West Coast join Collingwood in 2018 AFL Grand Final

I am not sure if the WCEs are under dogs other than in relation to the bookies odds which take into account the size of the anticipated market for each team. If I was holding a book I would be heavily shortening the Magpies until I had even markets for both teams. I see that the "juice" for the bookies is running at 4.5% which is pretty thin considering the potential volume of bets that could come in late for Collingwood if it looks like rain.

This is the same old same old. Easy to say and hard to achieve. Look around the other threads and you will see its been done to death. The G may not be perfect, but there is no other solution as good.

That is great to hear. I am happy with the world being against Collingwood. Nothing upset me more than starting to hear Collingwood was becoming some people's second team during our time in the premiership wilderness. I don't want Collingwood to loose, but I can not stand the thought of them being irrelevant. Relevance comes through winning often and deep into September.

I agree. However, watching Rance this year, I have had some concerns about his commitment to the hard ball and being prepared to do the 1%ers. I felt his willingness to dive for frees etc earlier in the season indicated that he may not be as committed to hard contests. I also noticed that he seemed to be playing for a cheap free in one of the early contests last Friday. If I have seen this you can bet that the people who watch tapes at every club will have seen it. I would start to look at putting fast strong bodied forwards on him to hit him hard and fast early in the game to see if you can break his will. In a way I hope I am wrong because I love watching skilful defenders and really appreciate their craft. Loved Prestagiacomo and Buddy's comment about what he says back after being sledged … "I don't think I have heard him speak to me". Do you remember Ted Potter from Collingwood in the 1970s, he was like the Cloak of Invisibility. When he played on people it was like he and they just disappeared.

To add to your comment PtS, Moore dislocated a finger during the game, Sier finished in the 2nd quarter with a corked thigh, Sidebottom injured his eye, and Langdon did his knee. So the Pies had a significantly depleted bench and had just lost Dunne the week before (?) and were settling in a new defensive structure that broke down in the final quarter.

That should be "Melbourne have sacrificed defensive structure for speed …." I'm not a great fan of no longer being able to proof read and edit.

There there

I think that Melbourne's capitulation in Perth was really another part of an extensive yet subtle VFL plot to deny the Eagles a proper warm up to the GF. Thus giving an advantage to a Victorian club. Those Victorians will do anything to win, how underhanded.

So Richmond turned up but were beaten by a superior side,but the Demons didn't turn up and were beaten by a side that didn't have to do much to win,i.e. an inferior side? If Melbourne were to have played the Tigers in Melbourne to get into the GF, would they have played as poorly? By your logic,of course.If Collingwood had to play in Perth to get to the GF would they have played as well, again,of course. Utter tripe! The Eagles really do have another gear,as evidenced by them beating the Dees for contested possession,Melbourne's strength, and by basically being "untackleable" with 10 more marks than their already high season average. West Coast had an amazing 31 scores from 52 inside fifties, as opposed to the Demons' 20 scores from an equal number of forward fifties, again,their season's strength,and an abysmal 7.13 from those entries. The Pies will need five Mason Coxes to stand the mark to prevent the long-kicking Eagles from scoring from outside and just inside 50

Hmmm, that should be "Hannibal understood". Then "English archers walk around"

It is true that over the years having a strong centre half forward has been important in September, but there are plenty of teams that have won without a heavy reliance on talls. By themselves there is no formula tall nor shorts that will win every game. The challenge is how to negate a teams strengths and bring overwhelming force against a point of comparative weakness. Consider the Battle at Trasimene when hanible understoof that in the morning fog rolled off the lake and used it to hide his troops, or how the slope and slipper ground at the battle of Agincourt made the ground to slippery for teh French knights and allowed English archers to walk amount dismounted and vulnerable knights killing them with a hand held arrow shoved into their visors. In both these battles, the lie of the land and surface conditions were key factors in detrmining the outcome. There is a 70% chance of rain on Saturday afternoon. Is a set of tall forwards the best option for a wet ball and slippery ground?

