Here’s an interesting statistic – since the introduction of Gold Coast in 2011, at least one of the teams to lose an elimination final has gone on to miss the top 8 in the following year. Most times, the team that misses the top 8 finish 13th or lower, the exceptions being West Coast (9th) this year, Port (10th) and Essendon (11th) in 2018, Collingwood (11th) in 2014, North Melbourne (10th) in 2013, and St Kilda (9th) and Essendon (11th) in 2012. Conversely, the only losing elimination finalists to make the top 4 the next year (at the end of the regular season) are Geelong (1st) in 2019 and Geelong (2nd) in 2013. Only the Bulldogs in 2016 have gone from losing an elimination final one year to making the grand final the next, let alone winning it.

The argument that “he never failed a drug test” is flawed. There could be a multitude of reasons for that. Officially, Lance Armstrong never failed a drug test either.

There is no comparison between Kelly and Cerra. Cerra is 21, has played 76 games over 4 years, kicked 16 goals and finished third in Freo’s B&F. Kelly was 25, had played 48 games over 2 years, kicked 48 goals and finished in the top 5 of the Brownlow. He stood out in a midfield that contained Selwood, Dangerfield, Guthrie and Duncan. He won the AFLPA Best First Year Player award in his first year, won the AFLCA best young player award in his second year and was selected as an All Australian. To say that Cerra is worth 2 first round picks is ludicrous. At best he is worth a first round pick and a player, or a first round pick and a second/third round pick with some shuffling of later/future picks.

I don’t think Clarko looks or sounds tired at all. Hawks play and results over the last few weeks point to an invested coach doing his job well. I suspect he talked about taking next year off because he hadn’t been offered anything for next year (mostly because he’d only just quit the Hawks).
As for Ross Lyon causing Cerra to not come to the Blues, here are some of the quotes from Lyon about Cerra (from June 2021):
“He’s an incredible kid. He was an absolute pro, him and Andy Brayshaw – if you’re talking about applying yourself, you couldn’t have asked (for more) – I think they were pick two and five. He’s dedicated, trains hard, and he just wants to be a great player.”
“This is no slight on those blokes (Petrevski-Seton and Fisher), but I know him (Cerra) intimately. I would take him every day of the week because he’s a bona fide mid, and the other two aren’t.”
Glowing praise like that rarely goes just the one direction. I suspect the stories about Cerra not wanting play under Lyon are just a media beat-up.

Absolutely not. He showed last year he’s not up to it.

Nice try, but he doesn’t want to go to Geelong.

$750k is what Freo are reported to have offered to keep Cerra, though I suspect it’s closer to $700k. Freo need to pay overs to keep him as he wants to go home. Carlton won’t be paying that much, it’ll be more like $600-650k. The big problem for Carlton is what he will cost in terms of draft capital. Just like they should have split their first round pick last year (instead of spending all of pick 8 on Saad), they should split pick 6 for two picks in the teens and then offer SPS and one first round pick for Cerra, which would be more than fair.

Except they won’t be playing the Giants in Sydney, which is good news for the Tigers. Freo in Perth is the Tigers only real worry, and based on Freo’s lengthy injury list and their effort last week, I’d expect the Tigers make the 8 (finishing 7th). Essendon 8th (on 11 wins).

