AFL Preliminary Final Weekend 2016

[dees189227 12,399]

So now on to todays game. I get why people dont want the gianst to win but isnt Gold Coast the same? Didnt they get all these draft picks to and if they were to make it people wouldn't be as savage. Sydney I didnt mind but I sort of want them to fail to win a premiership so the contract they offered Buddy fails. 

The only thing I hate about them is Scully. The lying toad. But if he want there then I probably wouldnt mind them as much. 

anyway go doggies

[whatwhat say what 22,948]

no, GW$ got many more advantages than gold coast - and boy oh boy they've taken advantage of them.

[old55 23,700]

I think the Giants will win and I'm fine with that. They've managed their situation extremely well.  The Dogs can win and it will be terrific and deserved if they do.  I sound like I'm having half each way but I'm genuinely looking forward to the contest and a new Grand Finalist.

[biggestred 5,139]

Gold coast didnt get the mini draft like gws did - twice

[mauriesy 7,357]

24 minutes ago, bingers said:

A very ordinary side, topped up by a gun player.

A "very ordinary" side that flogged us by over 100 points.

[monoccular 17,574]

11 hours ago, Chook said:

Get rid of this stupid bye after round 23 please. We can see that one game in 27 days is not an “advantage” for a top four side that wins week 1 of the finals.

Never fear.  The AFL will (i) say it was a great idea AND (ii) come out with another ill-conceived "plan".

[chook fowler 19,551]

Lonergan, Mackie, Taylor, Enright, Bartel, Hawkins all cooked. Motlop soft. Smith and Henderson spuds. The Cats will plummet next year IMO.

[daisycutter 29,740]

22 minutes ago, biggestred said:

Gold coast didnt get the mini draft like gws did - twice

and they got a longer salary cap increase

[daisycutter 29,740]

11 hours ago, Chook said:

Get rid of this stupid bye after round 23 please. We can see that one game in 27 days is not an “advantage” for a top four side that wins week 1 of the finals.

nothing new here. the old final 4 system allowed sides to get 2 weeks off during finals and was generally seen as an advantage to the top sides

[rjay 25,092]

13 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

nothing new here. the old final 4 system allowed sides to get 2 weeks off during finals and was generally seen as an advantage to the top sides

It's very different 'daisy', having one game in a month is a big disadvantage. We will see this afternoon with GWS but it's going to be hard for them to switch on at the start.

The advantage they have is that they've seen what happened to the Cats but their momentum has stopped, not easy to turn it back on.

[beelzebub 23,383]

47 minutes ago, mauriesy said:

A "very ordinary" side that flogged us by over 100 points.

Because we played even more ordinary, and at their place. 

[Macca 17,034]

In the 6 flags we won from '55 to '64 we had 2 weeks off during the finals 5 times.  The odd year out was 1957. 

The Swans had an off day against GWS 2 weeks ago whilst the Cats weren't all that impressive against the Hawks in their qualifying final.  The time off is an advantage if a coach knows how to utilise the time off. 

Not sure whether Chris Scott is a top-line coach/manager ... his players weren't switched on in the first quarter and he has to take a lot of the blame for that - to get blown away the way they did was unacceptable.  Regardless, the Cats are far too reliant on too few where as the Swans play total football.

Sydney are going to be hard to beat for the premiership if they play like they did last night.

[picket fence 17,510]

13 hours ago, hemingway said:

Contested ball is king

Which is why you cannot have too many in an under Gun Gilt Edged Mids! 

We have some very good ones but none that are elite!

[DistrACTION Jackson 9,246]

9 hours ago, Older demon said:

So pleased that the 2 teams that stay in the hunt by cherry picking players from other clubs i.e. Hawks and Cats have failed to reach the G.F. Sydney went down that path with franklin and Tippet and although still there they have introduced 7 new players this year and have made a GF. Gives me hope for our group if we can keep them together. Already I see that Hawks and Cats are looking to load up again next  year. Why don't they just take their medicine and go and develop some players

The funny thing is the only reason they were both so successful was by drafting and developing great talent.

