Devil's Advocate

[pjcrows]

OK. We're all gutted. I feel worse now than if we had've lost yesterday, actually.

But I will play the devil's advocate - 3 weeks ago when we played Essendon, we should've buried them by more than 10 goals. We let them in with some easy goals and should have taken the opportunity. Against Richmond, we should have buried them by at least 80 or 90 points.

I remember saying at the time that it could cost us in the end.

 

[kirky]

OK. We're all gutted. I feel worse now than if we had've lost yesterday, actually.

But I will play the devil's advocate - 3 weeks ago when we played Essendon, we should've buried them by more than 10 goals. We let them in with some easy goals and should have taken the opportunity. Against Richmond, we should have buried them by at least 80 or 90 points.

I remember saying at the time that it could cost us in the end.

I wasn't here at the time but what about our earlier game in the year against Essendon. Should have kicked straight and this wouldn't happen.

Perhaps it karma for Porps goal yesterday. At least thats off the radar now given today's outcome.

At the moment I am devastated.

 

[raikkonen]

If that game was at the G' in the wet....but at the dome. Of course it was. Perfect, all set up for Saints, and then they just asked Essendon to ben dover, and as a Vic would, they did.

 

[subaru]

There is an up side to this

1. We would not have beaten Geelong - I know - if it bleeds you can kill it - but let's be realistic
2. We play at home against a side that NEVER travels and is doing it two weeks in a row coming back from the West after losing badly - confidence would have to be dented
3. If we beat the Pies - we probably play Dogs/ Saints - both of whom would have LOST the week before- confidence factor again - Saints probably by shitloads - better to come off a win than a loss.
4. It would be good to get at least 1 finals win under the belts of the young guys rather than possible straight sets losses - again...

I am personally happier to finish 5th

 

[footy4ever]

Was pretty annoyed by the debacle this arvo, but in retrospect, I'm sticking to what I originally believed(before I was pursuaded otherwise)...Lets be real...Crows would have to start now, to beat Geelong or Hawks. This one is not our year.

I like the idea of playing a knockout first up at home. If we get knocked out first up...meh, Power supporters get their jollies for a little while.

But if we win (more likely than not), I would rather get to the same place (next final) as a winner, rather than coming off a probable demoralising loss to the best team in the comp.

Too bad if it means playing at the G, you gotta play and win the big one there anyway, you might as well get familiar with it at finals time.

 

[Cap]

I don't know if I can post in this thread

I'm not gutted

 

[lincsPJ]

I don't know if I can post in this thread

I'm not gutted

course you can post.. just say "id rather play our first final (which is now a knockout final) at home than our 2nd final.. which i'd rather us play in melbourne."

 

[DJ75]

I have to agree that I'm not overly worried. In the end if we win our games we avoid Geelong until the GF! At that point anything can happen.
The reality is that we are not really a premiership team. We are developing. If we can win a final that will be great, but I don't expect much after that.
Hopefully we beat Collingwood. After that we are at least a 50/50 chance of beating either St. Kilda or Bulldogs. My main concern with that is that we will probably play them at the Tesltra Dome which is the ground these guys are best at.
If we were to win that we would be less than 50 % Chance of beating Hawks.

The reality is, a home final win and then another final in Melb will be great for the development of our team and will no doubt help us when we are playing for a premiership on 2010 - 12.

Whatever happens, at the start of the year EVERYBODY had us missing the finals. Some thought bottom four (for the 3rd year in a row ). Essentially I think if we finished 5th at the end of it all, that is the maximum from this current group. You can't ask for more than that.

 

[perthcrowsfan]

I feel low also. Watching the Bombers today in the last quarter I felt sick. They looked like a team who thought "well if we can't win then lets help another Vic team get over an interstate side". My sons Auskick side would have played better than Essendon. Sure we probably wouldn't beat the Cats but I would like to lose to them now and then not see them again until the Grand Final.

 

[relapse]

There is an up side to this

1. We would not have beaten Geelong - I know - if it bleeds you can kill it - but let's be realistic
2. We play at home against a side that NEVER travels and is doing it two weeks in a row coming back from the West after losing badly - confidence would have to be dented
3. If we beat the Pies - we probably play Dogs/ Saints - both of whom would have LOST the week before- confidence factor again - Saints probably by shitloads - better to come off a win than a loss.
4. It would be good to get at least 1 finals win under the belts of the young guys rather than possible straight sets losses - again...

