Certified Legendary Thread Race for the flag, in squiggly lines

[Rod Stroker]

Hawks got annihilated, GWS squiggle move as big as I've seen. Holy sh*t. Hawks tipped to only just knock off North in a semi now.

They win by under a goal courtesy of some charitable assistance from the umpires. FFS!

 

[Rod Stroker]

GWS are the team trending favourably, towards the top right. Cats too to a lesser extent.

I think squiggle is being generous to West Coast, particularly where they will end up.

 

[Rod Stroker]

Not sure how trustworthy squiggle can be given it has tipped incorrect winners in 4 of the 6 games so far this round.

 

[catstorm]

Have you blacked out recent history?

Is that the matches last year against a completely different geelong side where you won the free kick count 54-25 over two matches, yeah I think i will disregard those results.

 

[Dogs_r_barking]

Wood would come in if one of talls was injured. Petrie still plays because he takes the best defender and brings the ball to ground for our small forwards despite getting triple teamed repeatedly.

Exactly the same role Boyd does for us. It makes a big difference to our forward line when he is playing.

 

[Kcrack]

Is that the matches last year against a completely different geelong side where you won the free kick count 54-25 over two matches, yeah I think i will disregard those results.

Did Taylor and the rest of your defenders grow a few inches the past off season?

 

[catstorm]

Did Taylor and the rest of your defenders grow a few inches the past off season?

Lonergan 197cm vs Petrie 197cm

Taylor 195cm vs Waite 194cm

Henderson 196cm vs Brown 200cm

Kolodjashnij 193cm

Yeah I'm terrified of your overwhelming height advantage.

 

[Kcrack]

Lonergan 197cm vs Petrie 197cm

Taylor 195cm vs Waite 194cm

Henderson 196cm vs Brown 200cm

Kolodjashnij 193cm

Yeah I'm terrified of your overwhelming height advantage.

So pretty much the same as last year when you lost your game against us, cheers. Glad we cleared that up.

 

[Tas]

North are well balanced across the field, neither poor or excellent in any position, just hard working with a smattering of elite ability.

Well, we can't all get spoon fed elite talent...

Their performances recently haven't been indicative of a team on the edge of a premiership. If anything they resemble Freo later last season, or Swans 2013/2015, Geelong 2014, Collingwood 2012; doing barely enough to achieve a pass mark.

Are we? Is there any similarity other than the winning? The game has changed, radically since even last year... most people can't accurately predict what is going to happen next week let alone five months from now.

They've been lucky this season, but will it be a case of the Eagles last year when everything went right and they caught everyone on the hop, or are they genuine?

I don't think so, Eagles had a pathetic draw last year after missing the finals the year before, we were given the second hardest draw this year

"North Melbourne: According to this formula, they have the hardest draw."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...and-losers-20151030-gkmur1.html#ixzz47K99gSmw

Everyone on the hop? Sounds like you are trying to convince yourself rather than others.

Midfield routinely gets smashed and will be torn to shreds against better teams.

I wouldn't say smashed, we do not always win the contested possession and clearance stats but Hawks often lost those battles during their three consecutive premierships.

I think our midfield has some issues at present, Swallow has taken a long time to get confidence in his ankle since the Achilles, Dal Santo has also been pretty horrendous this season to date, but Wells has come back in and looked good, Ziebell has been playing well, Cunnington is a bit up and down in form but still does a lot of the contested work.

I think we still have a lot of scope for improvement in the middle, if everyone was flying and that was the basis for getting over the line then there wouldn't be much scope for improvement.

North have done well against undersized forwards, and beat Adelaide, but I can't see them doing that against every power forward.

But... but... but... Bulldogs, crippled by 3 injuries. Our CHB isn't match fit after hip surgery over the pre-season, we lost our full back last year to retirement with a fused back... somehow miraculously is on Essendon's list though. We only have one key defender. It is why we are leaking a number of goals. It probably didn't hurt us against the Dogs because... dogs don't have any key forwards. Stringer is more of a medium sized forward and Boyd isn't much of a forward at this point in time, might be some point in the future.

