titan_uranus

So it's down to three. Next stop on the MFC rollercoaster: the Gabba, Friday night, 7.50pm.

Well that was disappointing. But not nearly as disappointing as us losing to Sydney. Complain all you want about Holman, Harbrow, Swallow, Cox or the umpires, but it all shouldn't matter.

If we had won just one of the two Cairns games, we would currently be sitting 7th (to drop to 8th if Collingwood wins tonight). The scenario for this weekend would be that a win would guarantee us finals, whilst a loss would then trigger the current scenarios we're looking for this week to make finals with a win. If we had won both Cairns games we'd be locked into finals right now. We'd be 6th (and would stay there even with a Collingwood win). A win would lock us into 6th (unless we somehow made up 10% on West Coast) and a "home" final vs St Kilda, the Dogs or Collingwood. A loss would see us fall to 7th or 8th at worst. Read it and weep.

Here's my most recent favourite:

If we make it at their expense, we'll have ended the year with the same number of wins and a higher percentage. Our losses may stick out like a sore thumb to us, but evidently if they miss out we'll have had the better year overall.

High horse? Not sure of the relevance of that one. You're having a crack at Goodwin based on quotes from a press conference you didn't watch. And your criticisms are pretty ill-founded. You're upset at him saying we need to play consistently each week and that we're a work in progress. Both of which are correct. We all agree that it's not good enough that we're a work in progress as at Round 17 2020, but better he admit it than suggest otherwise.

He can't play defence. When he was back there it was too much galloping and bombing with no plan. He's not a great kick and not a great one-on-one defender. He's got what it takes to be a decent small forward but he struggles to keep himself involved for four quarters. He's a good lead, a good mark, a good set shot, and last night showed a decent crumber. But he doesn't seem to be in the right spots enough and so goes missing for long periods. The fact he's getting games right now when others aren't is a good sign for him, but I'm not confident of his long-term future with the club.

I'm not sure what will be worse. I think the former - missing out for the second time in four years by a tiny percentage. Will make us go back to the close losses (Brisbane, Geelong) and the moments within games (letting Carlton back in from 42 points up, conceding a goal in the last second of the Fremantle loss, Tomlinson's miss vs Geelong, Bennell's miss vs Brisbane, Hannan failing to see Viney on his own in the final minutes of the Brisbane loss...etc...). Maybe not though. Maybe losing to Essendon and then watching Fremantle belt the Dogs would be worse. Not sure. But I'm mentally prepared for both.

So as it stands, to make it we need to beat Essendon and then: the Dogs lose to Fremantle; or Collingwood loses to both Gold Coast and Port; or St Kilda loses to GWS and we bridge the current percentage gap - which is, on my maths, around a 50-point swing (i.e. we win by 25, they lose by 25). Two of these options could be off the table by the time we play - Collingwood plays tomorrow night and St Kilda v GWS is Friday night. But, even if those results go against us, we will be playing on Saturday with a spot in the 8 up for grabs, as a win will at least temporarily put us back above the Dogs. They failed to catch our percentage today so provided we beat Essendon, they'll have to then beat Fremantle to get back above us. If Collingwood loses tomorrow night, then we'll also be waiting until next Monday night to see if Collingwood also loses to Port. The least stressful way home for us at this point is for St Kilda to lose on Friday and we win by enough to bridge the percentage gap on Saturday. We'll be locked in if that happens no matter what.

This is really terrible analysis. There's plenty to criticise about Melbourne and Goodwin. This is a poor way of doing it.

Thankfully the second half didn't play out like the first. A win and a Dogs loss next week and we play finals. The Dogs have been good against bottom 10 sides all year so the odds are against us, but I see a Dogs loss to Fremantle as more likely than Collingwood losing both games. MFCSS says we miss out on percentage to St Kilda.

Yep I'll give this a go - every year I try to do this but forget to enter my tips and disappear halfway through the season. I'll try harder this year! I'll go Seahawks, Eagles and Colts.

