We deserve to be favourites for the 2022 flag no doubt. 

People often question will we have the hunger to go again. But I haven’t heard many people mention the belief the playing group must now have after winning the flag. This must be huge for us. Then there is also the pressure release of not carrying the weight of that flag drought. 

2021 is only the start. Enjoy the ride 

5 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Not after Martin was injured 

Personally I thought they did better without Martin last year. He wasn’t that impressive when he played and when he was gone they stopped being over-reliant on one player

3 minutes ago, Cassiew said:

Personally I thought they did better without Martin last year. He wasn’t that impressive when he played and when he was gone they stopped being over-reliant on one player

Results don't even remotely back  up your theory or opinion. They had plenty of others injured as well similar to us in 2019.

Their backline especially and on ball groups were worst hit and are still the areas that hold the key to their fortunes.

Old Father Time May also be the elephant in the room and their kids may need a year or two to prosper. 

9 hours ago, deespicable me said:

I don't see Richmond as a threat at all.

For me the two Sydney teams are the main threats. But on paper we are superior to both those teams.

The hunger is an issue though. Our contested ball was where our game started and you need desire and purpose to keep it up for a long season. We will most probably have at least one form slump and if we can get through and still finish top four we will be hard to beat. 

Goodwin was good at teaching them to reset. After each game and even quarter, but after a season it's back to zero. That's a big reset, but hopefully they will go again. I see some big wins and a much higher percentage this year as we blow a few teams away. Each time we do win by a big margin the commentators around the game will be fawning all over us. It is a big danger getting ahead of ourselves. We are the team to beat but make no mistake, there will emerge at least one other team who will believe they can beat us and win the Cup. 

Agree that some will emerge. Dogs Power and Lions are candidates and Giants and Swans plus Bombers are all possibilities that could test us if we are below our best.

11 hours ago, BDA said:

She predicted we would lose to Port in Round 4. Not likely. Port are such a non-threat

The idea that we had no injuries last year is a furphy. We started the season with our KPF 1 Brown and KPF 2 Weid both injured and lucky for us TMac stepped up. We did go into finals with a healthy list though

 

Who would you rather have been ? 
Tigers or us? 
They almost  had our 2019 repeat. But they may not have the hunger or depth to climb that same mountain agsin.

 

13 hours ago, radar said:

Think I saw a side with out top 8 OUT -

Max and Clarrie/Trac/Viney

2 forwards BBB/Fritta,

2 defenders May/Lever

with Casey ring ins Smith, Weid, Hunt, Melkshem, Chandler, Jordan, plus Tomlinson and Dunstan - still looked ok. 

Can weridee or someone do the team?

You are dreaming Radar please go back to sleep. There is a good reason Melky Chandler and Weid did not make the team and Bowey did , they were not up to it.

I think most of our youngsters including Smith ( Joel) plus Even Majak and Dunstan could improve but to replace those 8 players would be impossible.

Maybe make 5/8 th !!

if all fit  in Finals then another story!!

11 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

How much of our flag was driven by a 57 year drought?

 

I think that narrative was for the supporters.

I'm not sure it was the real driver for the players even though it was mentioned...

The prelim loss to the Eagles and missing finals in 2020 would have been bigger drivers for this group.

Now they know how good they are they should be up & about again...

On a mobile away so can't access/download an extension to bypass pay wall. 

Would love a pm of the article! 

21 hours ago, Demonstone said:

I was chatting to a Richmond supporter this week who reckons, with Dusty Martin back and fit, they might have one more flag left in them ... if it wasn't for Melbourne. 

In his words, the Tiges are on the decline while we are reaching our peak.

Richmond people seem to forget the Richmond was  7-9 when Martin got injured. There season was shot already.  He played 16 games and was injured in round 18. They carry on like he missed the complete season.

11 hours ago, Pulp Fritschon said:

We deserve to be favourites for the 2022 flag no doubt. 

People often question will we have the hunger to go again. But I haven’t heard many people mention the belief the playing group must now have after winning the flag. This must be huge for us. Then there is also the pressure release of not carrying the weight of that flag drought. 

2021 is only the start. Enjoy the ride 

How often would the reigning Premier not be the favourite leading into the next season? I can't imagine it happens very often. Perhaps leading into 2000 Essendon might have been favourites ahead of North, but since then I'd be surprised if any reigning Premier wasn't the next year's automatic favourite. 

14 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

How often would the reigning Premier not be the favourite leading into the next season? I can't imagine it happens very often. Perhaps leading into 2000 Essendon might have been favourites ahead of North, but since then I'd be surprised if any reigning Premier wasn't the next year's automatic favourite. 

Not sure if the doggies were exactly flag favourites going into 2017.

I think GWS were favourites in 2017 pre-season to win the flag.

