titan_uranus

There are four possibilities: W-W, W-L, L-W and L-L. I can see an argument for all four: Backs to the wall, pressure on us all week, we galvanise in a road trip (we've been doing that all year) and beat a WC side that actually isn't in great form. With finals locked in, the mental pressure is released and the shackles fall off, seeing us romp home against GWS See above re: West Coast, but we get ahead of ourselves knowing we've made finals and flop We get done by West Coast this week. However, by the time we get to our Round 23 game Port has lost to Collingwood and Essendon and North lost to Adelaide, which means we're locked in to the top 8 whether or not we beat GWS. The pressure therefore falls away and we romp home against GWS. We get done by West Coast, Port wins a game and/or North beats Adelaide, meaning we know that we have to beat GWS to qualify. We lose, obviously. The probability of Geelong winning consecutive games by 100 points, us not gaining percentage despite a win (we don't win close games, we lose closes games or we win by a bunch), and Port beating Collingwood and Essendon is very low, IMO. I don't see that scenario occurring. I think the scenario of us making it on 12 wins is more likely than the scenario of us missing on 13 wins. I reckon they'll be itching to test themselves on the MCG, where they haven't played since Round 2, before the finals start.

Some of the umpiring was atrocious today, which is becoming a running theme in 2018 (but hey, let's double the size of the goalsquare because that's what fans want!). Had no impact on the game's result, but frustrates me. A Sydney player handballed it out of a tackle directly over the line but wasn't paid deliberate. A Sydney player takes on two Melbourne players, tackled, drops the ball, but no holding the ball call. Brayshaw's head is nearly taken off but no free. I'm sure there were some bad decisions the other way, too - I only remember the ones against us. It's just frustrating to see so many poor decisions on a near-weekly basis.

We do this plenty. We usually kick it up and under, though, which isn't smart.

If the following four things happen, then even if we lose both games we can make it: North lose to Adelaide Port lose to Collingwood Essendon lose to Richmond Port lose to Essendon If those happen, then when we get to our game vs GWS, both Port and Essendon will both have 12 wins (and North beating St Kilda puts them on 12 as well). Barring two blowout losses to WC and GWS, our percentage will keep us in the 8 above Port, Essendon and North and we won't even need to beat GWS. The four results above are not completely out of the question - I don't see Port beating Collingwood or Essendon beating Richmond, for example. I'm not so confident on North losing to Adelaide but it's entirely possible. But tbh I really don't see Port losing at home to Essendon in the final round, with finals to play for. Stranger things have happened, but I don't see it In order to miss with a 13th win: one of Geelong, North and Essendon (the 11-win teams) has to catch us on percentage (only Geelong can realistically do this); and Port has to win both games I don't see both of those happening - I just don't see Port winning both, us winning one and still Geelong catching us on percentage. tl;dr - we just need to win a game.

I don't think there's anyone who isn't in the same camp as you. The difference is that some are interested in what happens in the event we don't win all three, and how that (and other results) impacts on our finish.

If we win three, then we finish third (second if Brisbane upsets West Coast in the final round). If we win two, it looks like we'll finish somewhere in the 4-6 region, I think. If we win one, it's probably something like 6-9, depending on other results. If we don't win another game, we'll finish 9-11.

Geelong's only won two games all year by more than 60 and one of those was a 61 point win. They only beat Carlton by 28 points at Geelong earlier in the year, the week after we beat them by 100. I'm not so sure Geelong is just going to romp to two consecutive 100-point wins. And that doesn't take into account the points advantage we get in your scenario from beating Sydney. And you're assuming Sydney beats GWS and Hawthorn to get to 14. Now that Geelong has lost, if we win tomorrow the probabilities are firmly in our favour.

