At the break of Gawn

Do: Deelirious - Dees break the 57 year Norm Smith curse.

Don’t: Sons of the west. Dogs claim second premiership in 5 years as the norm Smith curse continues for the Dees.

Looks very light on. Reminds me of the warm up before a game, probably even less intense. Everyone is looking pretty relaxed (watching on Fox)

2 hours ago, Mickey said:

Well, the SEN footy writers don't rate us. Apparently Bevo is a tactical genius and Goody has as much tactical acumen as a lettuce

 

First time I’ve seen the majority pick the Dogs. Reckon it’s been about 75-25 towards Melbourne I’ve seen.

14 hours ago, rpfc said:

Lyon predicted that Geelong would 'get it done' two weeks ago. And Fatso McCreary is the biggest contrarian in the media.

Caro wants us to win and Lloyd is a talking wooden plank.

So that leaves us nowhere - that's Classified for you...

Ross Lyon hasn’t rated us all year. He would hate the fact if Goody broke a massive premiership drought but he couldn’t at the Saints.

Lloyd to be fair has been on us from about rnd 18 or 19. 
 

I was surprised Cornes tipped us considering two weeks ago on the Sunday Footy show he had picked the Dogs to win following their win over his beloved Port.

Ryan Gardner has been dropped for this Saturday. Keath to replace him. I’m ok with this. Dogs have a pretty good win/loss record when Gardner plays.

Sounds like a good omen to me. #raisehell #giveemhell

13 minutes ago, CYB said:

Also got to watch out for Daniels coming off HB into the stoppage. He was left alone in game 2 and setup their play off HB. 

Just saw this on ‘On the Couch’. It’s a really interesting decision on whether we will equal them at the stoppages or not. We equaled Geelong at the stoppages in Rnd 23 in the first half and out back 6 looked vulnerable against the likes of Hawkins and Cameron.

Given the Dogs don’t have the same firepower as the Cats I think it’s something Goody will be willing to do. 

The question is, will Goody equal them at the stoppages at the start of the game to ensure the Dogs don’t get a fast start, or will be back our system in first? 

The other factor in all of this is Gawn. If Gawn is dominating hit-outs early, we probably don’t need an extra person at the stoppage. If he can give us silver service and first possession post clearance we will probably be ok. Port Adelaide last week actually won the first possession post clearance but they were so fumbly and error ridden they couldn’t take advantage of it.

7 hours ago, Demon Marty said:

 

The past 8 @AFL Grand Finals (and 11 of the last 13) have been won by the side that polled fewer Brownlow votes earlier that week

Brownlow votes polled in 2021

96 - MELB

85 - WBD

 

flip a coin you might get the same result ?

This is just a random stat that has no meaning. It’s like the roulette wheel landing on black 5 times a row, and people drawing the conclusion it’ll definitely land on black again.

The weather is looking very good for this Saturday in Perth.

25 and sunny with 0% chance of rain.

12 minutes ago, Demonland said:

 

Probably due for a correction then.

It’s disappointing, but honestly if they win it, I won’t care all that much. It is one of the biggest monkeys on the back in sport and for us to rid ourselves of it will be a mixture of joy and relief. 
 

I also think this group of players are special and they seem like good people in general. Yes it’s disappointing that we’re not there, but how good would it be if Max Gawn is our first captain since Barass to hold up the cup? Or seeing the likes of Petracca, Oliver, Viney, May, Brayshaw all become premiership players. Aside from the jubilation of long suffering demon supporters like myself, the smile on these players faces will be something special.

1 minute ago, Northern Summer said:

It's a blessing we have so much depth! Obviously we couldn't afford an injury to any of our AA players, but we can cover injuries to our 16-22 players I would think. Hopefully he is all good and the swelling will go down with some ice. Otherwise, Milkshake probably comes into the side.

Spargo is a massive loss if he misses. Our best tackler, doesn’t waste a possession and kicks goals.

3 hours ago, Watson11 said:

My Friday night football was rewatching R19. We would win that 8/10 times.

Inside 50s were 55-51 to them.  Probably 10-15 of theirs were directly from free kicks in the midfield.

We had 24 scoring shots to 21.  Tracc and BB in the first half had shockers missing everything.

They got 2 goals from soft frees, and we gave up some soft goals from stoppages.

We won contested ball by 23. Probably 40 if free kicks removed.

BB and TMac looked dangerous against their short defence. On a dry evening I’ll back one of them or LJ/Max to get off the leash. Great if they all get off the leash.

Smith went head to head with Tracc for a lot of the game.  If that happens in the GF then I like that matchup for us. Tracc could easily win the Norm Smith. Our zone defence and Viney/Harmes at stoppages will cover Smith better than their defence.

It looked like our pressure was a bit down, like it was for all of R13-R19.  Especially noticeable that Daniel had a free run. Our pressure is back. 

If both teams bring the same game plan and effort on a dry night, I reckon we win by 20-30 points. The dogs have shown they can’t handle pressure around the ball (Richmond, us, Hawks), so if we bring real heat, I can see a no contest. Ports abysmal effort is masking a few issues for the dogs.

 

 

 

100% agree with this. If it’s not a wet night on Saturday, I think we’ll win by 5-6 goals.

Very similar talk on the Geelong board last week but less confident. Talk of Duncan, Tuohy, Ratagolea etc changes the rnd 23 result etc etc. What did it mean in the end? Nothing.

