Prediction Who will finish higher - Melbourne, Essendon, Adelaide or Hawthorn

Who finishes higher in 2019?

  • Total voters
    684
  • Poll closed .

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Ambrosia said:
Does hk89 actually believe what he writes?

How many times can one person say X thing is a positive for Hawthorn but the same X thing is negative for opposing teams.
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Care to be a bit more specific about which bit you had a problem with? From what I can see, the situation doesn't look good for Hawthorn at all. We're very unlikely to make finals now after the Bulldogs result over GWS. Are you hurt because I said Essendon were unlikely to win a final? Hard to disagree with that conclusion, given only the bottom 6 teams have a worse percentage Essendon.
 
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Essendon it is. :thumbsu:

We were the least voted for option in this poll when it was originally opened. It shows just how much Essendon have exceeded people's expectations this year, and how bad the other teams have been in comparison.

We now move on to a winnable final against the Eagles in Perth. If we can get a few important players back from injury and get our game up and running, a flag honestly isn't out of the question in 2019.
 

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carnthedons said:
And then out in straight sets again?
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Being a Geelong supporter I'd obviously hope so. However, from what I've seen this year regarding their gameplan, the natural improvement of their younger brigade, the ability to attract quality players and their God like coach, I see them as being a huge threat.
 
God Mode said:
Being a Geelong supporter I'd obviously hope so. However, from what I've seen this year regarding their gameplan, the natural improvement of their younger brigade, the ability to attract quality players and their God like coach, I see them as being a huge threat.
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Their spine will be cactus once McEvoy,Frawley etc retire
 
So took until the final round of the season to finalise the order of these 4.
Essendon
Hawthorn
Adelaide
Melbourne

Essendon and Hawthorn probably have the most to be optimistic about heading in to next season. Essendon will hope to have a bunch of injury returns. Some concerns about their mental toughness and team cohesion given they also put in some very poor games when the injury list was shorter, but seems very likely they'll have a new coach next year, and they'll be hoping he can help inject a bit more resilience into the team. Still lack some top level polish for mine, but hard to know until they've got their full list on the park. Hawthorn's win over WC has done them no favours for finals, making it impossible for them to play Pies in the first week - a team they seem to match up on fairly well. WC in Perth or Richmond at the MCG look like tough asks, but they were better than expected against Pies this week, so who knows, maybe they'll finally make the second week of finals after a very long absence.

Hawthorn will hope to have their best player back, and have been fairly competitive against the better teams even without him. Hawthorn also have a first round pick they can use to help fill another missing piece into the puzzle. Hopefully we get a full year of Wingard in his current form if he can get an injury free pre-season, and fingers crossed that Scully's ankle issue from last night doesn't stop him starting pre-season with everyone else, as he was good with zero pre-season but will be a weapon next year with a full year of running behind him. On the down side, it seems Burgoyne strongly rumoured to be going to GC on a longer term contract that what we are willing to offer. Very much best 22 for us this year, so will be sorely missed - one of the few 30+ players that will depart at the end of the year who will be. We'll also miss Impey for the first half the season, looked very slow without him against Roos and Lions. Might make us consider offering Birchall a one year extension - despite his inability to stay on the park.

Adelaide are fielding a team that is older than Hawthorn, but have struggled to win games against the top 8. Only two wins against top 8 teams, and both of those at Adelaide oval against injury impacted GWS and Tigers. Feel most pessimistic for about this team for 2020 of the 4 mentioned.

Bafflingly bad season from Melbourne. Always thought they were overrated by an easy draw last year, and that getting a few teams at the right time in terms of opposition player injuries made their 2018 record look better than it was. However, still thought they were good enough to be fighting for one of the last spots in the 8, instead of not finishing only 2 games clear of the spoon. Very hard to read what will happen next year. Still young, but obviously have some problems to fix in the off season if they are going to compete for a finals spot next year. Feel for their fans, massively frustrating team to support I would imagine.
 
TheGreatBarryB said:
Good finish to the year by Hawks, much like Dees last year without the finals of course.
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Not really. Melbourne had some good wins at the end of the year, after an appalling record against the top 8 for the rest of the season. However those late season wins were against West Coast without their 3 best players, against Hawthorn without JOM, and Mitchell injured in the first quarter, and against GWS at the MCG where GWS almost never win. They then got completely humiliated by WC with 2 of the players back that were missing from their late season loss to Melbourne. Didn't need to be Einstein to predict Melbourne were not as good as making a prelim made them look. Compare that to Hawthorn who thumped GWS at a ground GWS had almost never lost at (admittedly GWS were also fairly injury riddled), and easily dealt with WC at their home ground in a game WC had to win to grab the double chance. We were the anti-Melbourne this year. Pretty good against top teams, under performed against teams outside the 8. 3 losses against the bottom 5 cost us a finals spot.

Looking forward to seeing how Essendon go in their first final.
 
hk89 said:
Not really. Melbourne had some good wins at the end of the year, after an appalling record against the top 8 for the rest of the season. However those late season wins were against West Coast without their 3 best players, against Hawthorn without JOM, and Mitchell injured in the first quarter, and against GWS at the MCG where GWS almost never win. They then got completely humiliated by WC with 2 of the players back that were missing from their late season loss to Melbourne. Didn't need to be Einstein to predict Melbourne were not as good as making a prelim made them look. Compare that to Hawthorn who thumped GWS at a ground GWS had almost never lost at (admittedly GWS were also fairly injury riddled), and easily dealt with WC at their home ground in a game WC had to win to grab the double chance. We were the anti-Melbourne this year. Pretty good against top teams, under performed against teams outside the 8. 3 losses against the bottom 5 cost us a finals spot.

