Sydney_Demon

Well I can live with 5 of 7, as long as we win the last 3 😀

Look, there's a place for betting agencies. If it's just a bit of fun having a bet and you can afford to lose then no problems. No different from any other form of expenditure. But their entire approach is to normalise gambling behaviour and there's a certain percentage of the population that are problem gamblers. Exposing kids to this sort of stuff before they have the maturity to know what's going on is particularly problematic. Do most people have any idea of how much margin the bookies are building into their odds? Why can't there be a bit more transparency and restriction on what time these ads can be shown? Rant over 😀.

What you haven't allowed for in your calculations is the mimumum 5% profit margin that the bookies take on every 2-way bet which meams the true odds are going to me more like: 1.155 x 1.68 x 1.47 x 1.785 = 5.092 = 4-1 That's of course why the betting agencies push the multis, as they get this margin on every bet that goes into the multi which adds up to about a 19% take across 4 bets. And of course the margins on more exotic bets are much much more than 5%!

It's swings and roundabouts. The 6 teams we play(ed) twice this year are/were Sydney (2nd in 2022), Brisbane (4th), Richmond (7th), Carlton (9th), Hawthorn (13th) & North Melbourne (bottom). So we only played West Coast once. Some sides improve, some times go backwards. At the start of the season we were only allocated 4 games against the bottom 3 sides (in fact 6 against the bottom 5!), and now it's ended up being 5 against the bottom 3. No story here. And as has been pointed out by me and others, whenever we play only one game against Geelong it's always at GMHBA. And we give up a home game every year to play in Alice Springs and it's always against an interstate club that we would prefer to play at the MCG (why can't Alice Springs be against a Victorian Club where the loss of MCG Home Advantage would not be so significant?).

It p***ed me off when I saw that. No mention of the fact that Geelong were gifted 4 games last year when they had 2 games (out of the 5 teams they played twice) against both North Melbourne & West Coast (and they officially finished 4th in 2021, we finished 5th in 2022). I don't recall any media pundit mentioning last year the fixturing disadvantage for Melbourne when the 'bottom' team Melbourne played twice was Collingwood who finished 17th in 2021. What about the fact 6 teams got to play West Coast twice this year (who are no doubt the worst team in the comp despite today's win). Melbourne wasn't one of them. Basically they chose the bottom 3 teams for the comparison because that supported the narrative. If they's chosen the bottom 1, 2 or 4 it wouldn't have. I actually don't mind TRSF generally but Kane Cornes occasionally tosses off assertions and presents them as facts. This week was his statement that Essendon would have beaten the Swans if the game went for another minute. Obviously he's a clairvoyant!

I know it makes it a much more sensational story if you exagerate but in fact Port had 6 outs, only 2 of which were official omissions: Charlie Dixon (Injured),Jason Horne-Francis (Injured),Junior Rioli (Personal Reason),Quinton Narkle (Omitted),Sam Hayes (Omitted),Trent McKenzie (Injured). If you have good info on how many of those were rested I'm happy to hear it. Here we go again. Tanking BS. So they tried today but since they lost they won't care about winning against Melbourne! I haven't seen any evidence of North Melbourne or West Coast or Hawthorn or Fremantle or ..... anyone tanking but I guess if posters want to believe it then no evidence I produce is going to make any difference.

Unfortunately Casey have (yet) another bye next weekend so whoever's not playing for Melbourne won't be playing for Casey. I assume they'll play another scratch match against one of the other Clubs who also have VFL Byes.

Terrible result for Casey today. Needed to win that one and now Top 4 virtually impossible. A bye next week and a win needed against Carlton in Round 21 to ensure Top 6. On the positive side, with the wildcard round coming in this year, the teams in 5th & 6th positions will be significantly advantaged against 7th-10th teams and, assuming they win their elimination finals, will also be advantaged against the losing qualifying finalists.

I was going to give you a thanks emoji, but then I thought to myself that 90% of Demonlanders would surely know you don't get a compensation pick if you trade a player, that it's just a Free Agency thing 😀

It's interesting that Riley Beveridge made that point. Of course it took a decent loss where Colingwood didn't make a comeback for that to happen. Multiple Demionlanders have been saying the same thing for weeks. Still, it's nice to see the media experts coming up with something other than groupthink. The reason why Melbourne's Premiership Odds have been so high is because technically we could have missed the Top 4 and it's virtually impossible to win from there. I note on Sportsbet we're now in to $5 which reflects the fact that Top 4 is virtually guaranteed. Also of course Geelong have blown out from $8 2 weeks ago to $18 after the Freo loss. I agree with you that Collingwood's odds of $2.75 are ridiculously short. Having said that there's now a significant chance that they'll be playing Port or Brisbane in a Qualifying which will help their cause 🙁.

I was amazed Hibberd wasn't brought in to play on Dusty today. Dusty destroyed us for 3+ quarters and Hibberd has kept him quiet in the past. Hibberd had 32 disposals playing for Casey earlier today.

It's incredible how the narrative's changed over the last couple of weeks. I decided not to post anything this week until after the Richmond game. i was very unhappy about Collingwood's performance on Friday night which pretty much gifted Carlton 4 points and gave Carlton some (small) chance of getting ahead of us. Top 4 is now guaranteed for Melbourne because 2 losses will still see us in 4th. Surely a big chance at Top 2 now 😀

Yes, up to a point. But I wouldn't have used Port as an example. How many close, arguably lucky, wins have they had this year? A bit like Collingwood last year.

