Yep, Blues are now our only remaining proverbial 8-point game. Win that one and it becomes near-impossible for us to miss top-4.

All teams chasing for our top-4 spot now need to pick up at least two wins compared to us, thanks to our percentage. That stays true even if the Saints win tomorrow.

Beat Richmond on Sunday and obviously that makes the gap three wins, with just four more rounds to go.

Aaaand as I type this Gold Coast are ahead of Brisbane... which would very much bring 3rd into play... and with Port now hitting a solid bollard even 2nd isn't out of possibility if they can fluff it against the Crows tonight, too!

Well....its starting to get interesting at the top.

Dees win a must then tick off NM next week.

Port has Cats at Kardinia Park next week

While Lions have Fremantle in WA who may be up and about after todays win.

2nd spot? We shall see.....

This weekend’s results are falling our way . If Port lose tonight and lose to Geelong at Geelong next week  and Lions lose to Freo at Freo; a win tomorrow and we have a great chance at 2nd place. We could possibly get second on percentage even if Lions beat Freo.

Dees win tomorrow puts us right in the frame for second spot. If Freo can do Brisbane we’re upto our ears in MCG finals. Giddddddy up

Too stressful to contemplate 

We could be second next weekend……just sayin. The Colliwobbles would be in full flight. Bring it home Demons.

Win tomorrow and 3rd this week! Only 1 win from 2nd....

 

Also looking like tonight and today's results are keeping pick 4 in our hands!

I am more worried about Carlton pinching 4th spot from us.

1 minute ago, dl4e said:

I am more worried about Carlton pinching 4th spot from us.

Are you being serious?

1 minute ago, binman said:

Are you being serious?

Yes. Carlton could go through the rest of the year unbeaten. I know I sound negative but games like Richmond, Carlton and the swans are all danger games. I actually have more faith in beating the blues than the tigers or franklins last game.

3 minutes ago, binman said:

Are you being serious?

They were very very good last night. Finals like game from them. Injuries might hurt them and they have to beat us and GWS to get there. Seems unlikely. 

4 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

They were very very good last night. Finals like game from them. Injuries might hurt them and they have to beat us and GWS to get there. Seems unlikely. 

 

4 minutes ago, dl4e said:

Yes. Carlton could go through the rest of the year unbeaten. I know I sound negative but games like Richmond, Carlton and the swans are all danger games. I actually have more faith in beating the blues than the tigers or franklins last game.

Even if they win their last 4 games, we would have to lose two of our last 5 games for them to get ahead of us.

Given we play the roos and hawks, in all likelihood that would mean losing two of our games against the tigers, blues and swans. Can't see that happening.

But in any case the blues will do well to win their last four games.

They play the saints at marvel, dees, the suns away, and the giants at marvel.

 

48 minutes ago, binman said:

 

Even if they win their last 4 games, we would have to lose two of our last 5 games for them to get ahead of us.

Given we play the roos and hawks, in all likelihood that would mean losing two of our games against the tigers, blues and swans. Can't see that happening.

But in any case the blues will do well to win their last four games.

They play the saints at marvel, dees, the suns away, and the giants at marvel.

 

I know you're the eternal Demon optimist. 

But surely you've seen enough of us this year and even the last couple of games to suggest two losses from here is likely. 

If we lose 1 and win the rest that would be an amazing result. I'm expecting we lose two though. How can you not? 

We're hardly playing scintillating footy. Carlton are in unbelievable form give their injury list and the Tiges are competitive always. Swans away is also a difficult task and they can still play finals. 

We'd have to hit some ripping form to lose only 1 from here. 

Our four quarter form right now points to finishing fourth. 

Port running out of steam. Pies looking shaky. Lions delivering a very poor performance.

Things are falling into place for us. 

Happy to just keep flying under the radar. 

Second place is very much in play.

14 minutes ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Second place is very much in play.

