Friday Night Forecast: Elimination final time

It’s elimination final time in this week’s Friday night football clash between Geelong and Collingwood.

This is the Cats’ first elimination final of the round, given that even if they manage to pull off the win, they can still be knocked out of finals contention by the Crows on Sunday afternoon.

That was a scenario that wouldn’t have eventuated if the Cats managed to get over the line against St Kilda. If they had those extra two points up their sleeve, the Cats would have a chance to make Round 23 a loser leaves town match, even if they were to lose tonight and the Crows also lost on Sunday.

The point is, this is our first real, everyone-can-see-it elimination final for 2015, and you would expect the Cats to come out and play like it.

Speaking of playing like everything is on the line – or not – let’s check in on last week’s Friday night forecast.

Prediction: Hawthorn def. Port Adelaide by 30 points.
Actual: Port Adelaide def. Hawthorn by 22 points.

Hawthorn’s chances of avoiding at least one trip to Perth frittered away with their loss on Friday to the Power, although that hasn’t dented their premiership favouritism in the eyes of the market.

As I led off with in last week’s preview, the Power were going to remind us all of what could have been for them in 2015, and they certainly did that. It was peak-Port, and it was most certainly sub-peak Hawthorn.

That would make it 2-2 with a percentage of 102.9 over the past four weeks for the Hawks, having played two fellow finalists and two sides on the cusp of the eight. Hmmm…

Here’s this week’s Friday Night Forecast.

Geelong v Collingwood
Friday, 28 August
Bouncedown: 7:50PM (AEST)
Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Victoria

Before we get into the preview, gee wouldn’t Geelong prefer to be playing this one down on their home deck? I get the whole stadium economics argument, but now they’re in do-or-die mode, playing on their opponent’s home ground with the likelihood of an unfavourable crowd. Well… yeah.

Anyway, I spilled a few thousand words on Collingwood earlier in the week, so I’ll focus my comments here on Geelong. The Pies have little more than pride on the line, given they are locked into no worse than 12th spot on the ladder, meaning they’ll pick seventh or later in the draft, and be bundled into the middle group for fixturing purposes next season no matter what happens in their final two hit-outs.

The blowtorch has been applied – both fairly and unfairly – this week, and I would expect to see a more spirited performance than the one that was dished up in the final quarter last Saturday.

Geelong, on the other hand, have been the definition of an average side in 2015, sitting between eighth and tenth on the ladder for all but the first handful of games.

From a numbers point of view, the Cats have a percentage of 101.8 per cent, an offensive efficiency rating (OER) of +2.1 (ranked eighth) and a defensive efficiency rating (DER) of -0.3. As a reminder, anything that falls between -5 and +5 is considered pretty well average. They have amassed 44 Premiership points in 19 games, or 2.3 per game played, which, you guessed it, puts them in ninth place on the year.

Last season, Geelong managed to finish in fourth place with a percentage of just over 110 per cent, which was remarkable, given over a 22-game season you expect the ladder will pretty much reflect percentage at the top and bottom. Their outperformance was driven almost exclusively by a phenomenal record in close games, with the Cats reeling in a truly freaky 7-0 record in matches decided by less than two goals.

Coming into the year, I anointed them as the 2014 top eight finisher most likely to slip out of the finals race, based largely on this 100 per cent strike rate in close games, and that they played so many of them. They can’t back that up, I said.

Geelong have won 3.5 of their four close games in 2015, with last week’s draw the only 0.5 that they’ve missed out on. Indeed.

That says a lot about their season. If that record were to flip to 0-4, well, the Cats would have fallen out of contention a number of weeks ago. A more cold hearted, pure offensive and defensive analysis (otherwise known as Pythagorean expected wins) has them pegged for 11th on the ladder to this point in the year.

This would put them behind their opponent for this evening, the Pies, on that metric. Collingwood have a record of 1-5 in those close games – again, if you were to flip that to 5-1, Collingwood are fifth on the ladder, and playing off for a top four berth in their remaining two games.

As for this game itself, I’m not sure a hard-nosed analysis is going to override the adrenaline and emotion that comes with playing a win or go home match. For many of the Cats’ older brigade, tonight’s game likely represents their last shot at a finals campaign, for Geelong will surely be unable to keep pace with the rapidly burgeoning middle class across the league in 2016.

Collingwood aren’t just losing steam – they’ve lost it. It could all boil down to whether Geelong can use the Pies’ relative inexperience and lack of season hardness to get up in the clearances and contested possessions, which are notable weaknesses of the Cats. By the same token, if Collingwood can get out of third gear, then it could be lights out for Geelong’s 2015 season.

I don’t think it’ll come to that, and I expect the Cats to prevail, once again, in a close match. It doesn’t shape as the finest exhibition of AFL football, but it should prove exciting nonetheless. Geelong by 12 points for me.

That’s my Friday night forecast. What’s yours?