Looking forward to seeing how Essendon go in their first final.
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But you’re teams old and will be a year older next year. It’s over
 
TheGreatBarryB said:
But you’re teams old and will be a year older next year. It’s over
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If Burgoyne does go to GC as rumoured, and we add Birchall and Poppy to Roughy as our retirements, then team may in fact be younger next year, depending on who we bring in in the off-season. In any case, it is certainly over for this year for us, and now we only have the annual humiliation of Essendon in the finals series to look forward to.
 

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Vindicater said:
I don't think we will win it but I am actually confident against the Eagles to keep it close. Ditto against the pies or GWS.

If we get Richmond we will get destroyed.
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I like your chances against Pies too, but I can't see you getting close to WC in Perth. It wasn't close last time, and you had a less extensive injury list, and Eagle's were massively inaccurate. GWS are a very different team in Sydney to when they play down here, and I wouldn't take Doggies dismantling of them as a sign they are vulnerable, as doggies are in red hot form right now, and Essendon are not - despite a decent effort against Pies this round.
 
BOMBERS 4 LIFE!!!! said:
Their spine will be cactus once McEvoy,Frawley etc retire
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Alex Keath could end up at the Hawks. Plus Patton coming in and Lewis back next year vastly improves the spine.

Ceglar is more then capable of being the number one ruck.

A midfield of Mitchell, O’Meara, Worpel, Shiels, Scully, Wingard and maybe Coniglio is close to the best in the league. Chuck in quality flankers in Gunston, Breust, Sicily and Hawthorn is good enough to compete for the flag next year.

They didn’t beat the top teams this year by accident. Mitchell is the barometer.
 
hk89 said:
Not really. Melbourne had some good wins at the end of the year, after an appalling record against the top 8 for the rest of the season. However those late season wins were against West Coast without their 3 best players, against Hawthorn without JOM, and Mitchell injured in the first quarter, and against GWS at the MCG where GWS almost never win.
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Nah- our form late last year was actually pretty good.

It's completely disingenuous to list injured players the opposition had but ignore the fact that we won two finals without Jesse Hogan (who kicked almost 50 goals from 20 games, even though he was playing up the ground) and Jake Lever.

Whatever happened in 2019 doesn't change the fact we came fourth in 2018.
 
Toump Ass said:
Nah- our form late last year was actually pretty good.
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Against teams that either had significant outs or were playing at grounds they've almost never won at. I realise you had your own injury issues, but that doesn't change the fact you got some opponents under fortunate conditions. Your best win over that period was probably Geelong from that point of view. When you played WC again without those fortunate conditions (i.e. Kennedy and Darling both back in the side) you were thumped, and IMO that was a better indication of your season form against the better sides than getting over WC without those two (and Gaff). Beating Hawthorn in the finals who arguably had the shallowest midfield in the competition with JOM out, and Mitchell with a broken AC joint in the first quarter was also super fortunate. Even with those two out or injured in game, you barely won the midfield battle. Your form this year has backed up the impression that you'd ridden your luck and easy draw well beyond your team's ranking in the competition. Much harder drawer this year and plummet to second bottom.

Out of interest what do you think was the big difference this year compared to last year?
 
hk89 said:
Against teams that either had significant outs
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Stopped reading here.

All teams have injuries.

Hogan and Lever were bigger outs than J'OM. The fact Hawthorn couldn't kick a winning score in a final against against a team that hadn't played in September for a decade isn't because Mitchell got hurt in the first quarter.
 
Toump Ass said:
Hogan and Lever were bigger outs than J'OM.
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I'm not arguing who had bigger injury lists. I'm saying you were fortunate to meet West Coast late in the season without what was arguably their four most important players (Kennedy, Darling, NicNat, Gaff), and then Hawthorn who have a very shallow midfield missing JOM and then Mitchell with a broken AC joint in the first quarter. The two times you played those teams that year without those factors in play you were flogged by over 10 goals each time. You could have been missing your entire best 22, but it would still be accurate to say you were lucky to meet those teams late in the season with key outs.

The fact Hawthorn couldn't kick a winning score in a final against against a team that hadn't played in September for a decade isn't because Mitchell got hurt in the first quarter.
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You're right. It was a combination of things. We didn't take our chances in front of goal, and we had an impotent midfield once JOM was out, and Mitchell was injured for most of the game. We saw what happened earlier in the year when those two both played a full game, and we also saw what happened against WC when WC got Darling and Kennedy back. Total humiliations. Melbourne were just not very good last year, and and made the 8 off the back of a very easy draw, and ran into Hawthorn with their two best players from their shallowest part of the ground out or injured early in the game (Burgoyne who can also play in that part of the ground, played that game with broken ribs, so couldn't help take up the slack in contested ball when Mitchell got injured). It was a very bad sign that you didn't win by more, and the prelim capitulation should have come as no surprise to anyone watching closing.

This year with a harder draw , Melbourne has revealed just how s**t they really are. Hawthorn also showed that without Mitchell they've not been able to be a top 8 team, although we were more competitive once Worpel started to really step up in the second half of the season, and Wingard finally got enough match fitness to spend significant time in the midfield. We'll get Mitchell back next year and actually have a reasonable midfield unit. You won a final against us last year because we fielded a bottom 4 midfield in that game once Mitchell was injured.

So , again what went wrong for Melbourne this year? I doubt the harder draw could completely explain their fall from the 8, so why don't you tell us what went wrong and how you're going to fix it for next year?
 
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Thank christ that wretched year is over.

But I will leave you with this.

Jetta May Lever
Hibberd Frost Salem

Not once this year did this defensive unit line up together.

And yet we lost 8 games by under 20 points.

Not an excuse but surely a starting point for 2020.
 
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