Cats: Enright, Selwood, Bartel, Lonergan, Taylor, Kelly, Ling…. the list goes on.

Hawks: Lewis, Hodge, Mitchell, Roughead, Franklin… again they drafted many others.

It seems these teams have forgotten exactly what got them success in the first place- building a side who grow together and learn how to play at their peak as a TEAM.  Which is exactly what we are doing at the moment. Hopefully it translates into a long overdue premiership!

[Bang Bang Bang 5,839]

I wanted Sydney to win last night but it was kinda depressing watching that. Just how far away are we from winning a flag? I've seen us play hundreds of times at the MCG, for some magnificent wins, but I've never seen us play with the intensity the Swans brought last night. They were unbelievable.

 

[At Least I Saw a Flag 5,274]

28 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Because we played even more ordinary, and at their place. 

Cheers BB.

Mauriesy, with all due respect, pointing to one match/result in isolation is hardly statistically significant. Applying the same logic, MFC is a top 4 side on the evidence of beating GWS!! 

The effort against Geelong was deplorable. The Melbourne side was totally cooked by the last round. And played accordingly. 

 

[DeeSpencer 26,082]

1 hour ago, dees189227 said:

So now on to todays game. I get why people dont want the gianst to win but isnt Gold Coast the same? Didnt they get all these draft picks to and if they were to make it people wouldn't be as savage. Sydney I didnt mind but I sort of want them to fail to win a premiership so the contract they offered Buddy fails. 

The only thing I hate about them is Scully. The lying toad. But if he want there then I probably wouldnt mind them as much. 

anyway go doggies

The Giants got the 4 extra mini draft picks that they traded away for a swag of extra top 10 picks and not for mature players as the plan had been for them.

The Giants got better 17 year old access players in Cameron, Shiel and Treloar where GWS got Matt Shaw and Mav Weller.

The Giants didn't attempt to win in their first few years by signing questionable veterans like Rischitelli, Brown, Warnock and Brennan not to mention an elite player in Ablett. Instead they signed Scully, Ward and Davis as their high profile signings knowing all 3 weren't even going to be in their peak despite being the leaders of the club.

Pretty much the Gold Coast came in and looked like a struggle (although they were going to make the 8 before Ablett was injured a few years back and have plenty of talent on their list). So the AFL gave GWS more concessions and instead of the GWS staff trying to spend those concessions on fielding a competitive side they went even deeper than Gold Coast on the youth policy and created a super list that has ongoing excess talent year after year. Oh and then they got gifted the most amazing academy zone.

It's pretty much the leagues biggest condoned tank job and they lost something like 12 games by 100 plus in their first 3 years. People would've gone to games and watched them lose by 100 plus and never gone back. Now they are hosting a home prelim and could only sell 6,000 tickets to members whilst the Dogs fans bought 8,000.

[old55 23,700]

3 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

The Giants got the 4 extra mini draft picks that they traded away for a swag of extra top 10 picks and not for mature players as the plan had been for them.

The Giants got better 17 year old access players in Cameron, Shiel and Treloar where GWS got Matt Shaw and Mav Weller.

The Giants didn't attempt to win in their first few years by signing questionable veterans like Rischitelli, Brown, Warnock and Brennan not to mention an elite player in Ablett. Instead they signed Scully, Ward and Davis as their high profile signings knowing all 3 weren't even going to be in their peak despite being the leaders of the club.

Pretty much the Gold Coast came in and looked like a struggle (although they were going to make the 8 before Ablett was injured a few years back and have plenty of talent on their list). So the AFL gave GWS more concessions and instead of the GWS staff trying to spend those concessions on fielding a competitive side they went even deeper than Gold Coast on the youth policy and created a super list that has ongoing excess talent year after year. Oh and then they got gifted the most amazing academy zone.

