Both Crippa and tacopavlich appear to be setting up straw men in their arguments.
Tacopavlich hasn't said the bye had no bearing on the Bulldogs' rise from seventh and Crippa hasn't suggested putting an asterisk to the Bulldogs campaign because of the bye.
The end of season bye certainly helped the Bulldogs recover from their injuries just in time to take on the Eagles. It meant the best team won. Too many times a team has limped in with a few injuries, or came to the finals off a reduced break and have been punished by a comparatively mediocre, but healthy or rested team.
This year was unique because at the end of the home and away, the top seven teams all won at least 15 games. Normally 7th would have snuck in with 12 or 13 wins. So unlike previous years, the Bulldogs had good form over the whole season.
Lyon has suggested the winners of the qualifying finals may have been disadvantaged because they got a second bye, and may have lost their momentum going into the second round of finals.
I don't agree with this. If that was the case why would he have rested so many players last year against Port Adelaide, knowing that a win the following week would result in a second bye?
Yes, the winners of the Qualifying finals both lost their Preliminary Finals. But there was more to it than that. Sydney was the minor premiers and could be expected to bounce back. Hawthorn and Geelong were close to each other, but both are ageing teams, reliant on too few to carry them over the line. Although everyone seemed to love their Qualifying Final, it didn't hit great heights, until the end of the game because it was close. And the Giants jumped the Swans because of their aggressive tactics, injuring two key players. They tried the aggression again against the Doggies, but it didn't pay off and they ended up looking stupid. (Looking at Jeremy Cameron there.)
The second bye continues to be an advantage to the team winning the Qualifying final, but the best team is still most likely to win. Perhaps it's not the advantage it used to be (which made the outcomes too predictable and too dependent on the Qualifying final result) but this year the right result happened.
Tl;dr
The effort of winning three games in a row going into the Grand Final has been great for Footscray, and playing three in a row to get to the GF has been great for Sydney. The bye surely helped with this, but that's a good thing, because now every week becomes important, compared to previously when the first week of the finals usually determined the whole series. By the end of the Finals, both Grand Finallists will have travelled twice. I hope it's a cracker.
Tacopavlich hasn't said the bye had no bearing on the Bulldogs' rise from seventh and Crippa hasn't suggested putting an asterisk to the Bulldogs campaign because of the bye.
The end of season bye certainly helped the Bulldogs recover from their injuries just in time to take on the Eagles. It meant the best team won. Too many times a team has limped in with a few injuries, or came to the finals off a reduced break and have been punished by a comparatively mediocre, but healthy or rested team.
This year was unique because at the end of the home and away, the top seven teams all won at least 15 games. Normally 7th would have snuck in with 12 or 13 wins. So unlike previous years, the Bulldogs had good form over the whole season.
Lyon has suggested the winners of the qualifying finals may have been disadvantaged because they got a second bye, and may have lost their momentum going into the second round of finals.
I don't agree with this. If that was the case why would he have rested so many players last year against Port Adelaide, knowing that a win the following week would result in a second bye?
Yes, the winners of the Qualifying finals both lost their Preliminary Finals. But there was more to it than that. Sydney was the minor premiers and could be expected to bounce back. Hawthorn and Geelong were close to each other, but both are ageing teams, reliant on too few to carry them over the line. Although everyone seemed to love their Qualifying Final, it didn't hit great heights, until the end of the game because it was close. And the Giants jumped the Swans because of their aggressive tactics, injuring two key players. They tried the aggression again against the Doggies, but it didn't pay off and they ended up looking stupid. (Looking at Jeremy Cameron there.)
The second bye continues to be an advantage to the team winning the Qualifying final, but the best team is still most likely to win. Perhaps it's not the advantage it used to be (which made the outcomes too predictable and too dependent on the Qualifying final result) but this year the right result happened.
Tl;dr
The effort of winning three games in a row going into the Grand Final has been great for Footscray, and playing three in a row to get to the GF has been great for Sydney. The bye surely helped with this, but that's a good thing, because now every week becomes important, compared to previously when the first week of the finals usually determined the whole series. By the end of the Finals, both Grand Finallists will have travelled twice. I hope it's a cracker.
). Coaches look forward. It's war. They look at their resources, assess what they've got, the condition it's in, how far they've got to go and worry about whether they can make the distance. At this time of year, it's not about who was the best team in the past (what you're talking about). it's about:
