RussellEbertHandball
Flick pass expert
Richmond straight thru to the PF under the QF1 scenario played at their home the MCG.Predicted Week 1 of finals:
QF1 Geelong vs Richmond
QF2 Brisbane vs West Coast
I think it will be WCE who finish 2nd instead of Brisbane. That is a massive difference who gets the home QF.
WCE home QF in front of about 59,200 rapid Eagles fans vs 800 Lions fans will be near impossible for the young Lions to win. A home QF and win, followed by a home PF win, makes a premiership defence a s**t load easier.
Brisbane finish 2nd, then WCE have to travel back an forth for 5 hours. Brisbane have played 12 home finals and have won them all. They have only played sides from Victoria and SA and have had a big weather advantage (heat and humidity) over teams from those states and that has helped them have a 100% finals win record at the Gabba. They wont have big a weather advantage against the WCE. It was 23 yesterday in Perth.
So if Brisbane continue their 100% home finals win record, WCE then play a semi final in Perth and then fly to the MCG to play Richmond under my scenario above. That is a lot tougher premiership defence route than hosting Brisbane in Perth.
Its why I keep saying Top 4 isn't that big a deal. 4th spot is bloody tough to win a flag from. Its top 2 that is what is important to give you the best chance to win a flag.
We have a side good enough to finish 4th, even with that stretch of 5 to 8 of our best 22 out with injuries and we went 2W - 4L between Rd 7 to 13. We stuffed up games outside that stretch, where we lost because a combo of dumb forward player selections and dumb players just bombing the ball inside 50 when we had short or no forwards. But finishing 4th doesn't achieve much.
I reckon the top 4 will end up being
1. Geelong 15 wins + beat Brisbane (Gab) beat Carl (KP) = 17 wins
2. WCE 15 + lose to Richmond (MCG) beat Haw (PS) = 16 wins
3. Rich 14 + beat WCE (MCG) + beat Brisbane (MCG) = 16 wins
4. Bris 15 + lose to Geelong (Gab) + loose to Richmond (MCG) = 15 wins
I can't see Richmond making up 9% gap on WCE, they are behind at the moment.
So Geelong beat Brisbane and WCE beat Richmond in QF's and then in PF's Richmond beat Geelong and WCE beat Brisbane and 2019 GF is between two teams that should have played in 2018 GF.