titan_uranus

If you assume Hawthorn beats Carlton, Fremantle and St Kilda (a dangerous assumption given they've lost to Brisbane twice, and the Fremantle game is in Perth), they then only have to win one of Essendon, Geelong and Sydney to get to 13. Right now, I think Hawthorn is likely to get to 13. Geelong is in the same boat, mind you. Say our 12th win is against Geelong (the 11th being against GC). Geelong would then need to win 4 of the last 5. That will require it to win all three GMHBA games (likely) but then win at least one of their two MCG games (Richmond, Hawthorn). Questionable. I suppose what that says is that 12 might be slightly more likely to do it if the 12th win is against Geelong. A Brisbane win this weekend would be enormous for us. The likelihood of Adelaide then beating all of us, Port, GWS (away) and North is surely low.

To answer the OP, I think 12 wins, even with a solid percentage, is unlikely to be enough. However, after the results of last weekend, I think it's a bit more likely than it was. If North and Hawthorn only win 3 games each (which @Bring-Back-Powell has shown isn't exactly impossible), then 12 will be enough for us (unless the even less likely situation occurs in which Adelaide or Essendon win 5 of their last 6 and get to 13). If we finish in the top 8, we deserve to play finals. If we manage to do it with only 12 wins, that will mean clubs like GWS, Hawthorn, North and/or Geelong have all been as bad, or worse, than us over the final 6 rounds. It's unlikely, but if it happens then we deserve to play finals. Couldn't agree less. The top 8 qualify for finals. Ergo, the clubs who finish the home and away season in the top 8 spots on the ladder deserve to play finals. Finishing 8th doesn't make you any more or less deserving than finishing 1st. It obviously means you weren't as good as the team in 1st, but that doesn't mean you don't deserve to play finals. You finished higher than the other 10. For a club that hasn't played finals for an embarrassing 12 years, making them, and getting that monkey off the back, is unquestionably something we should be aiming for, even if we also should be aiming to win the flag.

There's no shirking the obvious - this is a massive game for us. We know we haven't beaten anyone better than North. We know we haven't won the "big" games we've played this year. And we also know that if we win this game, and we end up two games and percentage clear of Geelong, our path to finals gets significantly easier, whilst if we lose it, our path remains tricky and with an enormous question mark hovering over it. They don't have a decent ruckman so hopefully Gawn can get on top and help our midfield beat theirs. If we can get enough ball inside 50, and our press can hold up on a narrow ground (which should be precisely what we want), then we can definitely win this game. The pressure will be enormous, though, so it remains to be seen how we cope.

How does the severity of Hibberd's injury affect our chances of winning this week? He's not playing either way.

Also 2015, North Melbourne v Richmond. Richmond won by 41 points in Round 23 at Etihad, but one week later North knocked them out in the EF for the third year in a row at the G. Was the year which brought in the week off before finals given North had rested a stack of players.

His kicking hasn't been as good this year but his two-way running, his bursts from the backline, his man-on-man strength and his zoning are impossible to replace with one player. I suspect we'll play Smith or Wagner in his role but whether it's one of them, or Harmes, or Fritsch, it's a major downgrade and right at the wrong time of the year. Absolutely medicine/science-free rubbish, @praha. Do you have any medical or scientific knowledge to link Lever's ACL injury to playing in 22-degree warmth the week prior? Or Viney's sore toe to playing humidity? Or a quad pulled 1.5 weeks afterwards, in which time Hibberd had played another complete game? Where Goodwin refers to "look at our grounds", he could quite easily (and IMO much more likely) be referring to the firmness of the turf we train on. I reckon you've completely lost it with this one.

When the only reason people want you to be picked is because you have "mongrel", you're clearly not that much chop. IMO Bugg's weaknesses (terrible skills, no confidence when we're attacking) outweigh his strengths (strong two-way running, good defensive pressure, the aforementioned "mongrel"). Of course, if he is able to improve his skills and become a better player when we're attacking, those strengths he's already displayed become even more valuable (and we know the FD loves two-way running and defensive pressure). So whilst I'm not prepared to say he's got no hope at all, right now he's not best 22, nor do I think he's that close to it. How can you possibly say this given AVB hasn't played for two years? Are you rating his 2016 form compared to his 2015 form? How is that relevant to what AVB might be capable of now? Your negativity seriously knows no bounds.

Who'd have thought one of the game's biggest on-field fl0gs would be a [censored] off the field too.

They lost Gray just before half time when they were already losing. Not sure how much difference they would have made, to be honest. Meanwhile West Coast lost Naitanui in the second quarter and beat Collingwood by six goals. Fremantle are so bad that Port Adelaide ought to have found a way to get it done.

The longer the break after the Perth game, the better, but I'm not sure commercially a Monday night game will work. It is GWS after all. And the concern will be that it's scheduled weeks out, something goes wrong with one of the sides, the game has little to no meaning, and then no one shows up. I'm expecting this to be a Sunday 1.10pm or 3.20pm game.

Viney didn't play so are you saying Tyson instead of Weideman to replace Hannan? Otherwise who do we drop in addition to Hannan? At any rate, I'm not sure about playing Weideman. The forward line balance feels much better since we went smaller and given we're prone to running TMac up on the wing at times anyway, we may as well make that stint a ruck stint and keep some pace in the side.

