titan_uranus

If you want to be optimistic, this is one way to approach last night. Petracca injured, Gawn average by his standards, Lever poor, Sydney absolutely on fire, and yet we were only out of the game in the last 5 minutes.

But Viney, Gawn, Petty, Lever and Hibberd all contributed in other ways. Brayshaw didn't, nor did Sparrow (other than his goal), ANB, Spargo (other than two kicks inside 50) or Melksham. You also have to contextualise the turnovers. A rushed kick from a stoppage (e.g. Viney or Brayshaw) which the opposition marks is a turnover, but vastly different to a no-pressure kick inside 50 (e.g. ANB). I'm not saying that excuses the high volume of turnovers from the guys you mentioned, it doesn't, but at least the players you mentioned are contributing in some way to offset some of those turnovers to at least some extent. For the others, we're getting nada out of them.

Injury clouds over Trac, Spargo, Fritsch and Melksham. Make no mistake. Winning it from here will be an incredible achievement.

This. The noise after the Sparrow goal was insane. But the Melbourne crowd went silent in the fourth because the game was gone.

We’re not making multiple changes. Harmes might get suspended, and without Jordon we don’t have an obvious replacement. Melksham should be dropped for returning to his laziness. If he’s not kicking set shots he’s useless. But TMac’s not likely to be fit and there’s no obvious replacement. But reality is these changes are fluttering around the edges. If we’re any chance we need a much better team effort from the 20-21 who will played tonight and will play next week.

They were incredible. Unfortunately we were not. We had the two best players on the ground in Oliver and May, but it fell away badly. Fritsch aside the entire forward line struggled. Jackson struggled. Brayshaw was terrible. Wirh Trac hobbling, it was too much left to too few. They scored 12 of their 14 goals from turnovers. May turned it over with two shocking inboard kicks, but across the ground we put our backline under pressure by giving up the ball all night. The free and 50 against May on Buddy were two absolutely disgraceful decisions. Utterly abysmal. The umpiring was horrendous all night, both ways, but those two were just disgusting. Turned the momentum, for sure. But Sydney are our kryptonite. They won’t relent in the middle no matter what we throw at them, and their backline is too good for our forward line. It’s actually spooky how similar tonight was to Round 12. Huge pressure on us now to beat Brisbane, a side we have the wood over. I’m hoping with the pre-finals bye, that a week off is a bad thing this year, so I’m trying to tell myself this is a blessing in disguise. But I doubt it, unfortunately.

Sounds wrong for two reasons: We haven't lost yet Don't they have Darcy Fort they can just bring in as a ruckman?

I don't recall if he/she has been accurate in the past. But I believe one of the reasons people are so wary of his/her posts is he/she was the one who posted a series of inane riddles one year about a massive trade which never eventuated, which frustrated people.

Richmond were never as good as their late season wins suggested. A fixture filled with non-finalists. Neither of these sides can defend, which meant neither of them were a legitimate flag threat. But because they played each other this week, one of them had to win. Richmond will be kicking themselves that they couldn't beat an out of form known finals choker missing Rayner, Answerth, Adams, Lyons and McInerney after 3 minutes. The ARC review probably led to the correct call overall (was probably a behind given everyone's reactions), but once the umpire called it a goal, even if that was the wrong initial call, the video evidence surely wasn't enough to be conclusive. However, I'm not sure that was a free against Daniher moments earlier for the push in the back. Looked to be a legitimate marking attempt from him.

He's lucky if you ask me. The ball was gone. He comes from metres away with heaps of time to change his mind. He lines him up well before reaching a defenceless player whose body is exposed. Woewodin's out of bounds FFS. He castles him, and he gets concussed to boot. Stuff the guilty plea discount, that should be four weeks minimum.

