Game Day Round 12, 2025 - Brisbane Lions vs. Essendon

[M Malice]

Need to bank some wins

View attachment 2328262

Huge game v the Cats at Cotton On stadium in the round before our bye, could end up going a long way to determining whether we finish top 2 or not and grab a chance of avoiding travel before the Grand Final.

Just had a closer look at the Cats "easiest" draw they have 2 x Tigers, 2 x Bombers, Eagles, Kangaroos, Saints and their on paper 2 hardest games v the Lions and Suns are at home.

 

[GenericUsername202]

Plenty of tickets still available, so this game looks to be far from a sellout. Will still be a good crowd, but maybe the lions will think twice about their price rises, because our sellout streaks have been broken this season because of it.

 

[jjami15]

Need to bank some wins

View attachment 2328262

Interesting that Geelong has the supposed easiest draw from here. Not bad for a preliminary finalist. Looking at their previous games not overly difficult either.

 

[Tom14]

Interesting that Geelong has the supposed easiest draw from here. Not bad for a preliminary finalist. Looking at their previous games not overly difficult either.

Reckon if you looked back the last 20 years the Cats would have had the easiest draw pretty frequently.

That's because (1) they have always been very good, and (2) the GMHBA stadium home games plus MCG home games is very favourable.

It basically means that they never play big MCG tenants down at GMHBA when they are good so they get live kills there. So richmond HAS to go down there this year because they aren't sending Collingwood there when they are good. All the good interstate teams play them at GMHBA and they still at worst have a neutral matchup at the MCG.

Still doesn't explain how they've had a double up against the real bottom teams pretty consistently despite theoretically always having a top 6 draw.

 

[M Malice]

Interesting that Geelong has the supposed easiest draw from here. Not bad for a preliminary finalist. Looking at their previous games not overly difficult either.

It all comes down to who you double up against, which would be a bit of a lottery with how teams can rise and fall from one season to the next.

 

[Tom14]

Reckon if you looked back the last 20 years the Cats would have had the easiest draw pretty frequently.

That's because (1) they have always been very good, and (2) the GMHBA stadium home games plus MCG home games is very favourable.

It basically means that they never play big MCG tenants down at GMHBA when they are good so they get live kills there. So richmond HAS to go down there this year because they aren't sending Collingwood there when they are good. All the good interstate teams play them at GMHBA and they still at worst have a neutral matchup at the MCG.

Still doesn't explain how they've had a double up against the real bottom teams pretty consistently despite theoretically always having a top 6 draw.

Geelong double ups since covid (bottom 3 teams the following season highlighted) -

2022: North Melbourne, St Kilda, Port Adelaide, West Coast Eagles, Western Bulldogs

2023: Collingwood, Essendon, Fremantle, Port Adelaide, Sydney, Western Bulldogs

2024: Brisbane Lions, Essendon, GWS Giants, Port Adelaide, Richmond, St Kilda

2025: Brisbane Lions, Essendon, GWS Giants, Port Adelaide, Richmond, St Kilda

By comparison since like 2020 Gold Coast has been stuck as the 6th worst team in the comp - so they are our bottom 6 double up despite being a better team.

 

[Mr Ripper]

Plenty of tickets still available, so this game looks to be far from a sellout. Will still be a good crowd, but maybe the lions will think twice about their price rises, because our sellout streaks have been broken this season because of it.

Tough deal when you get a home match against a "Big 4" club and it's a working/school week Thursday.

 

[p4p1]

Tough deal when you get a home match against a "Big 4" club and it's a working/school week Thursday.

Are Essendon still considered part of the big 4?
If they're playing most of their home games at Marvel then surely not.

 

[Mr Ripper]

Are Essendon still considered part of the big 4?
If they're playing most of their home games at Marvel then surely not.

You'll be getting ripped on youtube if Dan26 sees this.

 

[braddsey]

Need to bank some wins

View attachment 2328262

We've banked the wins. we dropped 1.5 games we should have won, and beat everyone else except Collingwood.

Interesting that Geelong has the supposed easiest draw from here. Not bad for a preliminary finalist. Looking at their previous games not overly difficult either.

Perfect. We'll be battle hardened animals heading into the finals. Geelong will be soft as butter!

We've had a significantly easier fixture compared to Geelong in the first half of the season, and it's been to our benefit. It's taken a long run to get into the season off the back of a very interrupted and shortened pre-season for many players. Despite that we were mostly able to win, with only North and Melbourne games where we dropped off. The Collingwood game was probably the game that really showed how we were travelling.

Splitting the 2024 ladder into T6/M6/B6, we actually had a slightly more difficult fixture than Geelong (not considering travel, H&A etc), which is expected given we won the premiership. We had a significantly softer first have of the season, and but clearly more challenging 2nd half.
Adjusted for the ladder as it stands now, Geelong won the lottery with many games against sides that have remained in the B6, but also clubs who were T6 dropping into B6.

I don't think we've got anything to complain about (below is calculated assigning T6=3, M6=2, B6=1).

 

[3KZ is Football]

Shame the togas etc aren't black and red but I suppose the early Christian martyr types weren't soooo dismayed with life as to support Essendon!

Togas were looking dank, all tear stained and wet through fear.

 

[jdBombers3598]

We are D-O-N-E FK'ED

Good game and congrats on the win

 

[Lions2Good]

We are D-O-N-E FK'ED

Good game and congrats on the win

No such thing as a sure thing

 

[Nunez]

Robbo sub as expected.

 

[3KZ is Football]

Dev announced SUB.

 

[MacMum]

Feels really weird getting ready for our game on a thursday night...

 

[Saucery]

Can I ask when not damaging the banner became a thing? FFS Essendon!

 

[Ceebee]

Feels really weird getting ready for our game on a thursday night...

It certainly does . The boys have had two late Sunday games. A late Saturday afternoon and now a Thursday night .

They seem to like challenging the Premier’s with their schedule .

 

[Saucery]

Oh God, ours has a gusset, play on.

 

[Perrip]

 

[Jivlain]

Can I ask when not damaging the banner became a thing? FFS Essendon!

Back in the day we'd pick a few Essendon uncles out of the crowd and fling them at it until it broke. Can't do that any more because of political correctness insurance

 

[KissKiss]

Dev announced SUB.

We really are so locked into the best 23 theory around subs. It's not a major thing but so strange that we don't seem to want to learn what the best practice is

 

[Jivlain]

That was lovely by Harro

 

[gapwedge0]

At the ground. Lucky to be 20,000 here.

 

[Toffee Lion]

At the ground. Lucky to be 20,000 here.

That would have been amazing 10 years ago.