Dogs' percentage currently sitting at 103.4%, so it's already up 3.1%. If Hawthorn doesn't show up at some point and at least stem the bleeding, we may not have a choice but to either belt Essendon or to rely on the St Kilda or Collingwood pathways.

Fremantle is a markedly better side than Hawthorn though. But yes, it's not likely. We are hoping for unlikely results because we failed to do the job ourselves. Yes, the Dogs can do damage percentage-wise today but overall will need to factor in any damage we can do vs Essendon combined with the Dogs' loss to Fremantle.

The Dogs will catch our percentage with a roughly 50 point win, I believe (they're currently +15, we're currently +62). Depends on how much they score/concede but that's roughly the difference. If they pass us on percentage then they could still lose to Fremantle and hold their spot over us if we win. It's going to be tight if they belt Hawthorn. The only percentage-irrelevant scenario is Collingwood losing both games.

We desperately need a second tall forward to play alongside Weideman. Whether that's TMac, Jackson, Petty or someone at another club, it has to be a focus. As such, if we're looking at players like Mihocek, that's a good start.

Don't know how you can be so definitive from the Tweet. If he was straight up asked if he wants to say and responded straight away with "Absolutely", surely that could be a sign the other way? Would have to listen to it to know for sure.

Deserves a nomination but there may be another player (e.g. Sholl) who played a better game this week. The nomination-based system for the Rising Star is dumb. Anyway, the recognition is nice but it also doesn't matter much. We've seen plenty of Rising Star winners not go on with it in their careers, and vice versa. Let's just enjoy what we've got in Rivers, which is a young kid who has the right attitude, clear talent, and has already shown an ability and willingness to improve his game even in his first year. The all-too-early signs are that our 2019 draft/trade period, bringing us Jackson, Pickett, Rivers and Langdon, has been a success.

If the Dogs end up 8th, you can put their qualification down, in no small part, to them managing not to drop a game to a rubbish side. GWS lost to Adelaide, Carlton lost to Adelaide, and we lost to Sydney.

I don't think "disastrous" is a fair assessment at all. Lever continually cut off GWS chains with spoils and intercepts. The missed kicks and dropped marks turned what should have been an excellent game into an average one, rather than an average one into a shocker. I agree that Smith/Jetta aren't really assisting with cohesion, that comment was more directed at Tomlinson. If we want to get Harmes/Sparrow back in for midfield rotations, which is probably a good idea, I'd be looking at one of vandenBerg, Hunt, Melksham or ANB. Spargo/Pickett are the true small forwards, whilst the other four seem to play minor roles in our forward half. I'd suggest Harmes would offer more with the spot that each of those first four have.

I feel like the kick outs are symptomatic of one of our issues, which is boring ball movement. We aim to not turn it over - so if we get a stoppage on the flank/wing, that's preferable to trying to go straight down the middle but turning it over. I don't actually have a problem with that as a general idea, but we need to spice it up from time to time. If we send everyone to one wing, have someone break into space on the other wing and see if we can't use that space.

Odds on Carlton winning this and trumpeting themselves as being fantastic?

Is there anyone on Demonland who doesn't think we stuffed our season up in Cairns? You've said you're after balanced discussion, but you don't seem to show any balance in your own posts. Would have thought Baker did more than enough last night to hold his spot. As usual, I don't agree on your assessment of Tomlinson. In a season where instability and a lack of cohesion has been as detrimental to our performance as anything else, I don't know if I can agree with swapping Tomlinson for Wagner (two games) or Hore (zero) at this stage of the year. Not the time for experimenting.

First two second half goals to Carlton. They've come back from the dead a few times already this year. Would not surprise me to see them close the gap on Adelaide, if not win it.

I know shorter quarters are a thing but we've already won four games this year by 43 points or more. If we do that again, we'd then only need GWS to win by a goal or two to pass St Kilda's percentage. It also means a pair of results by 24 points can do it. Having said that, St Kilda's only lost three games this year by more than a goal, and one was this week when they lost by 15. So it's not particularly likely for them to lose by a lot.