titan_uranus

I’m confident we’ll be the Friday semi if we lose, and then the Fri prelim. Or the Sat prelim if we beat Collingwood.

The answer is because Channel 7 and the wider AFL media want Thursday night footy. They can’t put our game and the Carl v Syd game both on Saturday as both are at the G. They appear to have given us the Thursday to ensure the loser of our game has the extra day break into the semi. However, that didn’t happen last year. Last year we played Friday and the Bris v Rich EF was the Thursday. Brisbane got the extra day’s break into our semi. Arguably that was because travel was involved but IMO it’s the wrong result. We should be Friday night this year.

This might already have been said, but the AFL could avoid our game being on a Thursday night by not having a Thursday night and having a Sunday game instead. Play us on the Friday, Carl v Syd on the Saturday alongside Brisbane v Port, and St Kilda v GWS on the Sunday.

I'm sure it's already been said but this QF is possibly our make-or-break at the flag. Win it, we get a home prelim against Brisbane/Port/St Kilda/GWS. Lose it, we get Carlton/Sydney (likely Carlton) in a semi before having to travel to Brisbane/Port. The stakes are huge.

I'm away so haven't had the chance to see the Sydney game. The Melksham news is devastating on all fronts. Having cemented his spot and done so well this year, to miss out on the finals campaign will be heartbreaking for him. Meanwhile it throws a massive spanner in our forward line thoughts. Having him and Petty go down in the final month is just no good. I suspect it will be TMac who gets that spot. Fingers crossed whatever form he got today, and perhaps next week for Casey again, can translate into AFL level, because if we get the slow, early-2023 TMac, that won't work. I don't need to have seen the game today to know that we won't be dropping Turner for anyone except Tomlinson. We are not abandoning that plan now.

Resting is dangerous IMO. It will mean one game in 5 weeks if (big if) we win our QF - 5 weeks from the Hawthorn game to PF weekend and just the QF played. That’s too risky IMO.

Collingwood’s already lost 3 of their last 4. Can’t recall a premier losing 4 of their last 5 H&A games. They’ll be aiming to blow Essendon apart IMO. Like us, I imagine they will accept that the ladder takes care of itself.

I agree re consistency. It doesn’t help him, nor does it help our other forwards (who need to work together as a unit), or our mids (who need to work together with the forwards to ensure we don’t lose whatever gains we’ve made with our forward half efficiency) if he gets repeatedly swapped between back and forward. IMO Smith stays forward. Tomlinson or someone else plays that defensive role.

@WheeloRatings, what’s our W/L record when losing both CPs and clearances this year?

If the Dogs lose to Geelong, GWS will have qualified without needing to play. But there may still be something riding on the game - it's possible (but unlikely) Carlton will need to win for a home final (requires St Kilda to win and Sydney to beat us by enough to close the 4.5% gap). It's also possible that GWS will be playing for a home final (Sydney and St Kilda lose, then GWS needs to make up 3.3% on St Kilda). But mainly it will be for positioning, whether it's Carlton v GWS or Carlton v Sydney in the EFs.

They're playing for a home final though. A win allows them to pass St Kilda if they lose to Brisbane. A loss forces them to play St Kilda or Carlton in Melbourne; a win gives them the chance to host St Kilda or possibly GWS.

We started poorly, struggling to stop their quick ball movement, but as the game went on we defended the ground better, they tired, and we picked up our ball movement. I think what pleased me the most was that we beat an in form and dangerous opponent despite Oliver, Trac and Pickett being quiet, and Gawn not dominating. In their stead, we saw Rivers, Sparrow and ANB step up and play strong football. We saw Melksham shrug off his early inaccuracy to kick 3 whilst JVR and Smith chimed in too. Critically important to our September is ensuring we bat deep. Tomlinson struggled one-on-one today and that's his bread and butter. Without it, he's not great. However, structurally we need that spot filled by someone, and I don't want us to flip Smith back there. We are only hurting ourselves and Smith's development by moving him all around. Let him settle with JVR and Melksham. I think we give Tomlinson another game at least. Without Lewis they didn't have an amazing forward line but with Tomlinson able to take a deep forward, Lever was free to play at his best, and his best makes us so much better. Like others, I hope that being locked into top 4 allows us to hit next week with some freedom. Approach it like a dress rehearsal for finals. Get another week into Oliver, hopefully get Fritsch back into the side, hopefully see Tomlinson improve, get another week of gelling into the JVR-Smith combo. And finally, this isn't just our third straight top 4 finish, which of its own is remarkable. We will end this H&A season having finished every single week, bar one, in the top 4 from Round 1, 2021 to Round 24, 2023. That's 69 out of 70 completed rounds where we've been ranked one of the four best sides. That is a level of consistency that should be the envy of most other clubs.

