Make the 8 and anything can happen

[relapse]

No

The only teams outside the 8 that have the talent to get in are Collingwood or Brisbane.

From the current Top 8 these only 2 teams I could see being a chance to drop out, Freo and/or Essendon

Freo are the most probably the most likely to drop out, I think have been flattered with some soft wins and I think as the season goes on they will most probably drop out for Collingwood.

 

[kirky]

No

The only teams outside the 8 that have the talent to get in are Collingwood or Brisbane.

From the current Top 8 these only 2 teams I could see being a chance to drop out, Freo and/or Essendon

Freo are the most probably the most likely to drop out, I think have been flattered with some soft wins and I think as the season goes on they will most probably drop out for Collingwood.

Think previously the eight with exception of one side was set around R8 however last year there were 3 changes from Round 13 - Sydney, GWS and Carlton.

Essendon has a % of 95 - they aren’t set yet.

 

[AmericanCrow]

Why not

Let’s kick some a$$ and get on a huge roll

 

[relapse]

Why not

Let’s kick some a$$ and get on a huge roll

We'll know more in 2 weeks

The Brisbane and Collingwood games are crucial.

We win 1 and I guess we're an outside chance, but if we win both then we're back in the hunt.

 

[PCORF]

3-5 with 3 wins from 4 games. But it is hard to come back from a 0-4 start.

Got a struggling Brisbane side coming into town but I am sure they'll give it their best. If we underestimate them we could be in for a long game. Coming off the great showdown win, the guys could be a bit too relaxed and not focussed on their job. All in all they need to continue what they did vs Port. Complacency could cost us this game.

Collingwood at the MCG, a 50/50 game. I expect this one to be a battle, comes down to the last minute. But if Collingwood have the lead with 2 minutes to go we'll probably drop this game as they are so good at defending in late game situations.

Hungry West Coast and Hawthorn sides to follow. Should beat West Coast, and Hawthorn at the MCG you cannot underestimate them.

 

[BACCS]

No

The only teams outside the 8 that have the talent to get in are Collingwood or Brisbane.

From the current Top 8 these only 2 teams I could see being a chance to drop out, Freo and/or Essendon

Freo are the most probably the most likely to drop out, I think have been flattered with some soft wins and I think as the season goes on they will most probably drop out for Collingwood.

Brisbane had the talent, but they've lost a heap of them to season ending injuries. Their season is done. I don't see how Port's last month of form has them as any certainty to stay in there either and their percentage will cop a hiding this week.

Carlton, GWS and Sydney all had terrible records at round 13 last season and made finals, still heaps to play out yet. Geelong, Melbourne, Sydney and the Giants are the only 4 clubs I would be confident to put money on to stay in the top 8 right now. Essendon still has plenty of time to do typical Essendon things.

 

[Billy_01]

If we win our next 2 games we’ll play finals.

 

[NSolis]

If we win our next 2 games we’ll play finals.

Doesn't seem unreasonable as if we did win the next two we'd just have beaten Collingwood at the MCG and have won 5 from 6. Big ask though.

 

[relapse]

Brisbane had the talent, but they've lost a heap of them to season ending injuries. Their season is done. I don't see how Port's last month of form has them as any certainty to stay in there either and their percentage will cop a hiding this week.

Carlton, GWS and Sydney all had terrible records at round 13 last season and made finals, still heaps to play out yet. Geelong, Melbourne, Sydney and the Giants are the only 4 clubs I would be confident to put money on to stay in the top 8 right now. Essendon still has plenty of time to do typical Essendon things.

We don't have an easy run though

Realistically we'll have to win 10 out of the last 15 games to make it.

If we break down our remaining games we have to win the following 6 games (which we will be favorites for)

West Coast (H)
Hawks x 2
St Kilda (H)
Bulldogs (H)
Richmond (H)

Then we have to win four out of the following games

GWS at home (they've had the wood on us for the last 3-4 years)
Sydney x 2
Brisbane x 2
Collingwood Away
Geelong Away
Port Away
Essendon Away

Definitely going to be tough.