Before the pre-finals bye, the major reward for finish 1st was the easier QF and therefore the easier road to a prelim. You'd get the week off but 3rd/4th would be forced to slog it out in a semi before you get the 1v3 and 2v4 scenario. The pre-finals bye dilutes the advantage of finishing top because everyone gets to rest and rest. If we ditch the pre-finals bye, as we should, 1st will get some of its mojo back. Geelong's better than this, but I generally agree with your overall position. I think Geelong's overrated. All this media bleating about how they finished two games and percentage clear of 2nd: they played North and West Coast twice each, which no other top 8 side did. All this media bleating about them being undefeated post-bye - they played three top 8 sides in that run, two of them at GMHBA and for the third they KO'd one of their best players then only won by a kick. They're better than previous versions, and they're clearly in contention for the flag along with us and Sydney, but no matter what Chris Scott or Joel Selwood say externally, there cannot be any doubt that the pressure is squarely on them to produce good quality football in a final.

I think the lack of the pre-finals bye was a key one. Straight into it after the high of Round 23. Less disruption after winning the QF.

Definitely his first.

Huh? Isn’t this Blicavs’ first AA?

4 times for us (Collingwood x 2, Sydney, Bulldogs). No idea what any other side’s record is but can’t imagine many had 4 or more.

Another reason it's likely is that the loser of our game is likely to play their semi on Friday night, and the loser of Geelong v Collingwood is likely to play their semi on Saturday night. So then you'd expect the winners of those semis to both get 7 day breaks into the prelims. That would make the prelim involving the winner of our game on the Saturday.

Can't complain about our club's representation. Can complain about Hawkins being in there at all over Lynch, let alone captain.

Yes that's right - other than a 34-game season, anything proposed will present inequality somewhere. I couldn't help but laugh at Chris Scott saying how we need to celebrate the minor premiership more. Wouldn't be surprised if he was saying the opposite after losing to us in Round 23 last year.

It looks like they staggered it so the Geelong v Collingwood game doesn't go on sale until this afternoon. Yet the website is still struggling...

Yes these are separate issues. We had 7 interstate games (1 we sold) and Geelong. To compare with the other Victorian finalists: Melbourne - 7 interstate games, 1 Geelong Bulldogs - 6 interstate, 1 Geelong Geelong - 6 interstate Collingwood - 5 interstate Richmond - 5 interstate Yet to look into 5 and 6 day breaks, or relative breaks to opponents. And no one else got close to having six games in a row at different venues across four states/territories.

I've been posting about this all week, probably ad nauseum. It's not unfair. Unless we do a 34-game season where everyone plays everyone else home and away, every single model that is proposed is unfair. Even a 17-game season is unfair - some will get, say, Fremantle in Perth, others will get them at their home ground. The 17-5 idea that gets bandied around creates different problems. Do we really want the last five weeks to be full of meaningless low-quality games involving the bottom 6 playing each other? Then there's tanking - why finish 6th after 17 games when you'll cop the five sides above you again when you could finish 7th and cop the five sides below you instead? It's a bad idea for varying reasons. The AFL tries to get it right by making good sides from one year play each other more often than not the next year. The obviously problem is that they don't have a crystal ball and so don't know what will happen the following year. For us, we were given Collingwood and Fremantle and they got much better. It's wrong to complain about Geelong getting North and West Coast twice. But it's right to point out that their fixture has ended up being easier than ours. So too Sydney and Richmond. Particularly in the second half of the season. So when you hear someone in the media say "Melbourne have only just been going in the second half of the year", or you see one of those "from Round 15" ladders, remember that as the fixture turned out, we had a much tougher second half of the season than everyone else.

Possibly. The opposite is probably more accurate - lose week 1, we don’t win the flag. Would mean we have to beat Bris/Rich, then Geel/Coll, then Syd/Geel/Coll, all in a row.

You're right. I have no idea what I was thinking. Collingwood losing would have put Brisbane 5th.

The dream result would have been for Collingwood and Carlton to draw. Would have meant Geelong v Fremantle, Collingwood v Carlton and Brisbane v Richmond were the other games. Which in turn would have meant that the winner of Melb v Sydney would have gone into a prelim to play the loser of Geelong v Fremantle or the winner of Collingwood v Carlton. Edit: none of the above is true. Collingwood losing would have been better.

The OP has Geelong winning the first final. But has Sydney out in straight sets. Surely not.