The Roar's AFL expert tips and predictions 2016: Round 2

Welcome back Roarers to our AFL expert tips. Round 1 was definitely something of a mixed bag, but all of our experts scraped through with passable results, as did The Crowd. BJ Conkey leads the team on seven after a single week, with everyone else close behind on six.

Round 2 presents a number of challenging games for the tipping crew, along with the big question of how much do we read into Round 1 form versus how much do we stick with our own pre-season prediction of which teams would fail and which teams would flourish?

It may only be the second week of the season but Collingwood vs Richmond on Friday night is already the battle of the walking wounded and a crucial match for both teams. The Pies will be missing Dane Swan and Steele Sidebottom through injury and suspension, while the Tigers will be missing Brett Deledio, Shane Edwards and possibly still Ivan Maric.

It’s hard to tip either team with any confidence based on their respective concerns but I’m personally going to take a punt on the Pies with the hope that they can bounce back from an absolutely shocker last week against Sydney. But if they let me down again they’ll be dead to me!

The Adelaide vs Port Adelaide Showdown on Saturday should be a thriller as always and is hard to predict. Port got a win in Round 1 and Adelaide didn’t, but you’d almost say the Crows looked more impressive in a competitive loss to North than Port did using a late burst to outdo St Kilda.

My tip is that the Crows will get the job done in this one but it really is close to a 50/50 match and should make for tantalising viewing.

The game of the week however will undoubtedly be the grand final rematch, Hawthorn and West Coast at the MCG. The Hawks copped a 30-point loss from the Cats last week to start the season while the Eagles took a ten-goal win over the Brisbane Lions, but let 100 points through their backline in doing so.

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In addition to their existing outs of Jarryd Roughead, Liam Shiels and Brad Hill the Hawks have now lost Luke Hodge for 4-6 weeks and that will shape this contest pretty heavily. The Eagles won’t want to let through a triple figure score again this week, but they should be able to lift for a win in this one.

Melbourne should beat Essendon, the Bulldogs should account for St Kilda, Fremantle should be too good for Gold Coast and ditto for Sydney over Carlton. Despite the Blues showing some courage last week, I’m calling a Swans victory the Lock of the Week.

GWS and Geelong might be a bit of a contest despite the Giants flopping in Round 1 while the Cats impressed – its a Giants homegame too. The Cats should win it but there’s genuine upset potential here.

No North fan on earth would feel confident in a fixture at the Gabba even if it is against last year’s second-to-last team, but the Roos should win that one – should.

Michael Di Fabrizio
Hawthorn losing can be classified as unusual in itself, but so too can West Coast giving up 100 points on its own turf. Fair to say both sides didn’t fire at 100 per cent last week.

Nonetheless, the Eagles had some big names flexing some early muscle. Ominously, Nic Naitanui hinted that a career-best year could be on the way. Matt Priddis and Josh Kennedy racked up the possessions and goals, respectively.

Add in whatever value you can put on the redemption narrative and it’s the Eagles for grand final re-match honours.

The match I’m most looking forward to is the Showdown. I went as far as tipping the Crows last week (oops) but I’m just not as willing as others to immediately place them in the slider category in 2016. Loss of a certain midfielder aside, they won a final last year after a season that can’t have been easy on the playing group.

Problem is, it’s hard to make the case for Port not rebounding this year. And last week – much unlike the Crows – they had players step forward when it counted.

But if for no other reason than football justice, I’m going with the team that played better football over a longer period last week. The Crows better not let me down again.

BJ Conkey
The Tigers defeated the Pies in both match-ups last season and after a full seven-day rest the Tigers will inflict more pain for Nathan Buckley and his boys.

Travis Cloke hardly got a chance against the dominant Swans and if he doesn’t touch the ball early it could be another long night for Collingwood fans.

While Port Adelaide got the chocolates against St Kilda, the fact their backline gave up 100 points worries me for the Showdown.

The Crows had their chances to beat North Melbourne and if it wasn’t for bad goalkicking in the final term they would have secured the four points.

Milestones are always big for footy clubs and Adelaide will lift for Daniel Talia’s 100th game.

I’m sticking by the Dockers. As Anthony Hudson said during the commentary last week ‘Fremantle couldn’t play any worse if they tried’, that’s exactly why they’ll bounce back at home as there’s no way they can play as badly as they did in week one.

Aaron Sandilands is back and loves playing the Suns. He had 70 hit outs last time they played. Besides that, Fortress Domain Stadium is enough of a reason to pick Fremantle in this one.

The fact GWS faded so badly in the last quarter against Melbourne makes their match against the Cats a no brainer for me. Dangerfield should only need 30 disposals for the Cats to get over the line. The Giants will continue to miss Jeremy Cameron until he returns from suspension.

Good luck to all with your tipping this week. We’ll be back with more expert tips ahead of Round 3!