 

[Dangerousfield]

So say we are 12-10 and need to win in Sydney in the last round, the AFL will have that goal umpire to umpire in Sydney (it isn’t Adelaide Oval so all good).

And us playing Sydney in Sydney in the last round? Who would have thought.

AFL are trolling us!

You look at the talent and skills right through the Swans 22, then you look at us playing McSpud, Murphy, Smith, Cooked etc. Not confident we could beat Swans if we needed to - thanks AFL, give us a nice draw for 2024 but given us a R24 backhander

How did we not lure Grundy home? Oh that's right, we don't need a second gun ruckman

 

[Dangerousfield]

We were beaten in general play by both Port and Carlton, but could also have snaffled a win in 2 of our losses and been 5-3. I can't see us making finals based on how the ladder looks right now. Brisbane and Pies more likely than us to go in, which would mean 3 of the current 8 need to drop out. And from at least 2 games ahead of our position. Dons % means they might be the most likely to succumb. But reckon we need 2 more.

Dons % is irrelevant, they have two points for the draw. But I think they'll fall in a heap again to continue the LOLs

 

[FullyBigKPro]

As I said in the other thread, absolutely have to win the Bris and Coll games THEN win all of the 'expected games in next month being against Hawks/Rich/Weagles.

In my mind, we win 1 of the Bris/Pies games - (more likely the Bris home game given their injuries) - and reckon we win only 2 of the 3 'expected' games. Feel like we may drop that away Hawks game.

That realistically gives us 3 of the next 5 wins. Puts us 6-7. Win all 5 and we go 8-5 which really gets us right in the hunt.

Then have to win at least 7 of the last 10 games (*Bye) to get to 13 wins.

Interesting times friends, interesting times....

 

[CrowBloke]

And us playing Sydney in Sydney in the last round? Who would have thought.

Yeh.
Olsen/Silvers really played hardball with the AFL over that.

 

[Sanders]

We're better than our ladder position states.

Wrong as always. Sheesh

 

[Sanders]

Looking at the difficulty of each draw over the first 8 rounds based on the win/loss record of the opposition against other teams we have had the equal second hardest draw behind Collingwood (33 opposition wins) and tied with Brisbane (32.5 opposition wins). We've played a lot of the same teams as Brisbane.

Collingwood has played 5 top 8 teams and have yet to play either of the bottom two. Both Brisbane and Adelaide have played 7 out of 8 games against teams in the top 10, but played the 8th game against North which drags the average down below Collingwood. We've played the most teams in the 8 with 6/8 games against current top 8 teams.

The easiest draw has been Fremantle by some distance (19 opposition wins). They've only played two top 8 sides and have played 3 of the bottom 4. They are followed by Gold Coast (23), Geelong (24) and North Melbourne (26). Other teams with fairly hard draws have been Hawthorn (31), West Coast (30.5) and Sydney/Richmond (30).

So yeah, we've had a hard draw. However it isn't going to get that much easier aside from a run of 3 games before the bye, so we'll probably need to sweep those to have a reasonable shot at finals.

Our draw has only been difficult because we aren’t the team we were expected to be

Had we been so, then no, our draw was not overly challenging for a potential top 4 side

 

[AFC979810]

I genuinely don't know how to feel.

I truly believe we have the list to make the finals and with a competent coach we would have finished top 6 this year.

At 0-4 It was looking bleak and my optimism that Nicks would be fired was growing.

Now at 3-5 we are only one game behind where we were this time last year. We have a winnable game against a depleted Brisbane and if we win that the Collingwood game is 50/50. Despite Nicks having never beaten Collingwood - the last 4 games against them we lost by 5 points, 5 points, 1 point, 2 points.

I now just get the feeling that we are going to end up 10th, a win and % out of the 8. We keep Nicks who gets another year and will end up in coaching folklore.

Games Coached without coaching a final:

Robert Shaw 130
Mathew Nicks 129 (at the end of rd 23, 2025 if we miss the finals this year).

 

[NSolis]

Our draw has only been difficult because we aren’t the team we were expected to be

Had we been so, then no, our draw was not overly challenging for a potential top 4 side

We've had a lot of middling, winnable games against good but not great sides like Freo, Gold Coast, Essendon etc., which you might expect a top four contender to win, and we haven't played any of the toughest assignments aside from maybe hosting Geelong. So I agree that if we were a top tier side we'd probably be doing totally fine, it's not like we've played Sydney at the SCG every week.