I am personally happier to finish 5th

I think you need to understand the finals system

top 4 ensures that you only need to win 1 game to make a prelim final and even if we lost against Geelong we would have ensured a home final against a 5-8 side to make a prelim.

Whereas now we have to win at home and then try and win away against either St Kilda or Geelong in Melbourne just to make a prelim.

Finishing 5th has basically ensured that we wont be making a prelim. Bookmark it if you want, but someone saying that 5th is better than 4th obviously doesn't understand the finals system.

 

[Damp Squarie]

I feel low also. Watching the Bombers today in the last quarter I felt sick. They looked like a team who thought "well if we can't win then lets help another Vic team get over an interstate side".

It certainly looked like Essendon had no interest in the game. No chase, poor skills, bad decision making, they tanked...no doubt about it.

 

[jenny61_99]

I think you need to understand the finals system

top 4 ensures that you only need to win 1 game to make a prelim final and even if we lost against Geelong we would have ensured a home final against a 5-8 side to make a prelim.

Whereas now we have to win at home and then try and win away against either St Kilda or Geelong in Melbourne just to make a prelim.

Finishing 5th has basically ensured that we wont be making a prelim. Bookmark it if you want, but someone saying that 5th is better than 4th obviously doesn't understand the finals system.

They never said 5th is better than 4th, just that they are happy that we finished 5th and for a whole host of perfectly logical reasons.

We all know the double chance was the way to go, however we also all knew we'd lose the first game (as much as some of us dreamed we'd pull off a miracle) and have to face up to whoever in the second game at home in an elimination final. There's really no difference, we've just skipped the inevitable loss in the first game, and jumped straight to a half a chance in the second.

 

[natty]

let me state a realistic fact, we would have not beaten Geelong this week.

ok

so if we finished 4th we would play a guaranteed home final in the second week which would mean if we are good to play a prelim.


by finishing 5th

we get a guaranteed home final week 1 but if we lose we are curtains for 08.

if we win we play an away game in Victoria against the Saints most likely.

Note they will be coming off a 6 day break against the cats thumping too.


lol this will be so funny if the cats lose do we play them in week 2? I would be prepared to bank half of adelaide that we would lose to them.

 

[subaru]

I think you need to understand the finals system

top 4 ensures that you only need to win 1 game to make a prelim final and even if we lost against Geelong we would have ensured a home final against a 5-8 side to make a prelim.

Whereas now we have to win at home and then try and win away against either St Kilda or Geelong in Melbourne just to make a prelim.

Finishing 5th has basically ensured that we wont be making a prelim. Bookmark it if you want, but someone saying that 5th is better than 4th obviously doesn't understand the finals system.

Mate - I understand the finals sytem perfectly well but anyone who thinks we had a snowballs of beating Geeelong is kidding themselves.

Take Geelong out of the equation and it is different scenario - therefore finishing 4th of course would be better.

 

[Truck Rutten]

Some of you are not comprehending the system as explained by Relapse. If we'd finished 4th and lost to Geelong, we then get a home final against one of the lower ranked finalists. Finishing 5th, even if we get over Collingwood we then have to play away against one of the top 4 finishers. It's a massive difference. I'm not sure of the exact percentage but since the introduction of this current final 8 system, the teams that finish top 4 pretty much always play off in the prelims.

 

[Alex99]

Mate - I understand the finals sytem perfectly well but anyone who thinks we had a snowballs of beating Geeelong is kidding themselves.

Take Geelong out of the equation and it is different scenario - therefore finishing 4th of course would be better.

In a 2 horse race, the odds had to be better than a snowball – no one is unbeatable, doesn’t matter how good everyone believes they are.

 

[subaru]

Some of you are not comprehending the system as explained by Relapse. If we'd finished 4th and lost to Geelong, we then get a home final against one of the lower ranked finalists. Finishing 5th, even if we get over Collingwood we then have to play away against one of the top 4 finishers. It's a massive difference. I'm not sure of the exact percentage but since the introduction of this current final 8 system, the teams that finish top 4 pretty much always play off in the prelims.

The table may just as well be divided top 2 then the next 6 - If it was a clearly defined top 4 with say 3 games separating them from the rest then I would agree - but it isn't.


