6 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

No.

It's not happening.

Honestly, I reckon we're more likely to finish bottom 4 than top 4.

No way we finish bottom 4 from here, so I'm booking us into the top 4 right now.

Eagles have a tough run home with only the games against Hawks and North ones you would classify as easy.

The others are against Giants, Tigers Bombers, Bulldogs and Saints.

In the unlikely event they lost say three or four out of the five harder games it's more likely that the Tigers would slip into the top four than us.

Nice to dream though... Traditionally we aren't bad at doing a Bradbury when it comes to making the 8 etc

 

12 hours ago, Garbo said:

Even as a hypothetical I can’t see it even if we won every game from here on out. None of the top 4 play each other so who will they drop games to

You think about it G.  To us who else , Win make the finals and then beat whoever we play in the finals till we make the Prelim. 

That is the Top 4 from there on anything can happen. I cannot see any other way.

We could finish in the top 4 if we win our remaining games, but I don't think we will. I'm hoping we get 10 or 11 wins. That seems par from here.

12 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

The Saints game will be interesting because they have a gamestyle that really troubles us so I will be fascinated to see how we perform against them.

I’m more concerned about this week’s Dogs game... they looked very good today, much better than the Saints looked in their game. 

Please, none of this tripe. 

We have a soft draw but i think we're still going to be lucky to play finals. 

i reckon we can beat the Dockers, Swans and Bombers for sure. that gets us to 9. which may be enough. but i think we need to beat one of the Dogs, Giants, Saints to be sure, and i think they're all winnable. 

i think really we should be backing ourselves to win 4 -5 of those 6 games. if not all of them

We’d have to win every game from here and that is not us, at least not from what I have seen. I’m enjoying the individual wins we’ve had and looking no further than the dogs. Lose that and we’re back to scrapping in the middle pack. 

Personally I can see us finishing around 6th if we continue our good form, perhaps with part of an eye on 2021. 

13 hours ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

As I've said before, I get the feeling that shortened quarters have hurt us more than most teams.  Go another 20mins against Geeeelong, Richmond and Brisbane and I think that's three games we would have won.

Would’ve definitely dropped Carlton to balance that out a bit - but generally agree

19 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

 

I think we should've beaten Geelong, Richmond and Brisbane. But we didn't and we need to take that opportunity the next time it presents itself.

 

We lost to Geelong twice in 2018 during the season then smashed them in the finals.

Let's get to the finals with momentum and see what happens.

7 hours ago, Patches O’houlihan said:

We have a soft draw but i think we're still going to be lucky to play finals. 

i reckon we can beat the Dockers, Swans and Bombers for sure. that gets us to 9. which may be enough. but i think we need to beat one of the Dogs, Giants, Saints to be sure, and i think they're all winnable. 

i think really we should be backing ourselves to win 4 -5 of those 6 games. if not all of them

Not sure why you call it a soft draw. We HAD a soft draw by reason of a poor 2019, but covid-19 intervened. Each team plays each other once. Other than home ground advantage to some teams, it couldn't be a fairer draw. 

If we make the 8 I would be surprised and happy. We are a very flakey team. We can easily drop games to any of the teams we are yet to play. 
 

The top 4 looks set. Looking at the draw, the top three are 100% set with easy draws. WC have a tough run in but are two games ahead of us and we don’t have a game in hand. 

We’ve won 5 of the last 7 games. We are in good form with a healthy young list. We have an easy draw and should finish 5-6th and so will smash the saints in week one of the finals. You heard it here first!

1 minute ago, Jaded said:

If we make the 8 I would be surprised and happy. We are a very flakey team. We can easily drop games to any of the teams we are yet to play. 
 

Exactly.  Im enjoying the current form however fear it will no last - life as a Dees fan hey!

13 minutes ago, Jaded said:

If we make the 8 I would be surprised and happy. We are a very flakey team. We can easily drop games to any of the teams we are yet to play. 
 

Agree. Getting carried away with the Pies win. Many top 22 players out and an excuse for a defence with Dunn getting a game. They will be fortunate to make the 8 .

The Dogs game will give a more accurate line on our form.

What we don't want is any scenario where we travel to play WCE at the Dean Margett Retirement Fund Stadium. I can live with just about any other scenario but that one would be a death knell. You'd need to be a five goal better side to win by a point.

And I have little doubt that West Coke will get a home final.