Wow! I didn’t say the Eagles would easily drop from the eight. I said it was easy to see a situation where they only win three more games. It may or may not happen, but even with all those players returning, nothing I suggested is unlikely. Remembering that the Eagles have already lost to Essendon at Optus, and just scraped past Richmond at Optus, let’s look at their draw:
Round 15: Western Bulldogs at Optus Stadium – Dogs are in form and will be hard to beat, even at Optus. 50-50 game, but Dogs start as slight favourites (they are better than Essendon and Richmond)
Round 16: Sydney at SCG – A victory over Carlton doesn’t mask the terrible record at the SCG. Probable loss
Round 17: North Melbourne at Optus Stadium – Win
Round 18: Adelaide at Adelaide Oval – Crows have beaten Geelong and Melbourne and WCE have a terrible away record. 50-50 game at best.
Round 19: St Kilda at Optus Stadium – Win
Round 20: Collingwood at MCG – Should be some desperate Pies playing for their careers, not to mention a new coach auditioning for the top job, plus that WCE away record. 50-50 game.
Round 21: Melbourne at Optus Stadium – Similar to round 22 2018, except WCE aren’t quite as good and Melbourne are better. 50-50 game, but Melbourne start as favourite (again, they are better than Essendon and Richmond).
Round 22: Fremantle at Optus Stadium. Win (although at some stage Freo will start to win these games).
Round 23: Brisbane at Gabba – likely loss.
In all probability, Eagles will win at least one of the four 50-50 games. But if they don’t, they will struggle to make the top 8.

Pete, I agree with you that the top 5 are too far ahead, but I’m not sure why you and others are so sure that WCE won’t fall out of the eight. Currently with 8 wins, I can easily see a situation where they only win 3 more for the rest of the year. Despite defeating Hawks and Blues (not exactly hard to do), their away record is poor and they could well lose all their remaining away games (Sydney, Adelaide, Collingwood and Brisbane). And given they only just beat Richmond at Optus, I think they’ll struggle to beat the Dogs and Melbourne. So that just leaves wins against North, St Kilda and Freo. Just quietly, I think WCE are in trouble and will be replaced in the 8 by Essendon.

Sorry, just read the part about players not being able to be selected in two teams. I’d still select Lazarus here, put Civenoceva to start for Brisbane and Thiaday to the bench.

Glenn Lazarus instead of Lomax.
Chicka Ferguson instead of Mullins, but personally I’d have Mullins in over Belcher as well. Belcher was probably more consistent, but Mullins was capable of coming up with something special. Put Gary on the bench instead of Alan Tongue (or Walters if you don’t want a specialist hooker on the bench).

I’m sorry ChrisH, while I don’t mind the idea of a floating fixture, I think the prospect of the top 6, middle six and bottom six playing off against each other is horrible. It would be too easy to manipulate the system and, knowing how the coaches operate, they would abuse it the first moment they got.
Take this year’s ladder for example. Would both the Saints and the Bulldogs really tried to win that last game of the season, when the “reward” for finishing 6th would be to play Port, Lions, Tigers, Cats and Eagles? Especially when the alternative could have been to play Collingwood, Melbourne, GWS, Carlton and Freo. Similarly, would Freo have tried to win their last couple of games if they thought dropping one game (eg against Melbourne) would give them a great chance of games against the bottom 5 wins to finish the season, possibly then finishing on 11 wins (with probably a good percentage) to make the finals? Who knows, but the risk is too great in my opinion.
I quite like DB’s suggestion of a 25 game season, but I don’t think the player’s association will go for that, so my suggestion is to keep the season at 17 games and introduce an FA Cup style competition, with 14 clubs from the VFL, WAFL, SANFL and NEAFL (apologies if I’ve missed another comp) joining with the 18 AFL clubs. This would provide an extra 31 games of content for the broadcasters compared to this year (only 9 games less than a full 22 round season) and would probably also provide the opportunity for AFL listed players outside the best 22 to get some experience. 2nd tier comp players would get the opportunity to show their wares against AFL players, increasing their likelihood of getting drafted. Imagine the interest that would be generated as Subiaco or Norwood make it to the last 4, having eliminated Richmond, Hawthorn or Collingwood along the way.

I would really hope an umpire never thinks like that. You’re saying an umpire should adjudicate differently based on the situation of the match. What would people then say about consistency and applying the rules? The umpire should judge the appeal on its merits, and then gives it out/not out based on those merits.

