Bring-Back-Powell

If all results go according to the odds this week, my educated guess for the following week 1 schedule. Thu night - Port (5) V Essendon (8) - Adelaide Oval Fri night - Adelaide (1) V GWS (4) - Adelaide Oval Sat - Sydney (6) V Melbourne (7) - SCG (game to start at 3:20pm) Sat (n) - Geelong (2) V Richmond (3) - MCG

On the assumption that we beat Collingwood (fingers crossed!): Hopefully Geelong beat GWS by about 15 points and Richmond beat St Kilda by about 15 points, which would mean a Geelong (2nd) V Richmond (3rd) qualifying final. Why is this good for us you ask? Because if we were to somehow beat Sydney in week 1, we would be 1000% guaranteed an MCG finals for week 2. I'm not even thinking about the dream result of Richmond losing to St Kilda. They'll surely be too professional to screw up a top 4 chance.

We're way more injury depleted than them.

Saturday 26 August Summary Min 8 Max 15 Partly cloudy. Possible rainfall: 0 mm Chance of any rain: 10%

Some final round disasters from yesteryear, to make us feel all warm and fuzzy prior to the game: 1998: Geelong V Essendon, MCG. Essendon were 12-9 and Geelong were 8-13 which is pretty much the records of Melb and Coll this weekend. Essendon had to win to secure a finals berth. Geelong stunned them by 10 points. Essendon then had to rely on Richmond doing a Richmond and losing to the Dees the next day. Luckily for the Dons, the Wizard kicked 6, took mark of the year, we won by 75 points and Essendon just snuck into finals. 1997: Melbourne V Fremantle, MCG Carlton and Freo were on equal wins but Carlton had the slighty better percentage. So if Freo won and Carlton lost (which they did to Richmond) then Freo would replace Brisbane in the finals. Freo were playing the horrible 3 win Melbourne side so it would be a fait accomply for the Dockers right? Wrong as they chocked by 40 points as us Dee fans enjoyed a rare day out. The Dockers missed the finals despite playing the wooden spooners. 1997: Carlton V Richmond, Princes Park The biggest disaster of the 3 by far, which happened on the same day as the Melb V Freo game. All Carlton had to do was look at the scoreboard at 3 qtr time and they would've noticed that Freo were down by 36 points to Melbourne and therefore out of the finals race. Carlton win and they replace Brisbane in the 8. The Blues held a 14 point lead over the Tigers who were in the bottom 4 at the end of 1997 and had Mad Monday on their mind. Yet somehow Carlton produced the biggest choke job you could imagine as the Tigers over-ran them by 2 points on their home turf. End result - Carlton and Freo both miss finals despite playing sides who were done for the season. Fortunately there have been no recent example of the above kind of choke jobs. Let's hope we come switched on come Saturday.

Lewis or Salem. On a side note, we are the most accurate side in the league at 58%. Next best is Brisbane at 56%. Dogs worst at 46%. I think we've only kicked more behinds than goals against Geelong, Sydney and North at Hobart. Excellent effort.

On the flip side, our double up games have been against Carlton, Collingwood, North Melbourne, Adelaide and St Kilda. Only one of which is in the top 8.

I'm grateful for making the trip down to Hobart Vs North....

For the record our last 5 games of 1987: Brisbane (5 wins -12 losses at the time) - 54 pt win Richmond (4-14) - 19 point win Collingwood (6-13) - 55 point win West Coast (10-10) 61 point win Bulldogs (11-9-1) 15 point win A much better form line compared to our patchy end to this year. EDIT - didn't notice the table above already had a summary of our 1987 season.

I think we can win the next 2 games by an aggregate of 100 points. 60 points V Collingwood. 40 points V Sydney (elimination final, SCG)

I'd rather play Richmond so I can attend the game more so than they are beatable. We struggle against sides that apply great pressure, and Richmond are one of those. We lost to Sydney, Adelaide and GWS in the second of the year because of the pressure they applied to us.

$1,500 fine. Another low level offence this year and he'll automatically be suspended for 1 week. Bernard a bit lucky as this is the fourth time he's been found guilty this year.

Was hoping GWS would beat WCE by more but beggars can't be choosers. We can still make the finals by losing to Brisbane AND Collingwood, right? 1) We lose both by very small margins. 2) Dogs lose to Hawks 3) Saints lose to Richmond and don't beat north by a million points. 4) West Coast lose to Adelaide by a few goals. Hopefully the players don't get complacent and read the above scenario as it would be a disappointing but feasible way to make it.

Who do we hope wins out of Dogs and Port tomorrow? If Port win, we can probably afford to lose 1 game as Dogs can't go ahead of us. Win both games and we'd finish 7th and play either Port of Sydney away (the side that has the smaller win next week). Lose and finish 8th and hope Port finish 5th. If Dogs win, we probably have to win both games. But most importantly if we do win both games, we'd play Port over there as they'd finish 6th and us 7th.

But what if Port also win their next 2 games while absolutely thumping a rabble in GC. They'll end up with a better percentage than Sydney with the final ladder as follows: 5) Port 6) Sydney 7) Melbourne

Not necessarily. If port beat the dogs tomorrow, then thump GC next week they could finish 5th and Sydney 6th.

Honest Carlton, as in they haven't really copped too many 10+ goal losses. Not for the other things you mentioned. I expect Sydney to beat Carlton by just 7-9 goals.

Yes they will, but wouldn't you think the margin of Port V GC would be greater than Sydney v Carlton? Given that Gold Coast are a coachless rabble at the moment without Lynch and Ablett and Port are flat trackers.

You'd imagine Port would smash GC more than Sydney over Carlton. Hence Port finishing 5th.

If Port beat WB this week and IF (a big if) we win all our remaining games, I reckon we play Sydney (6th) in Sydney. Port have the biggest percentage booster (GC at home) you could ever imagine in round 23 so should finish above Sydney who will host an honest Carlton to end the H&A. I'm assuming Geelong and Richmond will stay top 4.

Can you not do a conference call rather than flying all the way there?

So far the AFL have sort of indicated that a Thursday night final would be most likely played in Adelaide. There's a belief that Thu night footy is better suited to Adelaide or Perth. So if we played Port, I'll take a punt and say we'd be playing them on the Thu night. I reckon they would put Adelaide v's Geelong or Richmond on the Friday night. If we play Sydney, I have a gut feel it will be a Saturday arvo at the SCG or possibly night. They never have an elimination final on a Friday night. **Knock on wood we make it**

As long as the umpiring was at 85-90% then the AFL will tick it the game off as well umpired. Whether our game was at that level is an unknown.

After all our MCG woes of earlier in the year, we've actually evened the ledger at 5-5. After the North loss, we were a disturbing 1-4 but have since won 4 of the last 5 there.

Looks as though Brayshaw took his spot on the weekend as the small-medium half back flank and smashed whatever Salem's produced for a fair majority of the year. I don't have Salem returning for the rest of the year. He's two games vs North and GWS, combined with his 2 suspensions throughout the year will cost him.