 

We'll be lucky to finish top 8. Top 4 is an absolute fantasy. Every time we come up against a quality side in form we fall apart.

Don't get carried away when we beat the bottom sides. Flat track bullies do not finish top 4.

 

 

It’s hard to see us finishing top 4 from here, although finals are realistic and are absolutely within our control.

That said, on recent form, we’re a top 4 side - I‘d just like to see that trend line continuing from now (hopefully) deep into the finals.

The home ground finals advantage is unlikely the big ticket item that it has traditionally been - we probably just need to be prepared to win every final we play assuming we finish 5th to 8th (which is achievable if we’re good enough).

 

On 8/16/2020 at 8:47 AM, don cordner said:

Great win dees!!  Suprised nobody on the forum has mentioned this, with a game in hand and Obviously we would of won against Essondrug, and surely on form we’re going to scrape that dog poo of a club off our shoe in the last round.. so we’ll done dees. We r in the TOP 4

It's called tempting fate. There'll be plenty of us looking at the ladder, trying to work out all the possibilities but most of us have been conditioned by years of disappointment to keep our powder dry.

Anywhere in the eight will do.. As is often said finals are a new season.

While I believe we have a squad that includes team makeups that allows us to beat every team and I believe we can beat every team on the way to win the flag perhaps a loss along the way may be ok, just to relieve the pressure and restore underdog status with commentators. 

Doing a Bradbury ain't so bad if you end up with the prize.

That said we must beat the dogs.

its back to the coach to get the selections, structures and attitude right. I hope he is reinforcing their winning state and building confidence.

2 minutes ago, Cheesy D. Pun said:

It's called tempting fate. There'll be plenty of us looking at the ladder, trying to work out all the possibilities but most of us have been conditioned by years of disappointment to keep our powder dry.

One week at a time eh?

25 minutes ago, faultydet said:

We'll be lucky to finish top 8. Top 4 is an absolute fantasy. Every time we come up against a quality side in form we fall apart.

Don't get carried away when we beat the bottom sides. Flat track bullies do not finish top 4.

 

 

While I agree that we need to beat a team that is not struggling to prove ourselves, if you take out the Port game, our form line is consistent and has been trending upward since round 1. We've lost a couple to top 4 sides by less than a goal.

I'm not arguing that we're a top 4 side but we certainly haven't fallen apart against the better sides.

Also, there is plenty to suggest that we've taken on some of the lessons from those earlier games, particularly around controlling the tempo of the game.

9 hours ago, Patches O’houlihan said:

We have a soft draw but i think we're still going to be lucky to play finals. 

i reckon we can beat the Dockers, Swans and Bombers for sure. that gets us to 9. which may be enough. but i think we need to beat one of the Dogs, Giants, Saints to be sure, and i think they're all winnable. 

i think really we should be backing ourselves to win 4 -5 of those 6 games. if not all of them

I hope we are moving into a 2018 scenario where we finish the season very strongly. If we move into that form , given our draw and our outstanding finishing ability, there is no reason why we cannot finish winning all remaining games in H&A.  We showed in 2018 how important momentum is going into finals.

Anything is possible this year, particularly as we look like not meeting WCE in Perth if we do make it!!

10 hours ago, A F said:

We could finish in the top 4 if we win our remaining games, but I don't think we will. I'm hoping we get 10 or 11 wins. That seems par from here.

I don't really mind what the win count is if we make the top 8 (it could yet be 9 wins).

1 hour ago, faultydet said:

We'll be lucky to finish top 8. Top 4 is an absolute fantasy. Every time we come up against a quality side in form we fall apart.

Don't get carried away when we beat the bottom sides. Flat track bullies do not finish top 4.

We've only fallen apart once all year (Port).

We were within a bees' proverbial of beating both Geelong and Brisbane.

And as to your final line, I give you Collingwood in 2018. 15 wins, 14 of which were against the bottom 10. A 1-7 record against the top 8 (worse than us that year).

31 minutes ago, Cheesy D. Pun said:

While I agree that we need to beat a team that is not struggling to prove ourselves, if you take out the Port game, our form line is consistent and has been trending upward since round 1. We've lost a couple to top 4 sides by less than a goal.

I'm not arguing that we're a top 4 side but we certainly haven't fallen apart against the better sides.

Also, there is plenty to suggest that we've taken on some of the lessons from those earlier games, particularly around controlling the tempo of the game.

This type of thinking always amuses me.

 

If you take out our losses from last year, we won the flag.