We’re not making that many changes a week from finals. And sorry but there is no way JVR gets dropped. His workrate today was a standout.

6 - Rivers 5 - Lever 4 - Sparrow 3 - Melksham 2 - ANB 1 - Langdon Edit: forgot ANB. He was superb.

If he’s fit, Fritsch for Laurie. Tough for Bill but IMO he’s the least undeserving. We need to stick with Smith forward and Tomlinson back. Can’t keep flipping Smith between the two. He needs to be given a chance to make that forward spot his own. Kicked 2 today, which was a good return.

Pretty sure @Jaded No More is referring to those who have the ability to go but just choose not to. For those who have the means to attend, please attend.

Grundy is entitled to his contract. We agreed to pay a portion of what he was given by Collingwood. If he wants it, he can keep it. We have to honour it (so does Collingwood). If he wants to leave, and other clubs are only interested if he takes a pay cut, that’s a decision for him. Whether or not we have to pay a portion or Collingwood does is AFAIK unknown.

Why? They beat Collingwood two weeks ago and the Dogs last week. They beat Brisbane earlier in the year, too. I think we should win by 40+ if we play at or near our best but I am not going to be too glum if we win by less, because the win is incredibly important.

Having posted the above last night, I've had some more random fixture musings as I contemplate whether we've had an easy fixture or not. Firstly, I looked at interstate games in the last four weeks of the season (just the 9 sides vying for finals): Brisbane - 2 GWS - 2 Melbourne - 2 Port Adelaide - 2 St Kilda - 1 Sydney - 1* Bulldogs - 1* Carlton - 1 Collingwood - 0 (*Sydney played a game at GWS and the Dogs play one in Geelong) Then I looked at interstate games in the first four weeks of the season: Brisbane - 2 GWS - 2 Melbourne - 2 Port Adelaide - 2 Sydney - 2 Carlton - 1 Collingwood - 1 St Kilda - 0 Bulldogs - 0 Which has us level on 4 with Brisbane, GWS and Port, playing half our first month and half our last month on the road. By comparison, St Kilda and Collingwood play all bar 1 (total) of their opening and closing months of the year on the road. As I said, just a random musing. There are heaps of ways to analyse the fixture and this is just one of them, but it's the sort of analysis that is done so poorly by the generally poor AFL media.

Theirs was significantly worse than ours. At least in ours there was an ARC review.

I'm not really arguing that we should be playing Grundy, but I do think there's more to the argument than you're suggesting here. As has been pointed out, only the North combo is a true dual-ruck combo. The other three have forwards moonlighting as second rucks, with only Daniher any better than van Rooyen. So yes, whilst Gawn looked amazing in that month, the only game he had to play against two rucks was against a side on a 17-game losing streak. It's possible, but by no means certain IMO, that we bring Grundy back if we play a side like Collingwood (if they have Cox alongside Cameron), or Carlton (if they continue to use PIttonet and De Koning).

This is all correct. Although it's fair to note Sydney kicked 0.1 in the last quarter. The odds of them finding a goal in the last minute were low. There's no doubt that if that had happened to us the overwhelming majority view on here would be that we were denied a win. You only have to look to last week.

Let’s focus on beating Hawthorn. Then I won’t give a rat’s tossbag about who is in or out for Sydney next week.

Have we though? Yes we had Hawthorn and North twice. But we also are on track to have three of the top 6 twice too (Brisbane, Carlton, Sydney). Fixture difficulty should also take into account short breaks, travel, venues, etc. We got Brisbane in Brisbane, Port in Adelaide, Sydney in Sydney, and Geelong in Geelong. I don’t know how that stacks up with other clubs but the analysis in the linked article is horrendously shallow.

Jesus if I were an Adelaide fan I’d be absolutely ropeable. That has cost them finals (likely, but not certainly), and unlike last week the system should have fixed it if it had been properly used.