1 hour ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Not sure if the doggies were exactly flag favourites going into 2017.

Don’t recall, but 2016 they only finished 7th in the home and away before going on there run. Feel like we are better placed for repeat success given we were the best team all year and not just for the month of finals.

Like everyone else on this site, I’m thrilled with our team and with the way we performed last year. If we can replicate those periods of glorious attack, we deserve to be favourites.

But…..

 

we should not forget that in round 23, Geelong kicked eight goals straight against us. In the grand final, the dogs went from 2 goals down to 3 goals up. During the season, there were many games where teams got a short run-on against us. The commentators generally thought we were vulnerable against a ground ball attack.

 

There is no doubt that opposition coaches will be studying those passages in games intently, trying to find out how we were vulnerable, and to replicate and intensify it. We need to work out what went wrong, and remedy it. 
 

Then we can go back to back and more.

2 minutes ago, Ollie fan said:

Like everyone else on this site, I’m thrilled with our team and with the way we performed last year. If we can replicate those periods of glorious attack, we deserve to be favourites.

But…..

 

we should not forget that in round 23, Geelong kicked eight goals straight against us. In the grand final, the dogs went from 2 goals down to 3 goals up. During the season, there were many games where teams got a short run-on against us. The commentators generally thought we were vulnerable against a ground ball attack.

 

There is no doubt that opposition coaches will be studying those passages in games intently, trying to find out how we were vulnerable, and to replicate and intensify it. We need to work out what went wrong, and remedy it. 
 

Then we can go back to back and more.

In my rewatch of the season I am just on the last game (Bulldogs) of the period in which we went 4-1-4.

Three games out from the end of the season many had us ending fifth.

Strangely enough I thought that one of our best quarters was the final quarter in our loss against GWS. A furious attacking quarter but we just couldn't get the ball through those middle posts.

As the season went on you occasionally see flashes of that last 45 minutes of the GF but you would have to be kidding yourself to think that it will become our norm.

To win a premiership you need to finish top 4 which will require us to almost match last season's wins and then you need to have a good finals series.

I'm very hopeful for season 22 but it's certainly no given.

1 hour ago, Garbo said:

Don’t recall, but 2016 they only finished 7th in the home and away before going on there run. Feel like we are better placed for repeat success given we were the best team all year and not just for the month of finals.

Well Yeah? I know this already. Who's making comparisons between our 2021 year and doggies 2016? I certainly wasn't. Our 2021 has been one of the best premiership team seasons probably since Geelong 2007 when they only lost 3 games for the year.

My answer though was in relation to clubs who have been reigning premiers, but may not have gone into the following year being flag favourites automatically. 

Edited January 17, 20223 yr by dazzledavey36

11 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Well Yeah? I know this already. Who's making comparisons between our 2021 year and doggies 2016? I certainly wasn't. Our 2021 has been one of the best premiership team seasons probably since Geelong 2007 when they only lost 3 games for the year.

My answer though was in relation to clubs who have been reigning premiers, but may not have gone into the following year being flag favourites automatically. 

What a bizarre post! The Bulldogs is mentioned because I asked the question as to how often Premiers don't start as favourites for the next year. Someone suggested that the Bulldogs may not have. That's the relevance.

7 hours ago, rjay said:

I think that narrative was for the supporters.

I'm not sure it was the real driver for the players even though it was mentioned...

For sure. You can read about it as much as you like. But that could never even come close to living through it. I’m sure the potential to end such a long and painful drought served its purpose of inspiring the playing group, but it wouldn’t have been a huge factor. 

3 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

What a bizarre post! The Bulldogs is mentioned because I asked the question as to how often Premiers don't start as favourites for the next year. Someone suggested that the Bulldogs may not have. That's the relevance.

Yeah. My initial answer was to your question. That's why I'm pretty sure the doggies didn't go into 2017 flag favourites. 

Someone has already mentioned that GWS may have been tipped as flag favourites that year instead.

1 minute ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

What a bizarre post! The Bulldogs is mentioned because I asked the question as to how often Premiers don't start as favourites for the next year. Someone suggested that the Bulldogs may not have. That's the relevance.

It's not that uncommon.  Tigers were favourites in 2019, Hawthorn favourites in 2013, Collingwood favourites in 2012, Geelong favourites in 2009.  Pretty much anytime the favourite for the previous flag unexpectantly loses the GF (or prelim), the bookies tip them to bounce back. If the dogs had been clearly the best team in 2021 but we won in an upset, then they would start this year as favourites going by history.  

At this stage there are 18 teams wanting to get in the top 8 and some are just dreaming whilst others like Carlton, WC, Richmond, Freo and the Saint are a real chance if they can get there game together.