It's pretty much the leagues biggest condoned tank job and they lost something like 12 games by 100 plus in their first 3 years. People would've gone to games and watched them lose by 100 plus and never gone back. Now they are hosting a home prelim and could only sell 6,000 tickets to members whilst the Dogs fans bought 8,000.

It's a good story all around.  And you would have done it better how?

[Redleg 41,451]

1 hour ago, mauriesy said:

A "very ordinary" side that flogged us by over 100 points.

At their kennel, when they were playing for top spots. We had checked out already, planning mad monday, on the back of the Carlton loss.

[daisycutter 29,740]

1 hour ago, rjay said:

It's very different 'daisy', having one game in a month is a big disadvantage. We will see this afternoon with GWS but it's going to be hard for them to switch on at the start.

The advantage they have is that they've seen what happened to the Cats but their momentum has stopped, not easy to turn it back on.

why is it different rjay? you gave no reasons and as i said it was quite common in the days before out current finals system and "generally" seen as an advantage

and how do you get 1 game in a month? think that is stretching the truth a little

geelong's preparation was obviously not good enough. they got it wrong. blame the twinny

[DeeSpencer 26,082]

26 minutes ago, Fifty-5 said:

It's a good story all around.  And you would have done it better how?

Firstly there was no need for the 17 year olds or the mini draft selections. All those player should've just gone in regular drafts when they were 18.

Then I wouldn't have given them such a stack of top 5 picks. Why not give them a good spread of extra picks throughout the draft. So pick 1, 2, 10,11, 21, 22, 30, 40, 50 for example. Why did they need more elite talent than they could deal with? They could've had extra 2nd and 3rd rounders for a number of years instead of the mini draft which gifted them top 5 picks.

I would've banned them from signing any player in his first 5 years as start up player ie. Ward, Scully, Davis. They could've traded if they wanted those players and otherwise they could spend big contracts on mature ready to perform players. Why did it take them 3 years to get Mumford, Patfull and Shaw when they could've had those types from day 1?

I'd remove the Riverina from the academy zone. It's a footy area that's always produced good players. GWS didn't discover footballers there.

Lastly I'd remove the COLA they are still getting.

Pretty much the AFL gave them too much after panicking about all the players leaving if they weren't successful and then the GWS officials took the advantages that were unchecked and ran with it. The lack of regulations on what they could do with signing start up players and banking mini draft picks was a particular oversight. 

 

 

[DV8 2,271]

3 hours ago, Bombay Airconditioning said:

Dogs finished 7th and are in a prelim, the system works and is a lot fairer then the first trialled final 8 format.

I like the idea of the bye to freshen the players after a rigorous H&A season.  It is the perfect time to have one State of Origin game [WA v Northerners], & the females game. 

Also the Prelim weekend is a good time for the main State of Origin game [Vics v SA].

Edited September 24, 2016 by DV8

[DV8 2,271]

2 hours ago, biggestred said:

Gold coast didnt get the mini draft like gws did - twice

Its not the picks gotten so much as the management from the start, that had the Giants in good stead.

Sheedy Sheedy Sheedy.   Getting minds right for competitive footy. 

Selection of talent of course, but again, the types of mental attitudes to contested ball etc.

 

The suns flew too close to our red&blue print for sure, & got burned.

[SaberFang 7,151]

3 hours ago, DemonAndrew said:

who are geelong's best 25-and-under talents?

 

they recruited for the 'now' and it's backfired spectacularly.

 

sydney did the same thing with tippett and franklin - difference being they've made it to the big dance 3 of the last 5 seasons.

The other key difference being that Sydney (despite being the top of the ladder) got a free hit at two of the best kids in the last two drafts.

Geelong don't get that type of reward until they drop to the bottom of the ladder (or follow the Essendon model of running a performance enhancing drugs program, get half your team banned, then get access to players like Parish, Francis and McCluggage with no intervention from the AFL).

[chook fowler 19,551]

Nice touch the Doggies shouting breakfast for all those that travelled to Sydney for the game. That sort of good swill goes a long way. Hope other clubs learn to treat their supporters with the same respect - including ours.