Firstly, I’m not offended and apologise if this came across as vitriol. However I did think it worth pointing out the irony of your “cry me a river” post, when you had posted something very similar only 16 minutes earlier. Also, I never had a whinge, that was someone else (I am not C de B).
Secondly, I know your post had nothing to do with Carlton. I just thought it was an odd post from a supporter of a team that is currently doing really well. Like I said, who cares if no-one predicted Port’s current success. If anything, it makes the victories even sweeter. What I was trying to show you was your post was unnecessarily negative, and the complaints you were making weren’t relevant to Port’s current situation. You know, discussion, debate and intended-to-be good-natured argument.
Anyway, all good and all the best.

I didn’t blame the umpires for anything – all I did was point out your hypocrisy. Interestingly, the only person who raised bias was you.

Gee, what a whinge. Wah, wah – no-one rated my team. Wah, wah – my team is going well, but I can’t be happy about it.
The answer to your question is very simple – in the past few years, Port have been flaky. They’ve been regarded to have a good team, but haven’t been consistent. So in the absence of any other evidence, it’s not absurd to expect that to continue. But to say that “every single media pundit” had Port 10-14th is just plain wrong. Plenty more had Port in the top 8 this year than had Richmond in the top 8 in 2017, or West Coast and Collingwood in the top 8 in 2018. And apart from that, who cares if no-one predicted it or is acknowledging it. Your team is doing well and you should get joy out of that, not whinge about it.
Anyway, I had a go at correcting your post, just to put it into perspective – enjoy.
How is it after just round 7, that even though in the pre-season, every single media pundit, including the ones on this site and most Roar posters had Carlton finishing 15-18th and now it’s expected that we beat the top-ranked team? Gee folks have short memories.
People are saying how good Port have been (they have been but that’s not my point) and they deserved to be on top of the ladder, but going on everyone’s preseason predictions all they’ve done is beat a team everyone expected to finish in the bottom 4.
It would be nice if David and his recruitment team could get some credit for building a team that can challenge instead of them being seen as a cellar dweller that should lose every game.
Something good is happening at Ikon Park, something a few people predicted, but is starting to bring hope to the club fan base.

Don’t be a hypocrite. At 10:07 you complained about frees not being given to Port, you can’t then criticise others for doing the same.

Reason # 2 is not why England lost the test. It only looks like a bad decision with the benefit of hindsight, and covers up the fact they did not bat well enough in their first innings. Choosing to bat fourth is rarely a good decision. The simple fact is England didn’t perform the basics well at crucial points of the match, whether that was their batting the first innings, or their fielding in the WIndies second innings.

I think you’re a little confused. You say in this post that you “don’t call Buddy himself a failure” in the article, but in another post you say “And compare that to the overall growth in the fan base. Are you attributing all that to buddy? And the answer is no you can’t attribute that all to buddy, what you can however, is on field results.” So despite saying you don’t, you actually do attribute on-field results to Buddy. Perhaps you should actually read the piece, then maintain the same opinion in your comments.
Other reasons this is a poor article:
– You talk about a ‘kick it to Buddy’ paradigm. Where is your evidence that that is what actually happened?
– You talk about surpassing all KPIs, but then only use 1 measurement – premierships – to define success.
– You obviously don’t understand the difference between “fact” and “opinion”
– You say “neither time did they look close to winning the flag” – but at the 17 minute mark of the last quarter in 2016, they were only a one point down. That seems pretty close to me.

Nice piece of history revisionism there. The decision to play the final at Manuka Oval was made well before the Scorchers earned the right to host. But it’s always comforting for those of us from the east to still see you westerners carrying such large chips on your shoulders. It’s been 5 years now, time to let it go methinks.

Wow. Five years on and you’re still carrying that redwood-sized chip on your shoulder. You poor West Aussies sure do it tough.

No. NSWRL is New South Wales Rugby League. NRL is National Rugby League.

More like everyone’s a loser. ARU had to pay out some amount (when he might have got nothing), but IF gets less than he was asking for.

Mate you really need to listen to your Eagles-supporting compatriot. The Eagles do not have the capital to get a deal done that will get them a first round pick this year. They can’t trade any future picks, and no-one (not even Gold Coast or Fremantle) will trade a first round pick for picks 46 and 91.