We are playing a final against the 8th team - at home.


Then we play a loser who is not that far up the table than Crows are - Dogs who we just beat and Saints who got there on a sniff of % .

Would get belted by Cats and probably lose to Hawks - let's at least win 1 final in a year no-one expected to even be there!


Like Jenny said - hopefully we just skip the inevitable loss .

 

[Bacon8]

I'm happy to beat Collingwood, and play Saints @ MCG for a bit of revenge. Win that, and it's either Hawks (nice given last year), or the Dogs (to repeat 98 even more) in the Prelim.

While I would've loved a 4th placed finish, 5th isn't so bad.

It's not all doom and gloom, and even if we do lose, it's good for the kids to see finals pressure. And then we won't lose a GF by 119 points!

 

[Bacon8]

The table may just as well be divided top 2 then the next 6 - If it was a clearly defined top 4 with say 3 games separating them from the rest then I would agree - but it isn't.


We are playing a final against the 8th team - at home.


Then we play a loser who is not that far up the table than Crows are - Dogs who we just beat and Saints who got there on a sniff of % .

Would get belted by Cats and probably lose to Hawks - let's at least win 1 final in a year no-one expected to even be there!


Like Jenny said - hopefully we just skip the inevitable loss .

So, if we beat Collingwood, are you saying we are playing 2 games?? Against Saints AND the Dogs...

If we beat Pies, we play loser of Cats/Saints... the Dogs/Hawks game doesn't matter until the following week (which we play the winner of that game)

 

[Vader]

To be honest, I don't think it makes that much difference whether we finished 4th or 5th.

Having finished 5th, the scenario we face is a home final against Collingwood. If we can't beat them then we don't deserve to remain in the finals race. End of Story. Win that and we travel to Melbourne to play St Kilda in a knock out final.

Had we finished 4th, we'd be playing Geelong this weekend - and in all likelihood getting slaughtered. Our next game would be at home against either Collingwood or St Kilda, once again in a knock out final.

So, the only difference is where we end up playing that 2nd round knock out final - in Adelaide or Melbourne, in either case it will/would almost certainly be against St Kilda.

 

[Elder van Berlo]

Some of you are not comprehending the system as explained by Relapse. If we'd finished 4th and lost to Geelong, we then get a home final against one of the lower ranked finalists. Finishing 5th, even if we get over Collingwood we then have to play away against one of the top 4 finishers. It's a massive difference. I'm not sure of the exact percentage but since the introduction of this current final 8 system, the teams that finish top 4 pretty much always play off in the prelims.

In 8 years of the current format, 30 out of 32 top 4 teams have made prelims... that's 93.75% for anyone who's wondering. The only two who have missed prelims from the top 4 was the injury and controversy ravaged WCE of 2007 and the choking Power vintage of 2001. How sweet it was .

Having said that, only Collingwood of 2002 have been in the top 4 with a worse record in that time - they were also 13-9 but their percentage was worse than the Saints' this year. Collingwood's 2002 percentage was... you guessed it... 109.7. Spooky.

Conclusion: Yes, top 4 usually do make prelims, but this St Kilda team is a pretty bad top 4 side, so they may be an exception. I wouldn't be booking accommodation for prelim weekend just yet.

 

[jenny61_99]

Some of you are not comprehending the system as explained by Relapse. If we'd finished 4th and lost to Geelong, we then get a home final against one of the lower ranked finalists. Finishing 5th, even if we get over Collingwood we then have to play away against one of the top 4 finishers. It's a massive difference. I'm not sure of the exact percentage but since the introduction of this current final 8 system, the teams that finish top 4 pretty much always play off in the prelims.

We are likely to play St Kilda though if we get over the Pies, and ATM St Kilda are not really in the same league as WB/Hawthorn/Geelong. We'd always had to have faced either WB/Hawthorn in a Prelim even if we'd gotten 4th. If we are good enough we can do it.

 

[subaru]

So, if we beat Collingwood, are you saying we are playing 2 games?? Against Saints AND the Dogs...

If we beat Pies, we play loser of Cats/Saints... the Dogs/Hawks game doesn't matter until the following week (which we play the winner of that game)

No - my reference to the Dogs was regarding their position on the table - although being 3rd - are not in the same class as Hawks and Cats.

Top 2 are the only ones this year that can win a flag.