I know what if’s are meaningless, but what if we had kicked straight against Port, or Grundy had tapped that first ball through for a point, or the umpire had paid that free to Tom Mac where Jonas was later suspended, or that 3 metre kick wasn’t paid a mark near their goal square and we had beaten Port.

We would be playing the Tigers today, to go one game and percentage clear in 2nd spot.

Oh well!

25 minutes ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Second place is very much in play.

Hopefully we’ll be saying the same thing at 6pm tonight.

We can still finish second and lose a game provided:

1) We make a mess of North and catch Brisbane on percentage by seasons end, provided they lose to Collingwood at Marvel.

2) Port go 2-2 for the rest of the year. They would need a serious reversal in recent form to go any better than that.

Port losing last night actually increases the danger zone of us finishing 3rd and playing Brisbane in Brisbane. No thanks.

10 minutes ago, Redleg said:

I know what if’s are meaningless, but what if we had kicked straight against Port, or Grundy had tapped that first ball through for a point, or the umpire had paid that free to Tom Mac where Jonas was later suspended, or that 3 metre kick wasn’t paid a mark near their goal square and we had beaten Port.

We would be playing the Tigers today, to go one game and percentage clear in 2nd spot.

Oh well!

That's how you end up in serious mental trouble there Mr Leg. Can't change the past, no point in dwelling on it.

Those what ifs work both ways. What if that was a mark to hipwood on the siren and he kicks the goal, what if adelaide beat us last week...... 

2nd by the  end of next week will do me just fine 🙂 

42 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

Happy to just keep flying under the radar. 

Do you… do you mean losing?

We now have a genuine chance at 2nd spot.  Port have a touch game against Geel, and Lions have one against Coll.  It's completely in our hands, which scares me.

Every win is important now!

It’s an awesome finish to the season regardless (so long as we don’t totally mismanage the list like in 2022 which ruined any chance of a premiership).

33 minutes ago, Sideshow Bob said:

That's how you end up in serious mental trouble there Mr Leg. Can't change the past, no point in dwelling on it.

Those what ifs work both ways. What if that was a mark to hipwood on the siren and he kicks the goal, what if adelaide beat us last week...... 

2nd by the  end of next week will do me just fine 🙂 

But also the if we beat (insert team) narrative has a logical flaw because each game is not independent of others - that's to say individual matches may influence subsequent matches.

For example, let's take the close loss to GWS.

Maybe we took some lessons from that loss that helped us knock off the saints in the next match.

Or maybe if we had beaten gws we might have gone into the saints game over confident and lost as a result.

Losses provide lessons that close wins might not.

So perhaps the learnings from the close giants lose fed into some changes to our late game systems that helped us hold off the crows.

Who knows what impact close losses might have had on subsequent results?

Or for that matter what impact a hypothetical reversal of such losses might have had.

Edited July 29, 20231 yr by binman

16 minutes ago, Travy14 said:

We now have a genuine chance at 2nd spot.  Port have a touch game against Geel, and Lions have one against Coll.  It's completely in our hands, which scares me.

Every win is important now!

Simple. Win our remaining games against teams that are all below us and Lions and Port drop a game each and we are in. Seems scary to dream about.

2 minutes ago, binman said:

But also the if we beat (insert team) narrative has a logical flaw because each game is not independent of others - that's to say individual matches may influence subsequent matches.

For example, let's take the close loss to GWS.

Maybe we took some lessons from that loss that helped us knock off the saints in the next match.

Or maybe if we had beaten gws we might have gone into the saints game over confident and lost as a result.

Losses provide lessons that close wins might not.

So perhaps the learnings from the close giants lose fed into some changes to our late game systems that helped us hold off the crows.

Who knows what impact close losses might have had on subsequent results?

Or for that matter what impact a hypothetical reversal of such losses might have had.

Also, every team has their own what ifs. Like, I'm sure Port would be saying that about their loss to Collingwood.