this weekend at the G..

13 hours ago, SaberFang said:

Unfortunately the bottoming out of teams like Richmond, Fremantle and Collingwood has gone a long way to embedding the top 6 teams on the ladder. The reality is that teams who want to play finals must win games like that Essendon match.

Will come back to haunt us. We'd be in the 8 now and looking real good. 

9th looks rather probable whichever way you shake it. But one thing that will likely emerge in the wash was some very astute trading last year to bail out of this year's first draft round. I'd suggest they charted our trajectory and saw fit to double-up while the picks had extra value. Equalisation measures for mid-table teams would logically suggest getting caught in a cycle of mediocrity without the cache to attract top-line players or draft the best youth (See Richmond). The system is fraught with danger but I think we may have just played it to perfection. Our first-rounder next year is Weed with a year of development compared to possibly a kid at around pick 12 (not to mention bagging Oliver in the process).

7 hours ago, Petraccattack said:

 

Yeah they are totally 'gettable', just ask Dawesy

The team we beat in round 1 smashed them by 12 goals.

Having a player say that a team is 'gettable' is not a bad thing - you do understand that, yes?

12 minutes ago, rpfc said:

The team we beat in round 1 smashed them by 12 goals.

Having a player say that a team is 'gettable' is not a bad thing - you do understand that, yes?

THe Hawks have been 'gettable' early in the season for the past few seasons. They don't seem to want to take on fast opponents too enthusiastically that have a red hot go at them.  But they still have the game to win premierships. Once attrition removes the manic run of most teams their maintaining possession and controlling the pace game  checkmates tired and crook legs come finals. 

This weeks game is pretty massive if we want to have any shot at playing in the finals.

I ran through the predictor and the Dogs are likely to be battling it out with Adelaide and us for the 7th and 8th spots (that's if we win the games we are supposed to).

If we can get a win over them it would give us a sneaky chance.