The rnd 19 game will be nothing like the GF. I’m with David King on this, the rnd 11 and rnd 19 games aren’t great reference points. In fact, the rnd 11 game is probably a better reference.

What are the factors this time in our favour?

- No Josh Bruce, their leading goal kicker (kicked 3 in rnd 19)

- Melb will most likely win contested possession again

- It won’t be a wet game (based on an extended forecast) which means our aerial prowess will be an advantage this time

- We are fitter and in better shape compared to the rnd 19 game.

Factors not in our favour:

- Treloar and Dunkley in the side which extends their midfield rotation, however each player has been down overall with their 2021 output

- Stef Martin playing, however this could be our advantage as Martin is very unfit.

9 hours ago, Kick_It_To_Pickett said:

Has anyone noticed how cocky the Dogs fans are on social media. They really believe this is all over and done with. I hope it rubs off on their players. The reasons they think they’ll win 1. We have not played as many games as them in the last month and they will be fitter??? 2. This is how they won in 2016! 3. Bailey Smith already has the Norm Smith.

It’s unbelievable how good they think Bailey Smith is. He’s literally hasn’t had someone play on him for the last 2 weeks. I have seen him play some awful footy this year, especially against the Hawks late in the season. I’m actually not worried about him at all.

I hope Goody watched the Hawks v Dogs game in rnd 21. Clarko did a masterclass on Bevo and there were no free roaming dogs players at any stoppage. I know sometimes Melbourne likes to have someone drop off at the back of the stoppage but it’s imperative we match their numbers otherwise they will roll through them with ease.

8 hours ago, binman said:

I'm not disagreeing with the point he is making about the round 19 game, but fair dinkum, David King is all over the shop. He swings more than marriages in the1970's. 

I was genuinely annoyed when I heard he had changed his mind for the Cats game. He lauded our performance against Brisbane and called us his no.1 seed. Then on the Sunday, leading up to the PF for first crack, instead of being as keen as Joey on us, he had unexpectedly cooled on us and called it a 50-50 game and made a remark how it’d be nice for Dangerfield to have a premiership tattoo!

Yesterday on Whately’s “means test” on SEN, Gerard made the comment that after Friday night he thought no one can beat Melbourne but then after Saturday night, he thought the Dogs performance was as equal to ours and hence he thought the GF would be a 50-50 game. King then disagreed with this and thought Melbourne were still the stronger team, but he did entertain Gerard’s idea by calling out this champion data expected score comment from rnd 19. I would not be surprised if King changed his mind multiple times before the actual morning of the GF.

Only ever met one and that was through work. Good guy and was very humble following 2016 and had a soft spot for the Dees.

I think they’re pretty tolerable but there are some absolute nuffies on social media I see always posting 🐶🐶🐶 and blindly think they’ll always win because it doesn’t matter who the opposition are, the Dogs can beat anyone on their day with their spirit. Bevo (not Luke Beveridge, but the guy who does the Bev show) is one of the worst.

Oh and Stevo (Mark Stevens) is insufferable. Most one eyed Dogs supporter you’ll see.

25 minutes ago, dimmy said:

Oh well we were Premiershi[p favourites for 24 hours.

Both sides palyed thehir A+  Game over the weekend . It wiill be interesting qwho keeps their standard up will win.

We’re still favourites. $1.64 to $2.26. 

36 minutes ago, DubDee said:

We deserve to be favourites. Our finals form us very good. Most of our team is in terrific form and no injuries. 

The dogs defence is average. Ours is excellent and I think that’ll win the game for us. Bring our usual intensity and we should break even in the middle

Melb vs top 8 sides (incl, finals): 10-2

Dogs vs top 8 sides (incl. finals): 7-5

Port vs top 8 sides (incl. finals): 5-5

We’re a different kettle of fish.

One thing on our side is the bye. The Dogs don’t play well after the bye. 

Some recent examples:

2021 - Rnd 14 - After the bye the Dogs lost to the Cats

2020 - EF - After winning 3 on the trot at the end of the season, following the pre-finals bye, the Dogs lose to the less fancied Saints.

2019 - EF - After 3 wins on the trot including some massive wins, the dogs lose to the Giants even though they belted them in rnd 23.

I really feel this week off will hurt them. As Gawn said in an interview, he said he felt like we’ve mastered the bye. We’ve handled it once extremely well and bashed the Cats. I have a feeling the Dogs won’t handle it as well as us.

29 minutes ago, rpfc said:

with the best FF in the game.

I didn’t know McKay played for the dogs? If you’re talking about Naughton then he’s no where near it. Fritsch has kicked 7 more than him and played 1 less game.

I think it’s easy to forget that Port beat the Dogs at Marvel in rnd 23 and the Dogs had an even better side playing that game. 
 

Port Adelaide simply didn’t show up. The Dogs eclipsed them in contested possession by 25 in the first qtr. It was an AFL record. There’s no way the Dogs are getting anywhere near that against us. In fact, even when we lost to them in rnd 19 we won the contested possession by 20 overall. We’ve been the number 1 team with scores from stoppages they last 4 weeks, which was our weakness in rnd 19. Like others on here, I think if we are even in the contest and it’s a dry game, we will win.

To make me feel better, can anyone mount a case why playing the Dogs is better for us than Port (if they had shown up?

1 minute ago, david_neitz_is_my_dad said:

The WBD last played at Optus Stadium in June

They won both their games there though this year.

This game will be won at ground level. If it’s a dry game, I think we’ll win, but if it rains I think we’ll be really challenged.