Nevertheless our first 8 weeks have involved a higher than normal proportion of challenging games. At the same time last year we'd only played 4 sides in the top 8 rather than 6. That will even out over the next 5 weeks.

 

[1970crow]

Dons % is irrelevant, they have two points for the draw. But I think they'll fall in a heap again to continue the LOLs

Forgot that. Their draw looks ok, will be hard for them to lose enough now that I've had a closer look.

 

[Harris1991]

Nope. No chance.

 

[WetCrow1991]

If we win the next 2, and I don't think we will, we'd be a shoo-in for being 8-5 after round 13. We should beat an injury ravaged Brisbane at home, but Collingwood away is unlikely. We would need a Carlton game like fluke to get up there. After that we have the Eagles at home, Hawks at the MCG and Richmond at home. Those 3 suck more than us at the moment.

If we somehow pulled off 8-5 after round 13 we would face a massive test with Sydney at home before the bye. 9-5 or 8-6 at the bye.

More likely we'll be 7-7 at the bye, losing to both Collingwood and Sydney. If we're lucky and Nicks isn't too much of an idiot over the coming weeks.

Then likely 11-11 heading into round 24 against the Swans, once again missing the finals and getting an ordinary 1st round draft pick.

Finishing 11-12 but with a worse percentage than last season.

Edit:

It is funny, if we win the next two games we'll be 5-5 after round 10, same as last season when we were supposedly playing so much better. I don't trust this team at all. A good second half to the season would be a Nicks first.

 

[John Who]

Making the 8 is still possible, but…we need to win the shoulda’s and surprise with a few coulda’s. Momentum-wise, we have definitely gotten back to some semblance of the team of 2023. If we look at things in blocks of 3’s, it gives it more perspective:

Rd 1-3: 3 losses (Suns, Cats, Freo) - 2 contenders and 1 likely top-4.

Rd 4-6: 2 losses, 1 win (Dees, Blues, Dons) - 2 contenders and 1 likely top-4.

Rd 7-8: 2 wins (Kangas, Port) - 1 contender, 1 likely bottom-4.

A lot on here seem to readily dismiss the win against the Kangas as a nothing game, but I felt it was a strong showing and a big win was consistent with a team that’s working in unison, unlike the team in the first few rounds.

Not-so-fun-fact: had we got an extra goal in each of the narrow losses to the Suns and Dons, we would be on 20 points, with Dons down to 18. With that, we would be in the top 8 right now!

 

[kirky]

Making the 8 is still possible, but…we need to win the shoulda’s and surprise with a few coulda’s. Momentum-wise, we have definitely gotten back to some semblance of the team of 2023. If we look at things in blocks of 3’s, it gives it more perspective:

Rd 1-3: 3 losses (Suns, Cats, Freo) - 2 contenders and 1 likely top-4.

Rd 4-6: 2 losses, 1 win (Dees, Blues, Dons) - 2 contenders and 1 likely top-4.

Rd 7-8: 2 wins (Kangas, Port) - 1 contender, 1 likely bottom-4.

A lot on here seem to readily dismiss the win against the Kangas as a nothing game, but I felt it was a strong showing and a big win was consistent with a team that’s working in unison, unlike the team in the first few rounds.

Not-so-fun-fact: had we got an extra goal in each of the narrow losses to the Suns and Dons, we would be on 20 points, with Dons down to 18. With that, we would be in the top 8 right now!

In some respects, it is better we are where we are.

Players not getting ahead of themselves and they have to put in the hard yards.

As the saying goes, one week at a time for now.

 

[skam85]

Merge this with the "will we ever lose again" thread please Drugs Are Bad Mackay?

 

[BACCS]

Merge this with the "will we ever lose again" thread please Drugs Are Bad Mackay?

What about the 'will we go 0-10' thread?

 

[AFC979810]

What about the 'will we go 0-10' thread?

Create a super thread and add in the "when will we next debut a player".