Maybe it's time to face facts; we may actually be a pretty mediocre side

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Mattdougie

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Jun 29, 2013
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What makes you say that our best 22 playing well will not happen this year?

Just a feeling mate nothing more than that

Losing Hamling has been bigger than a lot thought and blokes just don't look as hungry.

Libba Daniel Roberts Boyd all being dropped says a fair bit and Picken is a shadow of the player he was last year.

We have 5-6 blokes deservedly on form in our best 22 that are not good enough or ready to take us to a challenger this year.
 

TommyD13

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Well, my take on this is that you play footy to win premierships.
There are obviously two categories of AFL teams come the end of the season. These are teams that can make finals and teams that dont make finals. The former can then be further divided up into four subcategories. You've got 1st and 2nd who get a home qualifying final which obviously comes with the double chance, 3rd and 4th who get a double chance, 5th and 6th who get a home elimination final and 7th and 8th who have an away elimination final. Currently we sit in the fourth category and we have the same amount of wins as Port who are in the third category. We are one win away from the second category and two wins away from the 1st category. So if you count the four categories of teams that make finals and the one category of teams who dont make finals you end up with five categories. I refer back to my opening sentence of this post. You play football to win premierships and I have done a bit of research to see, historically, how much of a chance you have to win that premiership since the introduction of the current final eight system which came into play for the 2000 AFL Season.
Category 1 (1st and 2nd)- 70.59%
Category 2 (3rd and 4th)- 23.53%
Category 3 (5th and 6th)- 0%
Category 4 (7th and 8th)- 5.88%
Category 5 (9th-18th)- obviously impossible

So theoretically if history repeats itself, we would have a 5.88% of winning that premiership if the finals started now
 

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Oct 2, 2010
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Completely wrong it has nothing to do with our completely over rated depth which is now proving it isn't that great.

95% of our list isn't playing well and our coaching and selection has been questionable.

If Bev would stop p!ssing around and trying to change things that worked so well last year players may come back into form.

I think we have tried to be smarter than we needed to be AND players have rested on their laurels from the grand final. We will not compete with the top teams until we actually have the blokes who are genuinely in our best 22 playing well and I'm not sure that will happen this year.

We are not poles apart in our thinking. Webb, Williams and Dale through good form (and poor form from others) had earned their chance.

I can't agree with the thread title that we are a mediocre team. We are a very good (premiership) team out of form. The reasons for this ... you have clearly outlined above.
 

synchrodogcal

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backing bev to time it like jb cummings, peak at the right time, take home the chocolates

still a long way to go in an even season

we're up to our eyeballs in this imo
 

WIGNEY

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Interesting that the only team that has won the week after playing us is Fremantle. To beat us takes a teams very best and clearly takes its toll...that tells me we are not mediocre at all.
 

RedWhite&Blue

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Well, my take on this is that you play footy to win premierships.
Category 1 (1st and 2nd)- 70.59%
Category 2 (3rd and 4th)- 23.53%
Category 3 (5th and 6th)- 0%
Category 4 (7th and 8th)- 5.88%
Category 5 (9th-18th)- obviously impossible

So theoretically if history repeats itself, we would have a 5.88% of winning that premiership if the finals started now
Well I hope we don't finish 5th or 6th!!!
 
Sep 13, 2015
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Apologies for the intrusion, but you're not mediocre. You're not a dominant premiership winning team that some are, and you're probably not playing premiership winning footy at the moment, but I'm not sure you were playing premiership winning footy last year until September either. (I assume) winning flags is a lot more stressful from 5th-8th, but maybe that's what your coaches have decided is going to be most successful. Brave coaching if that's the case, but whatever works.
Trust me, as an outsider, your best is far from mediocre.
 
Funny how a win this week could put us in the 4. If not 5th

There's nothing funny or unusual about it. 3 of our last 4 matches have been very difficult away fixtures - Perth, Sydney and Geelong. We lost all three narrowly, not playing particularly well but not terribly either.

Any team in the competition would be pretty happy to win one out of three of those games. They'd be delighted to win two.

We won a moral victory by not getting belted in any of them. 0 out of 12 points is unfortunate. We really should have snuck a victory in one of them.

But we didn't. We're not playing terribly, we'll play better. Let's move on and put a lid on this gloomy nonsense. I'm looking forward to 1:45 next Saturday.
 

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RedWhite&Blue

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Good thread.
Yes we are a bloody great team getting mediocre results.
People said this year that we would become the hunted and that is so true. Every team is having their best game against us,they are setting themselves for us and we are copping it every single week. What is important to remember is that even when we've played s**t we have ALWAYS been able to reel in any lead that the opposition has built up.
It's become a well used line by the commentators 'you know the Bulldogs will come' and we always do.
So far that has been the feature of our year. We're never dead and we always come screaming back into games.
I have faith that when a few small things click into place we'll start dominating.
 

Beasht

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Sure we are no where near the form we would like, but we don't get blown away like we use to.

Every other team in the 8 has received a complete thumping at some stage this season.

IMO, currently we are a prime example of playing not to lose rather than playing to win aka 2015.
 

Doggy

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Sure we are no where near the form we would like, but we don't get blown away like we use to.

Every other team in the 8 has received a complete thumping at some stage this season.

IMO, currently we are a prime example of playing not to lose rather than playing to win aka 2015.

Richmond hasn't been thumped. Neither has Port
 

MJ_Dogs

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Richmond hasn't been thumped. Neither has Port
Richmond certainly has

And I'd be concerned right now if we were playing Adelaide in Adelaide this week
 

Beasht

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Forgot about their Adelaide game.

Adelaide look beatable. Not in our current form though
Fair call. Not exactly a thumping but when Port lost to Giants by 40 odd points, being an SA local you would have thought they lost by 100 going by the supporter reactions.
My point was that our worst performance still keeps us in games when by rights we should be getting thumped.
 

Doggy

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Fair call. Not exactly a thumping but when Port lost to Giants by 40 odd points, being an SA local you would have thought they lost by 100 going by the supporter reactions.
My point was that our worst performance still keeps us in games when by rights we should be getting thumped.
It was 31 i think
 
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Interesting that the only team that has won the week after playing us is Fremantle. To beat us takes a teams very best and clearly takes its toll...that tells me we are not mediocre at all.

I really think teams are getting up and about to knock off the reigning premiers. Teams seem to be throwing the kitchen sink at us and it's affecting our game style. The common trend seems to be teams running out of steam in the 3rd and 4th and that's where we make our move.

I'm pretty flat after losing those last two and our game is so frustrating at times but as has been mentioned, we're two games behind the top side.

GWS are lucky to be 2nd, should have lost the last 2 games in all honesty.

It's not a disaster.
 

stefcep

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Essendon just beat West Coast by 10 goals. Does that mean Essendon is 11 goals better than we are?

Every team has played us with an intensity they haven't been able to reproduce. We are the hunted. Makes you appreciate Hawthorne's achievements even more.
 

VogonProsthetnic

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Essendon just beat West Coast by 10 goals. Does that mean Essendon is 11 goals better than we are?

Every team has played us with an intensity they haven't been able to reproduce. We are the hunted. Makes you appreciate Hawthorne's achievements even more.


In the long run, playing tough games helps your game style. Look at what playing too many soft teams at the end of last season did for Adelaide, Geelong and West Coast. Think Bevo even thanked Freo for playing like they did for Pavs farewell game.

Problem of course is that you end up in a crap ladder position.
 
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