South of the Yarra
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- Jul 23, 2006
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Looking way off the mark
Opinion Collingwood and Richmond, who finishes higher in 2023?
- Thread starter White Dogg
- Start date
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Looking way off the mark
Absolutely spot on. Richmond are stupidly overrated and about where they belong on the ladder. A long way off the best in Swans, Pies and Demons.
Yeah, I put my hand up that I got both teams wrong for this year. I still think my analysis of Collingwood last year was correct btw. They are a better side this year. However, that was based on winning clearances and getting plenty of ball forward and the run off half back being a cherry on top, rather than the whole cake. However, that is going to be a challenge over the next two months. I also think the best way to beat Collingwood is to continue to attack them. Sure, they'll make you pay for some mistakes when you turn it over, but their half backs push so high and look to run forward all the time so you will hurt them back the other way. If you do it enough, like Brisbane did, they will start to question themselves and get caught in no mans land a bit.
Only Round 5 champ, lots of time to go. Pies looking like March premiers - plenty of time to fall off the cliff.
- Apr 24, 2013
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So just quietly tip-toeing around your ‘Tiges top 4 - lock it in‘ prediction?
As I said, plenty of water to go under the bridge yet. We've had a murderously tough start to the year, compounded by injuries, but I'm confident we'll bounce back. Lock it in
- Nov 1, 2021
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Collingwood > Richmond
- Jan 17, 2013
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- GWS
We are loving the Tigers start to the year… our draft pick is looking better and better!
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Maybe they didn't anticipate Tarrant Nankervis/Soldo Lynch Graham Broad Short and some depth players missing.
Or a few of the senior players like Grimes, Cotchin, Vlastuin, Prestia looking below even their best of 2022.
Or Balta playing schizophrenically.
Or the two new mids finding it so hard to gel within the midfield.
I think clubs generally rely on having a good mass of players in the 23-30yo age bracket who do most of the heavy lifting and provide most of the structure for the team. We are a little thin in talent in this broad age range.
The group we have is:
Prestia - well below last years excellent form
Lynch - probably our best and most important player, his injury has probably cost a decent chance of winning the last 2 games.
Broad - 3 games into a 4 match suspension, not a structural player but nevertheless an important part of the defence.
McIntosh - going as well as we would have expected
Vlastuin - playing reasonably but quite a bit below his previous best
Nankervis/Soldo - the club's only two viable first rucks at this point, being injured together obviously exposes players who are not up to being first ruck at this point.
Short - missed a string of games through injury and we seemed to be struggling to find the right role for him even when he was playing.
Hopper - going well enough but some predictable teething issues fitting into a new midfield.
Taranto - same as Hopper
Graham - like Broad not a structural player or a high class player but important to the way the team functions, now missing injured
Bolton - similar to a few of the others, doing ok but seems a bit below his brilliant best overall.
Balta - doing some amazing things. Trouble is some are amazingly good, and some are amazingly bad.
D Rioli - going well.
Baker - going well.
For Richmond to be a top 4 team, probably at least 10 of these players would need to be near their known best together. But the 10 would have to include the crucial structural players Lynch and Nankervis.
Lynch, Broad, McIntosh, Nankervis, Rioli, Baker are probably the only ones that when they have played they have been near their best, and obviously injuries and suspensions have limited the impact of some of this group to now - and will do for the foreseeable future.
The groups of players who are older and younger than this age bracket have probably been placed under too much pressure by the malfunctions within the core of the team listed above.
Last night was Richmond's worse loss in terms of margin for almost 2 seasons, but it was a very bad one because the Swans obviously carried their own issues into the fixture.
The rest need to lift, gel better or recover from injuries. But as a collective this group of 14 carried our main hopes of being a top 4 team this year, and given on the whole they have struggled for differing reasons, so has the team.
Next week is not looking pretty for Richmond. After that the draw gets a bit easier and maybe some players like Broad, Graham, Short will return. So you wouldn't completely rule us out yet, but with Nankervis and Lynch missing longer term and likely to be below their best when they do return, it is looking a bit grim for us this year.
For once things are not falling into place for us in this regard, but I wouldn't go factoring in a top 4 pick just yet GP.
- Jan 17, 2013
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I’ve already factored us picking up picks one and two!
- Sep 14, 2005
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The scary thing is they weren’t trolling. They genuinely believed it.
- Sep 14, 2005
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With all due respect, you’re doing it all over again. You are predicting that if Team A attacks against Team B, Team A will have a better chance of winning. That’s not groundbreaking, nor is it insightful. Your basis around Brisbane beating Collingwood doesn’t factor in the GABBA being the hardest interstate trip in football where the Lions are 37 wins and 3 losses in the last 40 H&A games.
Collingwood’s game style isn’t anything super human, but it’s very hard to stop, as is evident with their 16 wins and 6 losses last year then 3 wins and 1 loss so far this year. Sure, there’ll be a few more losses but at this stage, the feel is there’ll be a lot more wins than losses. Not even Geelong last year was completely unbeatable and only they only had 2 fewer losses than Melbourne, Sydney and Collingwood.
They still think it’s the 2017-19 versions of Martin, Grimes, Cotchin, Prestia, Pickett etc running around. They probably think Rance still plays for them too. Not surprisingly GWS’ 4th and 5th best midfielders aren’t putting them back in premiership contention.
Percentages mean nothing.
I tend to go by wins & losses but each to their own.
The weird part of all is some of those blokes have been in decline for over a year so it's not as if this was the first time the cracks were beginning to appear. Unless they did not watch many Richmond matches.
- Jul 16, 2013
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Richmond look done and dusted.
So slow.
So slow.
Grand Uncle Horace
Shake down the thunder
I think they will pick up if they get a break with their injuries.
Before the season I predicted they will miss the 8 along with Footscray. Reckon they will get on a run at some stage when Lynch returns. They were competitive against a decent team on Friday.
Yep, I saw this a mile off. Guys like Cotchin are done. They might look on on paper but just aren’t a good player anymore
White Dogg
Senior List
- Nov 26, 2012
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Done and Dustied.
Will still struggle to make the 8 from where they are now.
- Dec 9, 2015
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RichLeMonde
Club Legend
Remember a few years ago when Hawthorn jagged a top 4 finish, deluded themselves that they were still in the premietship window, and went the player top up route? Amd how it set them back about 5 years? Leading to them being stone cold motherless last with a % of 69 now?
Yeah well if it’s good enough for the Hawks, it’s good enough for us!
Yeah well if it’s good enough for the Hawks, it’s good enough for us!
So the best way for a team to beat Collingwood is to attack and hurt them more than they make a team pay for their mistakes. More succinctly, the best way to beat Collingwood is indeed to outscore them. I suspected as much when Brisbane's score was higher than Collingwood's a few weeks ago, it's just hard to come to a confident conclusion on such a small sample size.
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