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Which Round 17 slip up will prove the most costly?

16th July, 2018
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Alastair Clarkson. (AAP Image/Joe Castro)
Expert
16th July, 2018
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That whole ten-teams-into-eight thing I’ve been spruiking for the last little bit? It might be time to toss it out and start again.

Plenty of finals-bound and finals-contending teams had an opportunity to improve their position this weekend. Very few of them did.

In chronological order: Geelong, Hawthorn, Collingwood, North Melbourne and Port Adelaide all could’ve made a better fist of circumstances in front of them.

As it turns out, wins to Adelaide and Essendon have been like managing to get your other hand on to the edge of a cliff.

The Crows and Dons are still in precarious positions, and certainly wouldn’t want to slip up as many of those teams above them did over the weekend.

Both now find themselves a game outside of the eight, with a percentage gap that is still likely to be too large to overcome.

However, what loomed as a near-impossible task seven days ago has crystallised into the possible. Both teams have been within a game of eighth spot over the past month, but haven’t simultaneously looked capable of playing quality football.

Not so after this weekend: a last-gasp run at an improbable finals campaign looks live.

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That’s because nobody inside the previously-locked-in top ten seems to want the eighth seed. Faced with the possibility of ending the round locked into the eight after Geelong’s loss to the Crows, both Hawthorn and North Melbourne couldn’t get their respective jobs done.

Similarly, Port Adelaide had a shot at moving into the top two, and Collingwood staying there, with wins against Fremantle and West Coast respectively. None of it materialised.

Nathan Buckley

(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Hence, most spots in the eight changed around this week. Richmond stayed on top but lost its one game buffer over second place (and two game buffer over fifth).

West Coast swapped spots with the Pies. Sydney swapped spots with Port Adelaide. Melbourne stayed steady but continued to build an imposing percentage.

Geelong slipped from seventh to eighth, the Giants rose from tenth to seventh, North stood pat, and the Hawks are suddenly at the tail of the peloton.

Keeping up? It was a whirlwind, all driven by the inability of a handful of teams to win when they could have, or should have. Which one is going to hurt the most come Round 23?

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It could be Collingwood and its loss to West Coast. The Pies rode a cushy draw to second spot, but never really looked like the second-best team in the competition.

Still, the lesson of the league over the past two seasons has been to take your chance and Collingwood has been doing just that.

A win this week would have opened up a one-game gap on third place, with some tricky games to come mixed in with some easier assignments.

While we’re here, I cannot overstate how upsetting, and influential, Nic Naitanui’s likely second (and alternate leg because apparently the Footy Gods are ok with doing this to their players now) ACL injury in the space of 24 months is.

It’s a terrible cliché but West Coast most certainly walk taller when their number one ruckman is lurking at stoppages and through the middle in general play.

The prospect of another 12 moths without him, and the flow on effect this will have for the team’s list management strategy, is daunting. We hope for the best and plan for the worst.

It could be Geelong, who caught Adelaide at what must have been one of its strongest moments of the year on Thursday night.

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Rory Sloane, the One Who Stayed as he may come to be known, gave the club an enormous fillip by his re-signing during the week, and you could see it in Adelaide’s play.

Its aggressive streak was back, and it was in no mood to heel to Geelong’s bullyball ways. The Cats actually have an OK record at the Adelaide Oval… against Port Adelaide.

The loss puts it a clear two games behind fourth spot, with a Saturday night date with Melbourne likely to decide whether a double chance is beyond the Cats in 2018.

Fortunately the game will be at its home ground, as four of its last six games will be (the other two at the MCG). We’re still waiting for Geelong to fully click into gear, time is running out.

It could be North Melbourne, who were one minute of Lance Franklin away from jumping back into the eight for the first time since Round 14.

Injuries are beginning to bite, and so the club is turning to its depth – which as we discussed a month or so ago is still not quite all there.

Suddenly the next fortnight – Collingwood at the MCG and West Coast in Hobart – has become crucial to its season.

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Todd Goldstein North Melbourne Kangaroos AFL 2016

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

It could be Port Adelaide, who handled the blustery conditions in Perth about as well as the paper plates at my South Perth riverside BBQ (which ended early, just before the game got underway).

The Power will have surely pencilled in the four points in its run home, against a Fyfe-and-Sandilands-less Fremantle with nought to play for. Port Adelaide’s path to a top two spot got a little more treacherous.

In reality, it has to be Hawthorn. Faced with the least daunting run home of any team in finals contention, there was some (silly) talk the Hawks could work their way to a top-four spot and challenge for the flag a couple of days ago.

Instead, a rampant Brisbane drove a stake into the heart of Hawthorn’s finals ambitions while simultaneously exposing the Hawks’ great weakness: lack of leg speed through the middle.

Brisbane’s 16 scoring shots to Hawthorn’s seven in the second half – including 4.2 to 0.1 in the last quarter – is no joke, particularly in Tasmania.

The Hawks were simply run off their feet, unable to keep up with the pressing Lions and their whip-fast ball movement on turnovers.

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Brisbane is already proving to be a handful for plenty of teams in the second half of the year, and they’ve ample opportunity to shape the season as we reach its end. My Lions optimism grows by the week.

The Hawks may have been planning an assault on the top four, and if a couple of results had gone its way next weekend a decent win against Brisbane followed up by a more substantial one against Carlton may have got them there.

Now, Round 18 becomes an opportunity to just get back into the eight before a potentially tricky fortnight of Fremantle away and Essendon at the ‘G.

They’ll rue this week’s loss, perhaps a little more than some others may come to rue their poor patch in Round 17.

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