With Gold Coast winning today, Casey is in control of it's own Top 4 destiny. If Box Hill loses today that would be a bonus.

GC now 17 points up!

Big fightback by Gold Coast. One point the difference nearing end of the 2nd quarter!

We have picks 4, 15, 23, 34, 89 currently

2022 ended up being a tough draw partly because we were Premiers in 2021. That's as it should be. But the other reason was because the 'weak' team we were allocated was Collingwood, who finished 17th in 2021 (not a reflection of their true ability) and finished 3rd in 2022. The teams Melbourne played twice were Western Bulldogs (2nd in 2021, 8th in 2022), Port Adelaide (3rd in 2021, 11th in 2022), Brisbane (5th in 2021, 4th in 2022), Fremantle (11th in 2021, 6th in 2022) & Collingwood (17th in 2021, 3rd in 2022). So 3rd, 4th, 6th 8th & 11th. No easy opponents. At face value Melbourne had quite a good draw in 2021 (reflecting our 9th place finish in 2020), playing twice against Geelong (2nd in 2020), Western Bulldogs (7th), GWS (10th), Hawthorn (15th) & Adelaide (18th). However, those teams actually finished 4th, 2nd, 6th, 14th & 15th in 2021 so in reality Melbourne's draw ended up being quite a bit tougher. Where we were really dudded was 2020. We would have had a very easy draw since we finished 17th in 2019, but there were only 17 games (COVID year) so no easy 2nd games against weak teams.

Well we got Hawthorn twice & North twice, so 5 out of a possible 6 against the bottom 3 sides. The teams Melbourne played/plays twice are Brisbane (currently 3rd), Carlton (9th), Richmond (10th), Sydney (12th), Hawthorn (16th) & North (17th). Now I'd say Carlton & Sydney are playing better than those ladder positions would indicate but you can't complain about match-ups this year. Incomparably easier than both 2021 & 2022.

I'm surprised the 2023 2nd Round Pick would have sweetened the deal much. Based on a Top 4 finish for Freo this year it would have been about Pick 35 even before dilution from Academy & Father/Son picks, Free Agency Compensation, North Special Compensation etc. etc.

It's possible that we could make up the percentage on Brisbane, which equates to gaining on the points for & against differential of about 90 points, given we are yet to play North & Hawthorn, which would mean we only need one more win than Brisbane but I agree it's unlikely we'll win 2 more games than them with the run home. More ikely I think to make up the 2 game difference on Port. That wouldn't be a good result probably given we'd be playing Brisbane at the Gabba in a Qualifying. I still think the most likely outcome is the Top 4 in the current order. Fox Footy's views on the run home: https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-news-2023-the-run-home-after-round-19-predicted-ladder-top-eight-finals-ladder-predictor-analysis-fixture/news-story/c24b502926fb69034caba3e423f8afb5

Well, only you can aswer that question 😀

They don't deserve to win the flag right now. You deserve to win the flag if you're the best team on Grand Final day. In any case, deserving something is irrelevant. Melbourne finished 2nd in the H&A last year. Did we deserve to officially finish 5th after 2 tight finals and a knocked-up team? You need to be injury-free and get some luck in Finals. Still a long way to go. Logical to me. Looks like Collingwood-Melbourne at the MCG in one Qualifying. No home ground advantage. One of Port & Brisbane will be playing away in the other Qualifying. Melbourne would have been longer odds previously because they had to make the Top 4 first but that's now almost certainty. 20-2's a great season but the point is that they're not a 20-2 team. 20-2 teams generally dominate their opponents and I'd say right now there's not much between 1-4 and Home Ground Advantage is going to be very important. Like Melbourne. Oh, sorry I forgot. Melbourne beat Brisbane last week because Brisbane gave us the game by going negative and won this week despite Adelaide being the better team and being unlucky at the end. The fact that Collingwood wins after coming from well-back means they are an unbeatable champion team. If they are such a great team why do they need these comebacks to win games?

Realistically 4th is much more likely and probably better than 3rd (if not the even less obtainable 2nd), and at least we know now that that game will almost be certainly against Collingwood. For what it's worth (probably not much) my theory is the 4th team has the toughest QF (against the top team) and after likely losing that game has a tough SF against a team not much worse than them (5th usually) who has has had a much easier game aginst the 8th team. Then a PF against the 2nd best team and a rematch in the GF against the minor premiers (path is usually against teams 1, 5, 2 & 1!!!). Of course we knock off Collingwood and that all changes 😀 Although Port's home record in Finals is not great. We did thrash them there late last year pre-Finals. I agree. Although I really can't see Richmond as a threat next weekend. The good thing is we'll know the result of the Queensland & South Australian derbies before we play.

I agree entirely. I see this as a 2-step process. We trade up for GCS' pick (which I'm estimating at 6) because they'll definitely be trading that out for points, and then possibly try and package 4 and 6 to get higher. I'd have no problem if we kept 4 & 6 although ofcourseeven those picks will be diluted with Walter likely to go at 2. It's really easy to say this in retrospect. Did anyone have Freo missing the 8 this year? Freo may have overrated their list but they weren't alone. I think the general view was they were a big chance of Top 4. There was also a widespread view that Melbourne were being dudded because Freo's 1st round pick was so low in 2022 and that was all they could offer. Jacko was a Pick 3 after all.