If we finish in the top 8 then we're good enough by definition. But a quick look at the ladder and some mathematics indicates we're not going to finish 8th or higher unless we win at least two, and likely three, of Geelong, Adelaide, WC, Sydney and GWS.

Port beat Richmond a few weeks ago. They're not terrible. They're just inconsistent. Collingwood hasn't beaten anyone of note other than us. Port is inconsistent. Sydney was a kick away from losing three on the trot. Geelong lost to the Dogs. Hawthorn lost twice to Brisbane. Richmond can't win away from Melbourne. West Coast lost to Essendon. As @ProDee has said numerous times, there are no stand-out sides, there are just slightly more consistent sides (Richmond, West Coast) than others. If we make the 8, then we deserve it, by definition. Can't believe how many times that needs to be said. However, if we lose to all of Geelong, Adelaide, Sydney, WC and GWS, we won't make it (11 wins is not enough), so we are going to have to beat at least one, probably two, and possibly three, of those five to make it. So, if we make it, we'll have scalps, and we will deserve it. Indeed. Essendon's beaten Port, Adelaide, Geelong, GWS and West Coast, but will struggle to make the finals. They're not going to end the year saying "oh well, we beat those top 8 sides so that's good enough for us". In fact, us last year is a perfect example of it. We beat Adelaide, West Coast, Essendon and Port last year - four finalists. But when we missed the finals, no one said "well we deserved it because we beat top 8 sides". If you finish in the top 8, you deserve it. End of story.

Agreed. At any rate, Collingwood, Port and Sydney all have tough runs home (Port's gets even tougher if they somehow can't beat Fremantle today): Collingwood - North, Richmond, Sydney (away), Brisbane, Port, Fremantle (away) Port - GWS, Dogs (Ballarat), Adelaide, West Coast, Collingwood (away), Essendon Sydney - GC, Essendon (away), Collingwood, us (away), GWS (away), Hawthorn Of course, our run home is just as hard, but our destiny remains in our hands. And you never know, with those three sides having runs home like that, if we can outperform what we all think we're going to achieve (i.e. we get past 13 wins), we could go up on the ladder (I doubt it, personally).

Sydney had no business winning that, really. Bunch of players out, Kennedy goes down early. Would have preferred a North win given I don't really like Sydney, but possibly the better result for us. We're now a game and percentage clear of all of Geelong, North and Hawthorn. North still have Collingwood, West Coast, Brisbane (away) and Adelaide (away) in their run home. They needed that.

This is a ripping game. But hey, let's see more St Kilda and Carlton in prime time though.

Would keep North a game (and percentage) behind us.

TMac. Did well, IMO.

Righto, guess that's that then.

I suppose that makes Collingwood a pretender, just like us?

If we didn't pick Tyson to replace Viney when faced with a side which had already beaten us in the CPs and clearances once this year, what makes you think we'd be picking him next week? I wouldn't be going near Smith (or Pedersen, or Weideman). We've finally found some balance in our forward line and I wouldn't be throwing that out the window just because Geelong play a taller defence. That's not to say I think Hannan automatically stays in the side, but I don't know whether replacing him with height is the right call. As to OMac, I doubt it's any coincidence that he's looked less confident since Lever's injury. Yesterday was our best defensive performance since Lever went down so I don't think now is the right time to be calling OMac out.

Ah, Footywire doesn't include rushed behinds, so it thinks we had 25 scoring shots whereas the Footy Live app says we had 29 scoring shots. It certainly felt like, to me, we were more efficient going inside than we were against Fremantle (or St Kilda or Port). As to Vince, agreed, there isn't necessarily an obvious replacement, but I just don't think Vince is adding much at all. As to Jones, he wasn't really adding much to our clearance game in the first half which I'm sure is part of the reason he was the one squeezed out to get Harmes in there to tag Macrae. He may well be carrying an injury but it could just be a form slump.

Nothing special, but I thought he got better as the game went on. Defensively he was good, tackling and chasing/pressuring. Offensively, though, not as much. Didn't appear very confident with the ball, didn't seem to get involved in the play too much. I'd be happy to give him another game next week, see if he can build on this, but I wouldn't be holding my breath.

6 - Gawn 5 - Oliver 4 - Brayshaw 3 - Salem 2 - Melksham 1 - Hogan

Hawthorn and Geelong losing is obviously helpful, but GWS winning is a reminder that there are still plenty of sides ready to take our spot if we slip up. If we can beat Geelong next week, that will go a long, long way to securing our finals spot. Silly comment. We've had an easy run so far, only 4 games against the current top 8. And wrong, too. Sydney still has to play North, Essendon, Collingwood, us, GWS and Hawthorn. GWS has to play Port Adelaide, Adelaide, Sydney and us. Port has to play GWS, Adelaide, West Coast, Collingwood and Essendon. Plenty of sides have tough runs home, even if Geelong and Hawthorn don't (meanwhile Geelong lost to the Dogs two weeks ago and Hawthorn just lost to Brisbane).