We lost games last year to Adelaide, Collingwood, GWS and WB drew with Hawthorn so we cannot afford loses to teams like Adelaide and Collingwood if we are going to do the Back-to-back which every team talks about when they win the premiership.

The team will be under the microscope from round 1 next year and we need to bring our A Game week-in-and-week-out in this competition because every team will want the premier's scalp, the opposition will be hyped up against us from the Get Go.

When Hawthorn did their 3 peat they finshed at the end of the home and away season in 2013 1st, 2014 2nd and 2015 3rd which show you need to finish top 4 to have a chance at a 3 peat.

Richmond finished 3rd in 2017, 2019 and 2020  finishing on top in 2018 again they finished top 4 in each year.

The only team to win the premiership in the last 10 years from finishing outside the top 4 was the WB in 2106.

3 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

How often would the reigning Premier not be the favourite leading into the next season? I can't imagine it happens very often. Perhaps leading into 2000 Essendon might have been favourites ahead of North, but since then I'd be surprised if any reigning Premier wasn't the next year's automatic favourite. 

Richmond probably favourite in 2019 ahead of wce? We were up there too I reckon.

20 minutes ago, durango said:

The only team to win the premiership in the last 10 years from finishing outside the top 4 was the WB in 2106.

What an anomaly 2016 was. Talk about annus horribilis! North started the season 9 and zip. And the bulldogs were the only team in VFL/AFL history - well, the modern era anyway - to not only make the GF from seventh but to go on and win it from seventh. And… Donald Trump won the US presidency. Just making a point. 😉

28 minutes ago, durango said:

At this stage there are 18 teams wanting to get in the top 8 and some are just dreaming whilst others like Carlton, WC, Richmond, Freo and the Saint are a real chance if they can get there game together.

We lost games last year to Adelaide, Collingwood, GWS and WB drew with Hawthorn so we cannot afford loses to teams like Adelaide and Collingwood if we are going to do the Back-to-back which every team talks about when they win the premiership.

The team will be under the microscope from round 1 next year and we need to bring our A Game week-in-and-week-out in this competition because every team will want the premier's scalp, the opposition will be hyped up against us from the Get Go.

When Hawthorn did their 3 peat they finshed at the end of the home and away season in 2013 1st, 2014 2nd and 2015 3rd which show you need to finish top 4 to have a chance at a 3 peat.

Richmond finished 3rd in 2017, 2019 and 2020  finishing on top in 2018 again they finished top 4 in each year.

The only team to win the premiership in the last 10 years from finishing outside the top 4 was the WB in 2106.

 

28 minutes ago, durango said:

At this stage there are 18 teams wanting to get in the top 8 and some are just dreaming whilst others like Carlton, WC, Richmond, Freo and the Saint are a real chance if they can get there game together.

We lost games last year to Adelaide, Collingwood, GWS and WB drew with Hawthorn so we cannot afford loses to teams like Adelaide and Collingwood if we are going to do the Back-to-back which every team talks about when they win the premiership.

The team will be under the microscope from round 1 next year and we need to bring our A Game week-in-and-week-out in this competition because every team will want the premier's scalp, the opposition will be hyped up against us from the Get Go.

When Hawthorn did their 3 peat they finshed at the end of the home and away season in 2013 1st, 2014 2nd and 2015 3rd which show you need to finish top 4 to have a chance at a 3 peat.

Richmond finished 3rd in 2017, 2019 and 2020  finishing on top in 2018 again they finished top 4 in each year.

The only team to win the premiership in the last 10 years from finishing outside the top 4 was the WB in 2106.

A lot of posters, in 2021, said we couldn’t afford losses to teams like Adelaide and Collingwood.

Obviously, we could. We lost to them, we finished the top of the ladder, we won the premiership.

Losing to low teams is not a problem, so long as you win against the top teams. If you win against the top teams, and GENERALLY win against middle and lower teams, you will get enough points to be top four. The real problem is if you consistently lose to one of your genuine competitors – which suggests that they are better than you are. In 2021, we beat everything in the top eight.

in 1963, Geelong won the premiership.  Fitzroy won one game only – against Geelong. Top teams do occasionally let their guard down against lower teams; it is inevitable. But if they mostly play to their ability, it is not fatal to lose one of those matches

10 hours ago, 58er said:

Results don't even remotely back  up your theory or opinion. They had plenty of others injured as well similar to us in 2019.

Their backline especially and on ball groups were worst hit and are still the areas that hold the key to their fortunes.

Old Father Time May also be the elephant in the room and their kids may need a year or two to prosper. 

Martin was not impressive this year. Even when he went out in the game before us he’d had about 8 touches (if that.) They won a few good games after he was out. 
Besides if they can’t win without one player, then they shouldn’t be in the competition 

Edited January 17, 20223 yr by Cassiew