titan_uranus

I think the lack of the pre-finals bye was a key one. Straight into it after the high of Round 23. Less disruption after winning the QF.

Definitely his first.

Huh? Isn’t this Blicavs’ first AA?

4 times for us (Collingwood x 2, Sydney, Bulldogs). No idea what any other side’s record is but can’t imagine many had 4 or more.

Another reason it's likely is that the loser of our game is likely to play their semi on Friday night, and the loser of Geelong v Collingwood is likely to play their semi on Saturday night. So then you'd expect the winners of those semis to both get 7 day breaks into the prelims. That would make the prelim involving the winner of our game on the Saturday.

Can't complain about our club's representation. Can complain about Hawkins being in there at all over Lynch, let alone captain.

Yes that's right - other than a 34-game season, anything proposed will present inequality somewhere. I couldn't help but laugh at Chris Scott saying how we need to celebrate the minor premiership more. Wouldn't be surprised if he was saying the opposite after losing to us in Round 23 last year.

It looks like they staggered it so the Geelong v Collingwood game doesn't go on sale until this afternoon. Yet the website is still struggling...

Yes these are separate issues. We had 7 interstate games (1 we sold) and Geelong. To compare with the other Victorian finalists: Melbourne - 7 interstate games, 1 Geelong Bulldogs - 6 interstate, 1 Geelong Geelong - 6 interstate Collingwood - 5 interstate Richmond - 5 interstate Yet to look into 5 and 6 day breaks, or relative breaks to opponents. And no one else got close to having six games in a row at different venues across four states/territories.

I've been posting about this all week, probably ad nauseum. It's not unfair. Unless we do a 34-game season where everyone plays everyone else home and away, every single model that is proposed is unfair. Even a 17-game season is unfair - some will get, say, Fremantle in Perth, others will get them at their home ground. The 17-5 idea that gets bandied around creates different problems. Do we really want the last five weeks to be full of meaningless low-quality games involving the bottom 6 playing each other? Then there's tanking - why finish 6th after 17 games when you'll cop the five sides above you again when you could finish 7th and cop the five sides below you instead? It's a bad idea for varying reasons. The AFL tries to get it right by making good sides from one year play each other more often than not the next year. The obviously problem is that they don't have a crystal ball and so don't know what will happen the following year. For us, we were given Collingwood and Fremantle and they got much better. It's wrong to complain about Geelong getting North and West Coast twice. But it's right to point out that their fixture has ended up being easier than ours. So too Sydney and Richmond. Particularly in the second half of the season. So when you hear someone in the media say "Melbourne have only just been going in the second half of the year", or you see one of those "from Round 15" ladders, remember that as the fixture turned out, we had a much tougher second half of the season than everyone else.

Possibly. The opposite is probably more accurate - lose week 1, we don’t win the flag. Would mean we have to beat Bris/Rich, then Geel/Coll, then Syd/Geel/Coll, all in a row.

You're right. I have no idea what I was thinking. Collingwood losing would have put Brisbane 5th.

The dream result would have been for Collingwood and Carlton to draw. Would have meant Geelong v Fremantle, Collingwood v Carlton and Brisbane v Richmond were the other games. Which in turn would have meant that the winner of Melb v Sydney would have gone into a prelim to play the loser of Geelong v Fremantle or the winner of Collingwood v Carlton. Edit: none of the above is true. Collingwood losing would have been better.

The OP has Geelong winning the first final. But has Sydney out in straight sets. Surely not.

The byes finished in Round 14, so everyone played 9 games from Round 15 to Round 23. Of those 9 games, 6 of ours were against finalists, and we went 3-3. Compare that with everyone else: Melbourne: 6 games, 3-3 Bulldogs: 5 games, 1-4 Fremantle: 4 games, 1-1-2 Brisbane: 4 games, 1-3 Geelong: 3 games, 3-0 Richmond: 3 games, 1-1-1 Sydney: 3 games, 3-0 Collingwood: 2 games, 1-1 Geelong and Sydney the only others with winning records, but they played half the number we did. It perhaps shouldn't be too surprising that the four finalists sitting at the bottom of that list are the four considered to have been in the best post-bye form: Geelong, Collingwood, Sydney and Richmond.

So a reminder that with the Dogs replacing Carlton in the finals, we had 4 double-up games against the top 8. By comparison, the Dogs had 3, Geelong, Sydney, Collingwood, Fremantle and Brisbane all had 1, and Richmond had 0. We finished 2nd despite playing literally half our season against finalists (11 games against the 7 other finalists, 11 games against the bottom 10). Fair effort IMO. On the flipside, 5 of the 7 finalists (i.e. all bar Richmond and Brisbane) beat us this year. Which is funny given they'll be our semi final opponents should we lose to Sydney. But otherwise, our QF and, if we make it, our PF opponent and likely our GF opponent will have had a win over us.

The First Crack just showed some more incredibly damning footage for Carlton fans. Curnow has the ball at half forward in a set play after a mark just before the Elliot go ahead goal. He has Durdin all on his own on the 50, but ignores him and goes deep where they turn it over. But that wasn't really the problem. The problem was somehow behind Curnow Carlton were outnumbered. Collingwood had Elliot and Ginnivan free. So on the turnover, Carlton were out of position and outnumbered. Elliot kicked the goal, game over. As they pointed out on the TV, that sort of thing just doesn't happen with sides like us or Geelong. For us, we never would have sent extra numbers into our forward 50 to try to score, and May and Lever behind the ball would have been marshalling the troops.

The 12-day rule is actually an 11-day rule - you're allowed to play on the 12th day. You don't have to wait 12 days. The 12th day after today is next Friday.

Freo v Bulldogs is Saturday night.

Should clearly mean that the Bris/Rich v Mel/Syd semi final is the Friday night of week 2. Should also mean the Mel/Syd prelim is the Saturday of week 3.

So we know we don't leave the G. We know that we play Sydney first up. You'd imagine we'll play Richmond if we lose, as I reckon Brisbane are cooked. And if we win, you'd expect us to get Collingwood (although would love it to be Fremantle - would mean they've either knocked out Collingwood or Geelong!). We should have a first week fixture by now. There were plenty of permutations for the match ups but they could have been worked through before the round finished, surely.

It won't happen, but do we want St Kilda to win? I don't want to play Collingwood at all, but if we have to play them I suppose a QF is better than a PF.

Sydney needs to score 32 points in 11 minutes to pass us (whilst holding St Kilda scoreless).

St Kilda won't win this. But that goal means Sydney now needs to score a minimum of 34 points from here to pass us, and that assumes St Kilda doesn't score again. For every point St Kilda scores that 34-point target increases.

Correct. If St Kilda kicks one goal, Sydney would need another 7 points on top of those 27.