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The Essendon Bombers and St Kilda Saints will meet on Friday night in a match that sadly looks destined to be a dead rubber. Join The Roar for live scores and a blog from the match in Round 21 of the 2018 AFL Season at Etihad Stadium, starting from 7:50pm AEST.
Unfortunately for Bombers fans and neutrals who might have liked this match to be a little more interesting, last week’s loss to Hawthorn has effectively ruled Essendon out of finals contention.
That’s not to say there isn’t a mathematical chance, certainly there is. But they would at a minimum need to win all three of their remaining matches, and even then would need an enormous amount of luck to scrape in.
Probably the most likely scenario would be that whoever of Sydney or Melbourne loses this week goes on to lose all of their remaining matches.
However they would also need North Melbourne (Bulldogs, Adelaide, St Kilda) and Geelong (Hawthorn, Fremantle, Gold Coast) to both lose at least two of their last three.
Under those circumstances the Dons could sneak into finals if they beat not only the Saints tonight but also Richmond next week and Port Adelaide in the final round.
Yeah… it ain’t happening. Sorry ‘Dons fans.
Instead this one is more likely to impact post-season draft picks more than anything else. A loss to St Kilda, which would be the expected result, will keep alive the possibility they could finish in the bottom three.
Meanwhile whether it’s Adelaide or Essendon picking first in November will come down to which of the two sides finishes the season most strongly.
Prediction
Essendon easy.
Essendon by 36 points.
Join The Roar for live scores and a blog from the match between the Essendon Bombers and the St Kilda Saints in Round 21 of the 2018 AFL Season at Etihad Stadium on Friday night, starting from 7:50pm AEST.