titan_uranus

North's 22 last night was on average ever so slightly older and more experienced than ours was on Thursday night. 25 years and 2 months, and 99.3 games, compared to 25 years and 1 month, and 98.0 games. Mind you, West Coast's was 27 years 5 months and 138.1 games. Super old. Indeed, it looks to me as though we were in the top 5 for youngest sides - Essendon, Adelaide, Gold Coast and Fremantle were the only sides younger than ours this weekend.

90% chance of showers, 2-5mm total, with "possible small hail". Not ideal. However, I think there was a similar forecast early in the week prior to the GWS game, which didn't eventuate.

This round shows a few things. First, "good sides don't lose to bad sides" is rubbish. Second, West Coast and Richmond are, hopefully, fingers crossed, pretty please, cooked. Third, upsets are going to happen. Fourth, our best is as good as anyone's. Fifth, everyone down to Gold Coast in 14th can still make the finals.

West Coast are pathetic. They can only produce AFL-level football when they're at home and it's not wet. Anything other than perfect conditions and they fall apart. They're slow, unfit, lazy, old, disinterested and [censored]. And don't you just love to see it.

You said we'd lose to Essendon. Wrong. You said we'd beat GWS. Wrong. You said we'd lose to Port. Wrong. Now you're saying we're 50/50% for 4th. That can only be correct at this point if you think we are going to go 2-4 from here. If that s indeed what you think, maybe stop and reflect on the first three sentences above and take some solace in your unerring ability to be wrong.

16 players per side cannot and should not ever happen. It should not happen because the AFL did not spend all that money expanding into GC and GWS only to shrink the number of list spots available. The purpose of expansion is to grow AFL in those markets. We want there to be more opportunities to play AFL, not fewer. It won't happen because the AFLPA won't let it happen. But none of it needs to be even discussed.

Put scoring figures to one side. I'd argue, and I think many would agree, that the football produced this year has been the best in years. We're approaching Round 18 and there are at the moment only 2-3 sides who aren't playing good football and there are arguably 14 sides in contention for finals (definitely 12, and Carlton/GC would be in there at a real stretch). I've argued for a while that more goals does not necessarily equal better football. The football right now is actually very good. There is nothing wrong with the "state of the game". I'd much rather see the AFL focus its time and resources on fixing things that are far more broken, such as the MRP/tribunal and the 2022 fixture process.

Did anyone else watch The Round So Far on the AFL website over the weekend? Kane Cornes (yes, I know, but hear me out) highlighted something Gawn did against Port using behind the goals vision: we had a forward 50 stoppage but Gawn left it to sprint out of our forward line to go stand on Dixon, freeing up May to play the last line of defence. Apparently that's something Gawn did that more than once. Just a shout out to our superstar captain who should comfortably collect his fifth AA jacket this year, and deservedly so for doing selfless team stuff like this (alternatively/jointly a shout out to our coaches for getting this sort of stuff to happen).

There's no reason to assume Naughton will miss any more than one week. Dunkley's 1-2 weeks away, so will be back by finals. Treloar's going to struggle but is in contention to be back by finals. Stefan Martin's likely to be back by finals. I forgot Easton Wood's also out, so there's a sixth best 22 player who didn't play yesterday. They went into yesterday missing their FF, FB, first ruck, intercept defender and two top 50 midfielders. Sydney played well so it's no wonder the Dogs lost. But it's premature to write them off altogether on the back of that one game.

Based on our form to date, you would be justified in being more concerned about Hawthorn, GC and Adelaide than about the Dogs, West Coast and Geelong.

The NT miner had Delta, as did I think the Sandringham dry cleaner, so it escaped twice into the NT and Victoria, but in neither instance did an outbreak occur. Part luck, but part better management by the Victorian, Queensland, SA and NT governments IMO. I think there's little doubt now that all States and Territories will, if they get an outbreak of Delta in the second half of 2021, proceed to lock down very quickly to attempt to get out of lockdown very quickly. The WA/Qld/NT models of locking down almost straight away have resulted in days, not weeks, in lockdown, and I suspect they will rinse and repeat until their populations are sufficiently vaccinated. Victoria I suspect will be similar.