We've scored 94 and 98 against Geelong, one of the best defensive sides in the league. 123 against North who only conceded 100 twice in their first 14 games (the other being to Port Adelaide) and who didn't concede more than 70 against anyone else in their first five games (which included a game against Hawthorn). 90 against Adelaide, in Adelaide. Other sides to score 90+ there against Adelaide? Collingwood, GWS, Geelong and Port Adelaide. We've scored over 90 in every game this year except Hawthorn, Richmond and Port Adelaide. And every side gets to play Carlton, GC, St Kilda and the Dogs. Some get to play them twice, like us. Yes, we've had probaly one or two more games against those sides than most of our competitors (not North). But we're regularly putting up high scores, and others aren't. And Sydney lost to GC, GWS drew with St Kilda, Geelong lost to the Dogs. If Geelong beats Hawthorn, then Hawthorn has to beat Sydney to get to 14 wins. If they don't, they finish on 13 which is what we'd finish on with one win, and no one's catching our percentage. It's been canvassed in earlier posts, but quite a few things have to occur for us to miss on 13 wins with our percentage, and I wouldn't call it probable.

The strangeness of this season is evident in my thoughts on this week's game. I feel that if we win, we're every chance to run the table and win all three. But I simultaneously feel like if we lose, we're every chance to lose all three. If we win, we'll have won 5 out of 6, we'll have released significant pressure in beating a finals contender and a side we haven't beaten in 7 years, and we'll also be nearly-locked in for finals. I can see us taking that confidence, and without the ongoing pressure to qualify for finals, going to Perth and knocking off a Naitanui/Gaff/Kennedy-less West Coast. If we do that, I can see us taking that momentum through to GWS. If we lose, we'll slip down to the bottom of the 8. We'll be level with North and probably Geelong (i.e. only % out of 10th). We won't have confirmed our finals spot and then the trip to Perth suddenly takes on huge meaning: lose it, and we'll be doing the whole "need to win Round 23" thing again. I just have so much riding on this week's game. I wouldn't be calling any of this "probable", though. If Geelong wins all three, Hawthorn has to beat Sydney. But if Hawthorn beats Sydney, Sydney has to beat us and GWS (at Spotless). Alternatively if Port wins two they have to beat at least one of West Coast and Collingwood at the G. I think it's far more likely that at least two of the above fail (whether that's Hawthorn losing two, or Port losing two, or Sydney losing two, or North losing one). For us to miss on 13, pretty much every 8-point game has to go against us.

Should get 7. That way, even if West Coast play four finals, he can't get back this year.

He's looking straight at him before he does it. Spare me.

Agree, but to be fair the WC game will be tougher, especially if we've lost to Sydney, and if we then lose to WC the GWS game will be a pressure-cooker off the charts for us. I don't think we'll see Viney again this season (finals or no finals), but I expect Melksham back next week and Hibberd back for WC. Most likely if we get to 13 we're only going to miss if North or Essendon win all four, or if we drop significant percentage in the two losses. As it stands, if we can hold our percentage at 125%, and if North drop just one game from here, we should be OK. In terms of our percentage, I'm confident we can maintain it - we've only had one loss by more than 10 points since ANZAC Eve (to Collingwood). But a big win this weekend would definitely help.

Why is that a "charity draw"? It just means they've had to play their more difficult games already. They've already had their 5 interstate trips, they were forced to have a "home" game against Richmond at the G, and their repeat games were against Richmond, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Sydney and Gold Coast (i.e. four finals contenders plus GC).

Yes, I think if we can beat GC and Sydney then it's going to be hard for us to miss. If we lose to Sydney it's still possible for us to get in on 12 wins, assuming we hold our percentage. But much less likely.

