Can Richmond still be a contender this season?

[roacheee]

Will make the 8 but won’t win the flag unfortunately.

how do you know?

 

[roacheee]

I think we miss top 4 but def play finals. On current form of all teams we'll lose 5 more till the end of season barring no surprise win or loss.
crows (in adeliade), cats, giants, eagles & pies. This gives us 15 wins and a 6-8 spot.
I think we can do some damage as long as we are not travelling to Perth

when did 15 wins get any team 6th-8th?

 

[prodigy1311]

when did 15 wins get any team 6th-8th?

since i did the predictor an hour ago.! On current form cats, giants pies & eagles are the top 4 with 17-20 wins.
which leaves port, us, ess & stk. I think we are better than all 4 of them but port gets to 5th based on %.
Hope am wrong and we finish top 4..!

 

[Squibbs]

since i did the predictor an hour ago.! On current form cats, giants pies & eagles are the top 4 with 17-20 wins.
which leaves port, us, ess & stk. I think we are better than all 4 of them but port gets to 5th based on %.
Hope am wrong and we finish top 4..!

no way all those teams get close to 17-20 wins. teams drop games, have injuries, and have form slumps, usually the team in first has 16-18 wins max, and 2/3/4 are from 15-17.

if we go well over this stretch until the bye, and are like 9-4 or 10-3, we will likely make top 4

 

[Squibbs]

West Coast for example are 3-3 with a bad percentage due to 2 bad losses in a row, for them to finish with 17 wins and a top 2 spot/home final they'll need to go 14-2 from here. every round matters when there's only 22 games, after round 4 they were looking a lock for top 2, now its an uphill battle.

 

[prodigy1311]

no way all those teams get close to 17-20 wins. teams drop games, have injuries, and have form slumps, usually the team in first has 16-18 wins max, and 2/3/4 are from 15-17.

if we go well over this stretch until the bye, and are like 9-4 or 10-3, we will likely make top 4

I hope that is the case. Yes form & injuries play a part. my predictions were on current form which can change over the course.
For eg. cats are playing great footy and on current form am not sure who will beat them. Pies don't travel much and they too are playing really well at the moment. Eagles are just going but their draw opens up for the next month and they'd be sitting 6-3 with lots of games at optus.

In my view, we are the 5th best team as it stands. it may change over the course and i bloody hope so...

 

[Bazzar]

3rd best at the moment. Cats and Pies above us.

 

[prodigy1311]

3rd best at the moment. Cats and Pies above us.

Giants?

 

[Bazzar]

Giants?

Still inconsistent. Shouldn't have lost to Freo in Canberra. The addition of Ross, Stack, Baker, Bolton and George getting his high pressure mojo back has taken us back to 2017 pressure levels. I think were in terrific early season condition considering the amount of injuries

 

[roacheee]

since i did the predictor an hour ago.!

lol

 

[Madtiger2006]

Still inconsistent. Shouldn't have lost to Freo in Canberra. The addition of Ross, Stack, Baker, Bolton and George getting his high pressure mojo back has taken us back to 2017 pressure levels. I think were in terrific early season condition considering the amount of injuries

Yep. A much different lineup that played collingwood the other week

 

[Michaels]

Amazing to think we could be in the top 4 at the end of this round after the players we have had out.

Full credit to the club for how they have gone about their footy this last month.

 

[damicky]

Amazing to think we could be in the top 4 at the end of this round after the players we have had out.

Full credit to the club for how they have gone about their footy this last month.

Well, obviously that didn’t happen.

Last night was extremely disappointing ... did we expect too much after the performances over the previous 3 weeks?

 

[Tiges1229]

Amazing to think we could be in the top 4 at the end of this round after the players we have had out.

Full credit to the club for how they have gone about their footy this last month.

Say that again

 

[Michaels]

Say that again

I did say could.

 

[Tiges1229]

I did say could.

Lose next week and we could be 14 th .

 

[theyellowsash]

It's pretty clear this year is over, what we need to be doing now is playing the kids and trying to predict what the winning gameplan will be in 5 years time (and hoping lynch comes good) to have another crack.