I don't like booing very much at any stage. But, if Melbourne is so delicate to be intimidated by booing they have all chosen the wrong career, and it might explain Saturday's disappointment. At this level, having the crowd on your back should be seen as a motivator. They only boo players they think can make a difference.

Boy, you have named some legends there! I think Peter Eakins (sp?) was also from Freo, he was a dashing centre half back and inclined to break through the lines like Picken in later years. But there must be many others there seemed to be strong links between the two club in the 70s and 80s.

I think McLachlan is from Adelaide originally, many commentators confess their team following but I don't know his (it could be the Dees) but if you are talking about the comment I think I heard I assumed it to be about the fairy tail nothing more.

Elliot Cartledge tells a good story in sports, but I never got the impression that he was interested in the rather dry aspects of financial practices and it finer details. While clubs and associations are a little different normal practice is to value an asset as earning after all outgoings times around 2.5. Part of the challenge for clubs at the time was not getting on a player auction treadmill so that outgoings were ahead of income, notably the clubs with assess to deep pockets drove this excess. (More than a few European soccer clubs are still struggling with this or its after effects.) Effectively, the VFL put a stop to this aspect of mismanagement by introducing the salary cap in 1986. One of the real things that comes to me, from reading back to the 1980s turbulence, is that even allowing for the way people would by any significant asset on credit, was how under valued many of those assets were. (Disregard the Packer, Bond Packer ownership of the 9 network, Packer new the value very well.) Because for a club to trade out of debt in only a couple of years really says that it was mismanaged and should never have gotten into financial distress.

Despite having a less day to recover having to travel and spend two night's not tucked in there own cosy beds like the Pies the Eagles will win .Nothing neutral about this game whatsoever. Eagles members only get 30,000 tickets. Should be played in Perth Pies member's get 30,000 Eagles get 30,000 with SA umpires. Stuff the MCG members and Corporate bodies. Let us have a true and fair Competition and do away with the VFL.

You have conflated the VFL and its clubs: they are separate entities. By failing to understand the separation of the individuals you have misinterpreted that if the clubs are insolvent then the VFL must be too. Insolvent means not able to meet financial obligations as they occur. So insolvency is more about having no way of trading out, that is no line of credit or unable to negotiate with creditors. I can speak more closely about Collingwood to illustrate the point. Despite its debt mostly to the NAB, within a couple of years Collingwood had repaid its debts and was in surplus. Like with a most of the other clubs the issue was not around the potential earning but expecting amateur sports administrators to understand financial practices. Most clubs solved their issues with appointing financial officers, when it is that simple its not a major issue. If you consider that the WA licence sold for $5.6million in 1988 or that the Swans licence was sold for $13million, then clearly the asset valuations were wrong. If you really wanted to know Judge Lewis' reasoning you would have to go to his judgement not ask him. It may have included the value of the licences sold to WA and QLD under priced in the market at $4miillion. However, there would be a lot more nuance than you suggest. Even if the VFL or any of the teams were found to be insolvent, the action would never have been to shut the league down. Based on their prospects to trade out the most that would ever have been likely is that there would have been a period of external administration.

If you want a neutral venue you can not do it on a rotation because there will always be a high chance that there will be a home state finalist. This would irregularly create and even higher home ground advantage than the G filled with members of every club.

You are probably correct. There is no point coming to Melbourne. Everything is against you. Stay at home.

All week I was monitoring the weather forecast - it's super hard to head to Perth in September for a day time finals match. Melbourne looked out on their feet from about half way through that first quarter. I reckon the nerves hit them - and their capacity to regroup and find their '2nd wind' was reduced by the conditions. They really looked like boys against men. They had no ability to establish any fluency at all - - there was pressure of course but even when they found a smidge of time/space their execution was horrible (handballs all over the shop). In the case of Richmond against Collingwood that was far more 'honest'. Collingwood were super. Richmond just couldn't get the game played on their own terms. I love the footy fight to set the agenda - and Collingwood won that even before Mason Cox did I50 damage.