titan_uranus

The draw is like a win when you compare us with the Dogs and Geelong: they both have better percentages than us so the draw does the same job as a win. But the draw is like a loss when you compare us with Brisbane, Port and Sydney, who all have lower percentages (particularly Port and Sydney, who are 8%+ behind us). The draw does nothing for us because we likely would be finishing above them on equal wins. We haven't played two top 8 sides in a row since Rounds 11-12. I'm not suggesting it's that simple, but our biggest flaw is our inability to switch on vs bottom 10 sides (and particularly bottom 4 sides). We won't have that issue in the finals.

The only result that could really impact us is if GWS beats Sydney.

Lol. Luke Shuey from Round 1 2018 - Round 6 2021 (which is as far as the data goes) - 43% goalkicking accuracy. Petracca over the same period - 44%. Viney over the same period - 46%. Brayshaw over the same period - 43%.

Compare that with our competitors: Bulldogs: 455 shots, 233-222, 51.20% Brisbane: 421 shots, 225-196, 53.44% Melbourne: 413 shots, 205-208, 49.64% Geelong: 396 shots, 213-183, 53.79% Port: 376 shots, 210-166, 55.85% Sydney: 375 shots, 203-172, 54.13% (game in hand) The Dogs are the only side in the top six who are close to us on accuracy, with everyone else over the 53% mark.

I can't access the paywall but Jon Ralph reporting that the Brisbane v Gold Coast game scheduled for Round 20 could be brought forward to Round 19. I don't know why, but if that is correct it obviously impacts us. Brisbane's Round 19 opponent is Hawthorn (at the G) so we can't just swap opponents with them, which means at least one other game will be impacted. North apparently is returning to Victoria but Essendon isn't, so you'd expect that means Essendon v GWS will proceed next week in Queensland. St Kilda is apparently already in Perth so that should mean West Coast v Perth proceeds. Right now our opponent for next week seems very unclear.

I think the prospect of us missing finals at 13-9 before tonight was very close to 0, given how flat the middle of the fixture is. The draw is better than a loss, clearly, and particularly given we're behind our two closest rivals on percentage. But it does little for us otherwise, bringing Port and (likely) Sydney a game closer to us in the run home.

What? You want us to be like Port? Downhill skiiers/flat-track bullies etc.? Like we were in 2018? Seriously, feel free to be disappointed with tonight, but FFS this is an unbelievable position to take.

Incorrect. Our results speak for themselves. You don't win every game you play to this point of the season against the top 8 by accident or a fluke. Everything else you've said describes our wins against the good sides perfectly. Good offence (e.g. sides like Bulldogs and Brisbane) can't beat good defence (us). Every time a top 8 side has thrown their best at us, we've countered it and won. The issue isn't whether we can win finals. We've shown we can. The issue is whether we are going to give ourselves the best shot at it, which starts with ladder position.

vandenBerg had three goal assists (or at least it looked that way) and that'll likely be enough to hold his spot, but he is a very vanilla footballer so I'm not sure that's a long-term fit for our best 22. Don't be fooled by Viney's 32 disposals, he's struggling to get involved in a positive way when we're going forward. There is merit to the calls to drop Jackson. He's very important structurally but the last few games he's struggled to get involved in the ways he was earlier in the season. ANB's playing mediocre football too but I suspect the defensive stats will keep him in the side.

The umpiring really killed us. Petty gets called for HTB in the fourth when he slips over with barely any prior. Hartigan then gets caught after taking a player on and drops it in our forward line, but doesn't get called. Brown gets called for the "hold" on McEvoy in the second. So many 50/50% calls went their way but then didn't go ours.

He had Jordon on short but did the team thing - he ate up more time, and then kicked long to the boundary. Problem was Hawthorn outworked our talls and brought the ball back through the centre. Wasn't Lever's fault. "Accurate"? You've got literally every single match prediction over the last month wrong.