Weller must be relegated to the VFL and menadue and markov shown the door. guys like grigg and houli playing their farewell tours (deservedly so for servants of the club), and guys like broad, Ellis, castagna, rioli made to earn their spots. Garthwaite, moore and graham need to play every game when fit to get games into them (and guve them a proper chance to prove they might make it), and guys like Naish need to be the first called in when more Injuries strike.

 

[BF Tiger]

Feels a bit like 2017 at the moment. We didn’t have the 5-0 start but remember we were then 5-4 at one point.

I look back on 2017 with hindsight and I can see we had all the pieces but we just had to work out the best fit and how to use them together.

So drawing a parallel to 2017 with Rioli, Townsend, Graham, Castagna, Butler, Prestia, McIntosh, Broad, Nank this year we have the likes of Lynch,Stack, Ross, Balta, Baker, Higgins, Naish,... who all have the opportunity to be worked in and around our current players to get the best side out there.

 

[Coach_Required]

Feels a bit like 2017 at the moment. We didn’t have the 5-0 start but remember we were then 5-4 at one point.

I look back on 2017 with hindsight and I can see we had all the pieces but we just had to work out the best fit and how to use them together.

So drawing a parallel to 2017 with Rioli, Townsend, Graham, Castagna, Butler, Prestia, McIntosh, Broad, Nank this year we have the likes of Lynch,Stack, Ross, Balta, Baker, Higgins, Naish,... who all have the opportunity to be worked in and around our current players to get the best side out there.

I'd like to agree but with our long term injured players its going to be a grind. Still think the worst is yet to come.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

I think it is tough to get a serious crack at it when you have so much leadership missing large chunks of footy. But we get Astbury back next week(sorely missed v Mutts) then Cotchin a hopefully couple of weeks later, then Riewoldt hopefully later in the season and these are crucial structural players. I didn't really understand why the selectors lost Riewoldt and Astbury this week, two key position players and replaced them with two running players, Menadue and Bolton. They must have had something in mind but we ended up very badly exposed in defence and struggling in the air in attack as well.

Hopefully the club can burgle enough wins to be still in play if these guys all come back anywhere near their best, because it will make a massive difference. I am sticking to my earlier post Rance injury assessment of 12-13 wins to scrape the 8 being a very decent achievement and if you get to the finals these days and hit your straps at the right time you can challenge from any position. But just for that to happen needs a lot to go right. Keep rotating some running players to keep them fresh and hungry and I agree with posters saying get what games we can justify into the youngsters.

 

[Bazzar]

We could be full strength (with Rance) and only need to finish 5th or 6th and anything can happen.

 

[Jono_Hain97]

Feels a bit like 2017 at the moment. We didn’t have the 5-0 start but remember we were then 5-4 at one point.

I look back on 2017 with hindsight and I can see we had all the pieces but we just had to work out the best fit and how to use them together.

So drawing a parallel to 2017 with Rioli, Townsend, Graham, Castagna, Butler, Prestia, McIntosh, Broad, Nank this year we have the likes of Lynch,Stack, Ross, Balta, Baker, Higgins, Naish,... who all have the opportunity to be worked in and around our current players to get the best side out there.

2017 was such a different feel to it though. Barring the Adelaide game (and the first half of that st kilda debacle at Etihad) we were ultra competitive! When we have lost this year we have gotten blown away and performed incredibly poorly. Premiership threats don’t have those types of losses on a regular basis

 

[JAKLAUGHING]

Finito...I'd rather close shop and play the youngsters...
Tank for a pick...
Not interested in busting our cotches, jr, Grimes, etc just to be the first side flicked out of the finals...
Rance, dusty, cotch, jr have done a power of work over the past years to keep us competitive and its finally caught up with them.
Imo flogged them all last year in trying to do b2b without proper player management.
**** just waiting for Grimes ham strings to ping...

 

[Sol23]

Can’t see us winning it tbh, might make finals but doubt we go far. You can’t be flogged by gws,pies and dogs like we have...they are all better sides at this point. Unfortunately injuries have crippled us but on a side note it’s good to see the young kids getting games.

 

[rfctigerarmy]

I can't see us beating Collingwood, Geelong and Essendon based on this years form so far. All three, I think, are above us.

We're probably just below GWS, West Coast, too.

Still a long way to go, with plenty of upside so who knows.