The points you raised were: starting the season with 9 out of 11 games in Victoria; only having 5 interstate games; getting 14 games at the MCG. Why should winning the premiership affect any of those? In fact, shouldn't winning the flag mean a better fixture given what should, rightly, be the reward for strong performance? The MCG is their home ground, so they get 10 games there at a minimum (given the AFL shafts the MCG tenants with Etihad home games). The other 4 are because other sides want home games against them. Indeed, I'm sure you'd agree that we would want to play Richmond in a home game next year. Richmond has 10 (one at Etihad), Collingwood 9 (two at Etihad), we have 9 (two games sold to NT, none at Etihad) Hawthorn has 6 (one at Etihad, four games sold to Tasmania). Then Etihad tenants - Carlton has 5 and Essendon has 4 (with both playing the rest at Eithad). It appears that if we reduced our NT arrangement down to one per year, that 10th Victorian home game would be played at Etihad. If we brought both back, though, it's not clear whether we'd get the 11th game at the G (Richmond does, but Collingwood doesn't, so I'm not sure how it would work). One of the big problems is that Essendon and, in particular, Carlton (given Carlton get home games against Port and WC at the G, whereas Essendon's are against the bigger Melbourne clubs and exceed Etihad's capacity) get permission to play games at the G when they made the decision to go to Etihad. They're both Etihad clubs. By granting them home games at the G, it forces the actual MCG clubs (us, Richmond, Collingwood and Hawthorn) to play home games where we don't want them at Etihad to meet the AFL's contractual minimum. Both are required to play home games at Etihad, indeed Collingwood has two. As to their away games at the G, everyone wants to play home games against them, including us. I'm sure you, like MSFebey, want to see home games against big Victorian clubs on our 2019 fixture. We won both NT games and both of the games the following week. Are you sure there's an impact? We only have to play three games at Etihad this year. That's the lowest we've ever had, I think. But I agree re: Kardinia Park (equality demands that everyone should have to play there), 3.20pm games (but that won't stop any time soon given Channel 7 demand having the game lead into the news) and Thursday nights (does anyone actually like them?).

I don't think Sydney is a tall forward line. Their forward line right now is nothing to be scared of, either. They hardly generate a competitive number of scoring shots. Adelaide and WC though, agreed.

We had 9 of our first 11 games in Victoria. We would have 17 out of 22 games in Victoria if we didn't sell two home games to the NT. Our MCG count is lower (11), but we might get one back if we didn't sell two home games to the NT, plus Richmond get 4 away games at the G because clubs want to play them there. One of the many reasons it's important for us to finish strong and make the finals is to keep a positive aura around us and get more clubs wanting to play us in their home games at the G.

Geelong lost to the Dogs, Hawthorn lost to Brisbane, Sydney lost to GC, Port lost to Fremantle, we lost to St Kilda. Surprise losses happen, and may well continue to happen. Which makes predicting things really difficult. If we go 3-2 over the final 5 games, our percentage should stay high enough to ensure we finish at least 8th. The WC and GWS games look to be the two hardest on the slate, so we're really now needing to win the next three. If we can knock off Adelaide this week, I'll really like our chances to get to 13. Miss out, and we're going to need to ensure we beat Sydney and then find a win against at least one of two top 4 sides in WC and GWS.

The things you've identified are massive logistical barriers. If West Coast and Fremantle end up in the same group of 6 as, say, Brisbane and GC, you get those sides criss-crossing the country repeatedly over the last 5 weeks in the run to finals. Or, alternatively, you could get six Victorian clubs in the same group who then get to sit in Victoria for the last 5 weeks of the year. It throws up different forms of inequality. It simply does not solve the problem. Agreed. The AFL loves copying the NFL but funnily enough won't go near the NFL's "less is more" concept. We can't increase to 34, so if we won't reduce to 17 then the only option, IMO, is to have the 5 double-up games allocated so that, over a 2 or 3 or 4 year period you even out as much as is possible (17 isn't a good number for maths, though). There has to be greater transparency. There has to be a policy whereby every club plays every other club at least once home and away in a defined period (every 2 or 3 years, for example). We can't have Melbourne being away to Essendon literally every year, or Hawthorn not going to Brisbane for 10 years. The current model allows for flexibility with double-up games against rivals but the 5 double up games have to be allocated as fairly as possible over time.

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.

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.

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).

If we finish in the top 8, then by definition we deserve to play finals, if that's what you're getting at. Any opportunity to play finals after 12 years of missing them is an opportunity worth having, whether or not we win that final. My view, though, is that we'll need to get to 13 wins to make the finals. In order to do that, we need to beat the Bulldogs and GC, and then win two out of the other five (Geelong in Geelong, Adelaide in Adelaide, Sydney, West Coast in Perth, GWS). So, if we've made it, we will have won at least two of those five games. But if we make it with 12 wins, then fine, we will have deserved to play finals even if we lose four of the those harder five games.

If we lose to all of Geelong, Sydney, West Coast and GWS then we will finish on 12 wins (assuming we beat the Dogs, Adelaide and GC). We'd be more likely to miss the finals than make them but "make up the numbers" in that scenario. I think to make finals we need to get to 13 wins, and to do that we have to win one of the four games you've identified.