This isn't about changes to personnel, it's about changes to attitude. We need to work out why we don't apply ourselves against bottom 10 sides the same way we do in prime time games against top 8 sides. In saying that, we need to think about Viney's role.

Really have to work on Viney's role. He's not the midfielder who should be streaming forward and delivering inside 50, because he consistently misses targets. So why does it keep happening?

6 - Oliver 5 - Petty 4 - Salem 3 - Lever 2 - Fritsch 1 - Jordon

Except for when we turned the first GWS, St Kilda, Richmond, North Melbourne, and most importantly Brisbane games, right around. And resisted comebacks from Geelong and the Dogs. We have a clear problem against bottom sides but we won't be playing them in the finals, and our record against top 8 sides speaks for itself. This isn't about whether we can/will win finals, this is about whether we will ruin our season's hard work by giving up a top 2 or top 4 spot.

A reminder that you are now 0-5 from your game picks post-bye.

Lucky to get anything out of that game. We won one quarter tonight. One. Against the 17th ranked side missing something like 10 best 22 players. We have a clear, blatant problem of failing to play our best football against bad sides. We've played five games against the bottom 4 for two wins, and the two wins were average. We are going to cost ourselves ladder position from leaving 10 premiership points behind in these games. You could see it at half time: having conceded three goals in 10 minutes, Petracca and Oliver were laughing. I dare say you wouldn't see Joel Selwood laughing at half time of any game. But even despite our terrible play, we still had 5 more scoring shots. Again, our inaccuracy in front of goal costs us premiership points. They kicked something like 8 straight goals through the middle of the game whilst we missed shot after shot. Even at the end, in a game where we needed a point, Spargo, Pickett, Fritsch and Brayshaw all had set shots for a combined two points. This isn't a gameplan or talent problem. It's a psychological problem, coupled with goalkicking inaccuracy.

I can't shake this thought either. I know he's improved his ball work at Casey this year but Sparrow was in reasonable form vs Essendon and GWS and hasn't shown himself to be as big a liability with the ball as vandenBerg traditionally has been. We cannot afford him to give the ball away by foot, nor can we afford for him to throw his weight around and give away silly free kicks or, worse, 50m penalties.

On paper we should win this game by 10 goals. The Hawthorn side running out tonight is awful and we have a hell of a lot to play for. But we're 2-2 against the bottom 4 and neither of the two wins was convincing: we were down to North Melbourne by 4 goals and we were only 4 points in front of Hawthorn at the start of the fourth quarter the last time we played them. MFC supporters IMO have every right to be worried about this game, given our 2021 form in these sorts of games.

We have a game in hand. Win tonight and we stay two games clear of Port with five to go. Port's win is not that bad for us. They're the worst side in the top six. We shouldn't be worried by them at all. If they push Brisbane out of the top 4, that's a good result for us.

Why is this a bad thing? It's a Geelong home game and the only reason this game is supposed to be at the MCG is to allow more fans to attend. That's now irrelevant given the restrictions. It 100% should be in Geelong. Get as upset as you want about them passing us on the ladder, but this is fair.

I guess a lot of Demonlanders are going to be happy seeing vandenBerg in the team. Disappointing IMO for Sparrow that he's missed out on a midfield spot, but let's see how vandenBerg goes.

It poured last night and Geelong beat Fremantle by 10 goals. But as others have said, my main concern is the win.

Correct. We've never won 17 games in a season before. As I mentioned in the embarrassing records thread, Hawthorn won 17+ games in a season five times in six years (2011-2016).

I'm not suggesting it's impossible or unworkable to adjust the fixture, all I'm suggesting is that it's both sub-optimal and not as easy as just scrapping future return games. There are fairness and integrity issues at stake. Other examples include the games earlier in the year where sides had home games flipped to away games on the basis that there would be a return game later in the season (e.g. Brisbane v Collingwood, St Kilda v Sydney, Brisbane v Fremantle). Sure, this is all better than abandoning season 2021, but until scrapping games becomes the only option, I advocate against it and I'm sure the AFL will do what it can to avoid it.