This is very true. The only sides right now who look genuinely bad right now are Hawthorn and Adelaide. Guess who we have in our run home, by the way... But everyone down to Richmond in 12th will consider themselves a chance for finals, Carlton in 13th doesn't have a single game left vs any of the top 8, and Gold Coast in 14th is in season-best form and has the competition's most in-form midfielder. So many people ran ladder predictors and assumed the Dogs, Brisbane and Geelong would all coast through with either 0 or 1 more loss for the season. the last round or two make it clear, I think, that there are going to be more upsets. Let's just hope we're not the victim of any more of them.

They'll need an exception, surely, as I can't imagine they had plans to fly down today. I think the AFL's hope before today's numbers was to play the Sydney derby this coming weekend in Canberra, so they probably weren't thinking about keeping them in Victoria. Gill's comment on three weeks was at the time in response to the Victorian outbreak. IIRC he said that after Victoria had already been put into lockdown. Our situation on the day we went into lockdown was very different to how long Gladys left it in NSW before she implemented lockdown. The point being, at the time Gill said what he said, governments were reacting quickly to lockdowns: each of Queensland, WA and Victoria had, multiple times in 2021, locked down at the sight of barely 10 cases, each time stopping outbreaks in their tracks. Here, NSW has gone against that grain, and as a result have a multi-week/month lockdown ahead.

Ok, updating this to swap Fremantle in for Richmond (West Coast can't drop out of the 8 unless they lose to North and shed 13%, so I feel pretty safe this time...): Melbourne - 6-0 Bulldogs - 5-3 Sydney - 4-3 Geelong - 4-3 Brisbane - 3-4 West Coast - 2-4 Port - 2-5 Fremantle - 1-5

Jack Riewoldt this week: “But good luck if you’re playing against us in the last seven weeks, wherever we sit on the ladder. We believe we’re a bloody good football side. We’ve played really poorly the last two weeks ... but good luck if you’re playing us in the last seven weeks.” Lol I suppose this is all good luck to Collingwood?

I spoke too soon... Richmond appear to be totally and utterly cooked. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch of [censored]s (although the beneficiary being Collingwood isn't exactly ideal).

Assuming Richmond and West Coast finish this round in the 8, here's the top 8's record vs the top 8: Melbourne - 6-0 Sydney - 5-2 Geelong - 5-3 Bulldogs - 4-4 Brisbane - 3-4 West Coast - 2-4 Port - 2-5 Richmond - 1-6

Games played outside Victoria by the end of this week: Hawthorn - 3 (plus four in Launceston) Carlton - 4 Collingwood - 4 Geelong - 4 Bulldogs - 4 (plus Geelong) North - 4 (plus four in Hobart) Richmond - 5 St Kilda - 5 Melbourne - 6 Essendon - 7 (plus Geelong) Not only have Carlton and Hawthorn had the least travel so far, they also have the least travel to come, with each only having one more game away from home (Hawthorn has a game in Launceston too but that's their choice). Meanwhile we still have two road trips plus Geelong, which will leave us equal with Essendon for most trips this year.

There's simply no choice at this point but for the NSW clubs to stay in Victoria. Sydney's only drawn to have two home games left anyway, having had one of them flipped earlier in the year. Three straight games at Marvel in Rounds 20-22. The key will be whether the AFL can get the players' families down here to be with them.

The Dogs' run home: GC (away), Adelaide, us, Essendon, Hawthorn, Port. Our run home: Hawthorn, GC (Darwin), them, West Coast (away), Adelaide, Geelong (in Geelong).

Many pundits would have said before this round that the Dogs and Brisbane were the two best sides in it. It's funny what one loss can do (see, eg, our loss last week). Don't forget the Dogs have five best 22 players injured. We, Brisbane, Geelong and Sydney have barely five players missing combined.

Bulldogs' percentage down to 141.5 (down by 6.1%). Still 11.6% above us but the gap was 19.1% before this Round, so between the two results we've shaved a third of the gap off.

Our final against them in 2018 drew more than 90,000. GMHBA holds like 30,000. There's no way they can be allowed to play a final against us down there.

Don't forget Sydney is at full strength but the Dogs are missing Naughton, Treloar, Dunkley, Martin and Gardner. Sydney are a bit like us. They play their best football against good sides. Assuming Richmond and West Coast win and return/stay in the 8, they'll have a 5-2 record against the top 8 but a 5-4 record against the bottom 10.

Correct. Brisbane is probably the only other side to have had as charmed a run with injuries this season as us. To be fair to us, we've already copped one season-ending injury to a key position player who, to that point, was in strong form and was a vital part of our line up.