titan_uranus

Winning all 3 is essentially necessary to make finals. It won’t change the perception that we’re a pretender, we just need the wins. But if we can win all three, we still have three chances to beat a better side (Geelong, WC, Sydney).

That’s the point though. The only way to lose with 29 more inside 50s is when those inside 50s are ineffective. We clearly did something right through the middle. +19 CPs, +16 clearances. But when those CPs and clearances are just resulting in poor quality kicks inside 50s, or when we let opponents send extras behind the ball and clog up our space, we don’t turn that effort into anything productive. It’s the perfect summation of what is wrong with us.

Nope. 15-14. This game wasn’t lost because of our defensive height. Edit: they also took 4 in the last minute. So until that last possession it was 11-14 in our favour. So, put simply, you’re miles off.

Compare this to Richmond’s performance against Port two weeks ago. Port is 5-1 against the top 8. They are a good side. This doesn’t ease my anger much because we shouldn’t be losing games with 29 more inside 50s. But yes, we played a high intensity game against a top 8 side in a hostile environment and led for 95% of the game.

+29 inside 50s but a loss. Same as the Geelong game. This shouldn’t still be happening, not 13 weeks after Round 1 and 8 weeks after Anzac Eve. We will be 6th after Collingwood beats Carlton and only percentage within the 8. We are the side at risk of being replaced by Hawthorn.

Win and we're a game off the top. Lose and we're percentage only from being out of the 8. Either way, tomorrow night on here is going to be interesting.

People are comfortable putting their faith in the match committee because they are the match committee. They're not, by comparison, the most pessimistic person I think this board, and possibly the internet, has ever seen. You get stuck into the selections of Maynard and Wagner but push for Frost. Frost's biggest problem is the same one as those other two - none of them know what they are doing out there. They all turn it over, they all make regular mistakes, they all struggle with positioning. Frost brings run, but his negatives outweigh that run.

They were smashed in the first quarter in the middle. Had little to do with the lack of Kennedy/Darling. Naitanui is getting pantsed by Bellchambers and their midfield is just being outworked and made to look super slow.

The final against Fremantle in 2006 was played on a Friday night. Other than that, you're right, we haven't played an interstate Friday night game since that 2003 game.

Not under the current final 8 system (i.e. since 2000). But Carlton missed the finals in 1992 with a 14-8 record. Having said that, running through the ladder predictor shows that it's entirely feasible for us to miss the finals even if we get to 13-9. It would just be so MFC, wouldn't it? Last year we break the record for smallest percentage gap to miss, then we go on to be the first team in the modern era to miss with 13 wins.

Putting aside Casey form for a moment, which is obviously not how the FD does it, I'm leaning towards replacing Pedersen with T Smith or Weideman and dropping one of Harmes or Hannan for Garlett. The Pedersen replacement isn't terribly controversial I don't think. As for the other, neither Harmes nor Hannan are adding much to the side and like @stevethemanjordan I wouldn't be against us putting Garlett back into our forward line mix and challenging him to run a certain number of kilometres, make a certain number of pressure acts or lay a certain number of tackles, and see how he goes. Casey form obviously will dictate what actually happens, though. I'd be leaving the midfield as is with a couple of positional changes (e.g. getting Brayshaw in at more stoppages).

This reads like we play Geelong the week after Port? We don't have Geelong until we've played St Kilda, Fremantle and the Dogs first.

Did you watch him in his games in the seniors earlier this year? Far from just "running around the action looking mildly interested", he was leading up at the ball and presenting as a marking target better than ever. He adds more than Pedersen did on Queen's Birthday. It might be T Smith who gets recalled, but I'd certainly prefer Weideman to Pedersen. Too simplistic IMO. If their midfield gets on top of ours like Collingwood's did, we'll lose, even if we can quell Polec and Gray.

Their rating of the runs home isn't too bad, it factors in opponents' percentage, games against the current top 8, and travel. I'm surprised ours is so easy given we still have three interstate trips plus a trip to Geelong. If we beat Port and do what we ought to do (and so far this year have done) against St Kilda, Fremantle, the Dogs and Gold Coast, we should be OK. But that's only 13 wins. A 14th win would make it a sure thing, which means the above plus probably Adelaide (assuming they continue to be tripe) or GWS at the G. If we only end up on 13 wins, we're going to need to do better in our losses than we have so far. We can't afford to shed percentage every time we lose, and we're going to lose. I'm confident 13 will get us in provided our percentage holds up. Round 23 vs GWS at the G could well be a "win and in" for both sides. Let's hope we've secured our spot because I really don't want to have to go through that again (and from 8-3 we shouldn't have to).

