Bring-Back-Powell

Oliver and Brayshaw have both been playing career best footy since Viney went out of the side after the Freo game. A coincidence?

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-08-08/giants-eye-finals-return-for-injured-veteran Simpson has been ruled out for the rest of the season, with Greene and Taylor likely to join Deledio in pressing for a return during the finals,

Not doubting you but I thought the reports said Greene could miss at little as 2 matches.

Who's having a better season? Watts or Fritsch?

I'm actually starting to think Melksham won't return till the WC game. Jones kind of hinted we'll be conservative with him in his presser today.

I hope I don't get in trouble for this but I copied and pasted directly from Bigfooty's West Coast forum: 1) So I’ve got a mate who’s family is I think married in to JK and they are pretty close with him. Don’t shoot the messenger and I was skeptical when they all told me but they were very confident that JK is out for the season. Again take it with a grain of salt because I have no idea whether they are assuming or have heard it from the great man himself but I thought I would pass on the message. 2) I've heard they dont have a time frame for his return and he wont play until finals at the earliest, club is keeping tight lipped.

Could it be that we have an 8-4 record interstate since the start of 2017? As opposed to a losing record at the MCG in that same period.

Except Geelong can overtake us on percentage if we both finish on 13 wins. As I said earlier, I had Geelong beating GC and Freo by a combined 200 points, thus overtaking us on percentage.

We haven't beaten a top 8 side, but geez that Adelaide win at Adelaide Oval well and truly stacks up, considering we were 20 points down in the second quarter. And then Adelaide's big win on the weekend.

Hope you're right. But Geez, neither side will be much of an opposition. And can you imagine how non-competitive GC will be on the road in their final game of the year in hostile territory.

OK i get your drift. Yes can see North and Geelong winning all 3. Can see Port beating WC and Ess at home. Can see Collingwood easily winning 2. Can see Hawthorn beating St Kilda and Sydney Can see Sydney beating Melbourne and GWS Under the above scenario, if we only beat GWS we play finals to knock them out provided they lose the next 2. If we beat WCE (but lose the other 2), remarkably we'd miss finals if all of the above results happened.

Problem is a couple of 4 goal losses to us and our percentage will drop right down. Geelong are going to do some serious serious damage in the last fortnight down at the Cattery in terms of winning margin. I did the ladder predictor which has Geelong overtaking us on percentage with 2 100 point wins.

An amazing sequence of events would have to happen for us to miss the finals on 13 wins.

On the assumption we win 13 games: I actually hope Geelong beats Hawthorn this week. Geelong are going to [censored] Freo and GC in the last 2 rounds to the point where they could leap frog us on percentage if we finish on 13 wins, so you may as well given them 14 wins. The good part about Hawthorn losing to Geelong is that they play Sydney in the final game. The loser of that game will likely fall below us on the ladder with 13 wins in the event that Sydney beat either us or GWS.

I had a horror scenario that saw us missing the 8 on 13 wins with a win over Sydney. North beating Adelaide in Adelaide to win 14 games. Geelong winning their last 2 games at home against GC and Freo by 100 points in both games, and leapfrogging us on percentage. RICH 18-4 WCE 16-6 GWS 15-6-1 Haw 15-7 Coll 15-7 Port 14-8 North 14-8 Geel 13-9 (128%) -------------------------------- Melb 13-9 (127%)

Bruce - “Geelong came out winners out of this” Except for the fact that if they lose to Hawthorn next week they’ll probably miss finals. Hope Chris Scott enjoyed that one.

So if Hawks beat Geelong next week and we can snag 2 wins we’ll almost certainly finish ahead of them.

I feel dirty barracking for Richmond but it’s gotta be done!

For anyone that cares: INS- Ah Chee, Spencer, Hanley, Leslie, Dawson OUTS - Thompson, May, Swallow, Lyons, Joyce. Fair to say that's quite a net loss from the Suns. Hanley's a good player, Ah Chee's ok but who are the other 3??

Heaven help us if he was originally drafted to that mob.

If we want to scrape into the 8, then it has to be Collingwood. If we want top 4 then it has to be Sydney.

Thought on this from Damo Barrett's Sliding Doors column on the AFL website: If Viney, Hibberd and Melksham don't get back soon ... then we fear that the stage will be set for another season-ending, final-round horror show.

From memory VDB is almost impossible to tackle. I reckon that's his main asset.

The irony is if North replace us in the finals we would've actually beaten a top 8 side but miss finals. Conversely if we only beat Sydney and GC (but make the finals) on the run home, then we'll go into finals not beating a top 8 side. I will spew if North make finals but we don't.

So St Kilda have one of their worst seasons in recent decades and leapfrog us? Doesn't make sense. Carlton have 56K members and probably 8K of them will turn up on Sunday,