Tarrant has done a great job filling in, but he has played a season or so as a defender, has done a good job on all full forwards to date, but teams with multiple options still hurt us. Tippett hurt himself during the pre-season and our young KPDs in Nielson, Vickers-Willis had possibly Durdin had LTIs last year so they are not going to be rushed.

Rather than bitch about our lot, we make due with what we have.

Dogs don't butcher the ball for the entire game, they win it by 7+ goals.

Put pressure on any team and they will butcher the ball. The final score was pretty flattering in the end, we controlled the game, pretty much from the word go. If they didn't drop so many numbers back I think we would have won quite convincingly.

We have shown if the team wants a shoot out then we will give them a shoot out, if the team wants a scrap then we will give them a scrap. It is good to have that flexibility.

We are bound to drop games and are more likely to against stronger sides than weaker sides, all the H&A is about is just doing enough to put yourself in a good position for the finals, there are no cups given out based on April form.

 

[catstorm]

So pretty much the same as last year when you lost your game against us, cheers. Glad we cleared that up.

Yeah exactly the same except you know Henderson, the extra tall defender that we didn't have last year.

 

[Catfish Alley]

There are about 5 teams that can beat anyone if they play to their ability. Cats and Roos are in that group. I'll worry about form in 4 months. For now it's just about racking up wins.

 

[tazaa]

Still not sold on North. Clearly they were more polished than the Bulldogs but to concede 80 more disposals and 10 more inside 50's it was more the lack of skill on the Bulldogs part, than excellent defence from NM.

Bulldogs were as bad as I've seen them and the injury's look like their finally taking a toll. The squiggle still rates the Bulldogs as an excellent side hence the large squiggle movement.

Not to take anything away from North, they are showing consistency which they have struggled with for years.

Did you watch the game? Stats dont tell the whole story. They have no target up forward. They had an extra around the contest (Lachy Hunter) whilst we had a man back.
They continually bombed it long to Stringer who Thompson destroyed, and our better ball users were able to utilise our tall forwards more efficiently.
You want stats? 92 tackles. We pressured them into errors. It WAS excellent defence from North. Scott outcoached Beveridge to a tee.

 

[The Swans Blog]

Did you watch the game? Stats dont tell the whole story. They have no target up forward. They had an extra around the contest (Lachy Hunter) whilst we had a man back.
They continually bombed it long to Stringer who Thompson destroyed, and our better ball users were able to utilise our tall forwards more efficiently.
You want stats? 92 tackles. We pressured them into errors. It WAS excellent defence from North. Scott outcoached Beveridge to a tee.

Wasn't even out coaching. Players just kept running the same execution over and over again, and when they had space and time, their skills were atrocious. Coaching players to play well under little to no pressure is something any coach with half a brain can do, but coaching teams like Geelong, Sydney and Hawthorn to execute under pressure time and time again, well that just takes a little bit more.

As the old saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

We pressured them into errors.

Both teams made a lot of unforced errors, the Dogs more so than the Roos. At times it was painful to watch, but how easily they turned over the ball. They didn't make it easy on themselves with their gungho approach to the game, instead of controlling the tempo and dictating where the ball was delivered. I don't think Boyd makes a difference, but with their regular players in the side, the Dogs don't have to sacrifice around the ground to maintain their midfield dominance.

 

[Quinz]

I don't think so, Eagles had a pathetic draw last year after missing the finals the year before, we were given the second hardest draw this year

"North Melbourne: According to this formula, they have the hardest draw."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...and-losers-20151030-gkmur1.html#ixzz47K99gSmw

Little bit of a furphy that one, the difficulty of the draw surely has to be reassessed post-season.

Out of the top 8 sides, we had 3 double ups against other top 8 sides, as did Freo. North/Adelaide/Richmond had 2. Hawthorn/Sydney/Dogs only had 1 return match against other finalists!

Replace our draw with anyone else's in that top 8 and we probably finish on at least as many wins as we had.