North play two games a year at the G. I reckon that one counted as having home ground advantage. It's also no one's fault but ours that we sold the Adelaide home game to Alice Springs.

Our game against Port is huge. Win it and we'll be a game and percentage clear of Geelong and Port, as well as North and Hawthorn (assuming both win next week). Lose it, and percentage will be all that keeps us in the 8 (as I would predict Collingwood to beat Carlton, Hawthorn to beat GC and North to beat the Dogs, making all of those clubs 8-5, and Port will move to 9-4). A GWS win over Brisbane would have them only a draw behind us too. It is so, so tight from 4th to 10th. With Hawthorn's easier fixture and GWS potentially improving form, getting the points against Port will go a long way to giving us the confidence and breathing space that we're going to need to hold our finals spot.

Any half-decent side (i.e. not Gold Coast or Carlton) would have been 100 points up at 3/4 time. GC are rubbish. 0.2 from their last four fourth quarters is a bizarrely terrible statistic. Adelaide is playing like a bottom 4 side right now. No doubt injuries are taking their toll, but they are a total on-field disaster. At 6-7 with West Coast, Richmond and Geelong as their next three, their season looks shot.

Deserves AA, but TBH so does Grundy. Would be comfortable with both being selected. If we don't make the finals, though, I doubt Gawn will make it.

Really? On what criteria do these two make your top 5? Agreed. The momentum in the first quarter was partly pushed in their direction due to the umpiring - a combination of them being paid everything under the sun and us missing out on some blatant free kicks (the throw in the goal square which gave them a goal was one obvious one).

We won on ANZAC Eve and Queen's Birthday last year. The "streak" is at two games.

What do you rate our performance out of 10 to this point? Why? 7.5, but the Port game will either turn that into an 8.5 or a 6.5. Which player has impressed you the most? Tom McDonald. I wasn't sure if his form as a forward in 2017 was something he could muster permanently. It appears it was, and it is. Which draftee has made the biggest impact? Fritsch, without any competition. What has been our best win to date? With the benefit of hindsight, the North win. We aren't getting enough credit for that performance. They've beaten Hawthorn, Sydney on the road, GWS and have a win in Perth to their name, and both Richmond and Geelong (in Geelong) struggled to put them away. But after giving up a four goal head start, we pretty much weren't troubled for the remaining 3 quarters. The Adelaide game was the best win at the time of the win, though. Which player(s) needs to improve in the second half of the year? Petracca. What has been our most disappointing performance? Geelong. Not our worst performance (that's the Hawthorn game), but the most disappointing. We won 3 quarters and had more than 20 inside 50s more than they did. We never should have needed Gawn's goal to win the game, we should have had it in the bag well before then. Where do you see us finishing? Give a win/loss and finishing position We should beat St Kilda, Fremantle, the Dogs and GC, so that gets us to 12 wins. How many more will we get? The Port game will give us some more insight but on what we have showed to date, I'm not confident in us winning any more than two of the six harder games (Port, Geelong, Adelaide, Sydney, WC, GWS). I'll go with 14-8 but if we are as bad against Port as we were against Collingwood, I won't be confident about that.

Why drop Spargo for Bugg (Garlett can take Hannan’s spot)? Why drop Spargo at all? And why play Bugg at all?

I’d agree with the OP if the subject was Vince. Lewis is providing far more right now than Vince. Maybe that says more about Vince than Lewis.

I think we are all right to be concerned about his form. I'm disappointed in what he's producing at the moment and I wouldn't be against dropping him. I'll back him in to fix things up, though.

I'd give up on Pedersen immediately and replace him with Weideman. As for other changes, I'd be looking at dropping some (not all) of Petracca, Vince, Harmes and Hannan. I think we'll be seeing one or two of Hunt, Tyson and Garlett get a recall. Otherwise, we need to back the majority of the 22 in to re-assess over the break and respond in prime time against Port. If we fail again in that game, bigger changes will happen. You've been posting about us winning the flag for six weeks. Hypocrisy at its finest.