 

[HeaveHo_WeBlow]

Geeze North supporters beat 4/5 teams that will probably finish in the bottom 6.. and they come out the woodwork preaching how they should be premier fancies.

I look forward to the second half of the year, when they actually face finals competitors..

 

[Dirty Bird]

Geeze North supporters beat 4/5 teams that will probably finish in the bottom 6.. and they come out the woodwork preaching how they should be premier fancies.

I look forward to the second half of the year, when they actually face finals competitors..

One of the most annoying things atm.
That and hte media creaming over GWS beating a team who obviously were off their game.

 

[Pessimistic]

W L D %
1

Geelong 16 6 0 140.3
2

Sydney 16 6 0 139.4
3

West Coast 16 6 0 133.4
4

Hawthorn 16 6 0 120.4
5

North Melbourne 16 6 0 119.4

That is ******* tight

Drop one you are supposed to get and its a big drop on the ladder.
Interesting for the hawks because if we are still lucky enough to be in the finals, most of our recent finals games have been against this group

 

[momentbymoment]

One of the most annoying things atm.
That and hte media creaming over GWS beating a team who obviously were off their game.

I would think decimating is a more accurate description of what happened.

 

[Hawkinspired]

Did you watch the game? Stats dont tell the whole story. They have no target up forward. They had an extra around the contest (Lachy Hunter) whilst we had a man back.
They continually bombed it long to Stringer who Thompson destroyed, and our better ball users were able to utilise our tall forwards more efficiently.
You want stats? 92 tackles. We pressured them into errors. It WAS excellent defence from North. Scott outcoached Beveridge to a tee.

Yes I watch the game in its entirety. North were good, yes, but I was merely indicating that their large squiggle jump was because (prior to injuries) Western Bulldogs are rated as a good side. Both sides were very poor on the night and North were good enough to get the win. Kudos to them, you can only beat who you come up against. It will even out in due course.

 

[A Swallow]

Geeze North supporters beat 4/5 teams that will probably finish in the bottom 6.. and they come out the woodwork preaching how they should be premier fancies.

I look forward to the second half of the year, when they actually face finals competitors..

I don't think we should be premier fancies. No way.

But 4/5 bottom 6 sides? We haven't played Carlton, Essendon, Collingwood, Richmond, Port or Saints yet.

You could say that Freo and Brisbane will probably be bottom 6, but GC and Melbourne may well not be, and Adelaide/Dogs certainly won't be. Think you've exaggerated a little.

 

[Crankyhawk]

I would think decimating is a more accurate description of what happened.

Decimated would be flattering as that only means 2 or 3 players (1 in 10) died/ failed to compete. It was more 2 or 3 only competing...

 

[Pessimistic]

Season is so 2005 as people are suggesting. Even then tthe two or three challengers appear from the pack.

Lions, after four grand finals are 2-4 after six rounds, miss the finals. People are predicting big things for up and comers geelong and st kilda, athhoug this wil take longer than expected

Teams surging largely from draftees in 2001

Sydney adelaide geelong west coast north in the mix both 2005 and 2016

 

[DrZaius]

Geeze North supporters beat 4/5 teams that will probably finish in the bottom 6.. and they come out the woodwork preaching how they should be premier fancies.

I look forward to the second half of the year, when they actually face finals competitors..

Adelaide aren't finals competitors? I guess everybody has now also written off the Dogs then..?

I haven't seen many North supporters saying we will win the flag. Just people responding to the opinion on BF that:

North lose = they are shit
North win = they are still shit

 

[RookiePick]

GWS are the team trending favourably, towards the top right. Cats too to a lesser extent.

I think squiggle is being generous to West Coast, particularly where they will end up.

West Coast perform largely to the expectation of the algorithm and it is over-rating us? I think squiggle seems to have WC pegged pretty well so far this year. We're sitting in a zone that suggests we are a dangerous opponent but a way off "premiership" performance.

I'm just not seeing a disconnect.

 

[YippeeYiYeo]

Are there animated squiggles halfway through the round available?