Should have said “at least” 12.5 – point being I don’t think 12 will be enough to pass anyone except St Kilda if they lose to GC.

Assuming you’re budgeting all four GMHBA games as wins (ie including Port)?

I reckon Geelong gets to 12.5 (at least 3 wins of the 4 GMHBA games, plus St Kilda at Marvel) and both Essendon and the Dogs get to 13. Melbourne should get to at least 14 with our fixture from here – heaven help us if we can’t find four wins from our last 7.

They’ll all qualify, meaning that St Kilda has to get to 13 or otherwise open the door to, likely, the winner of Adelaide v GWS this week. Not sure Adelaide can get to 13 as that will require winning two of the Showdown and Melbourne/Brisbane on the road.

So, St Kilda v GC this week may be St Kilda’s first elimination final. Not sure St Kilda can beat Geelong or Brisbane in the final two weeks so if they drop the GC game they have to run the remaining four games (North, Hawthorn, Carlton, Richmond). Fortunately all four are at Marvel, in a row, which is a very kind draw, but their recent form doesn’t inspire confidence in a 4-0 run through that.

Fair. We should have had enough of a buffer, though

Don’t blame the weather or the fading light or whatever. Don’t even blme Warner (even though he’s cooked and has no entitlement to be playing whatsoever).

If we lose, which seems likely, it is entirely down to how we bowled after lunch yesterday. Yes, give Stokes some credit, but our panicked retreat into bouncer bowling cost us 50+ runs and is the single biggest reason we are not in a position of dominance.

We should still be able to set a decent enough total to bowl at but we shouldn’t be this worried, because we should have a vastly better lead.

We should never have lost 6/24 on Day 1. We also shouldn’t have given Ali two cheap wickets with terribly loose shots. But that all pales in comparison to the way we bowled at the tail in the middle session yesterday. From 7/140-odd with Wood, Broad and an injured Robinson left, the innings never should have made it anywhere near 200, even with Stokes there. I cannot understand Cummins’ obsession with bowling short stuff to the tail, and when you combine that with him over-bowling himself, we threw the door back open to England and let them walk straight through.

Our lead right now should already be 200+ and if it were, we’d all be feeling a lot more comfortable.

Carey and the tail haven’t been in amazing batting form of late; today would be a great time for them to stand up and support Head and Marsh. If either of the incumbents gets going and we can get decent support around them, with no Robinson/Stokes, Broad having bowled almost every day of the Ashes so far, and Wood a perennial injury risk, surely there has to be an opening here to take some runs and build this lead.

And FFS, when the time comes to bowl to the England tail in the 4th, spare us the bouncer rubbish.

Nah, it’s Collingwood’s flag to lose.

They are genuinely better than everyone else. They bat deeper, they play harder for longer, there’s no reason why they can’t keep doing what they’re doing, and they will have the crowd behind them every game they play at any venue.

Port deserve to be the other side in the discussion but I don’t see them beating Collingwood at the G in September. They should finish 2nd and get through to a home prelim but that will carry with it a fair bit of pressure given 2020-21 and Ken’s contract situation.

Brisbane still the 3rd best team but I need to see them put some form together away from the Gabba.

Melbourne have the competition covered in two-thirds of the ground but are so poor in the other third it’s all for nought. Not sure we are going to work out how to fix that in time to make any decent run in September, particularly with Oliver still not fit and now having to replace our clear best forward in Fritsch.

Adelaide currently the most over-rated side in the comp. One win all season away from the Adelaide Oval, and that was by 3 points over Hawthorn.

Fremantle the best side out of the 8 but coming from a bit too far back given their fixture and they’re recent poor form. Geelong gets pumped up on 2022 reputation but just isn’t the same side this year. Sydney and Richmond are gone. Carlton and GC have the ability to beat almost anyone but also the ability to lose, hopelessly, to almost anyone (see, eg, Carlton’s stodgy 6 game losing streak or GC’s capitulations to Carlton and Collingwood).

A true smokey in my view is GWS. In form, beaten good sides of late, winning on the road. They have a tough run but for whatever reason (call it recency bias from seeing them beat us) I feel like they can make it into 7th or 8th.

Top 3 should be considered locked in, and right now it’s hard to mount a convincing argument that any side other than the top 3 is going to win the flag.

4th spot is right up for grabs. Hard to believe St Kilda might have that spot after next week; they hardly scream top 4 material. But the ladder is very flat from 4-14.

I disagree with Tim that Oliver doesn’t help us all that much. Whilst we don’t need help in winning clearances or contested possessions, we should, because we should still be using Trac more forward. We’ve decided to shore up our contested/clearance work since Oliver went down and I think that’s been a tactical mistake.

Once Oliver comes back we can push Trac more forward – helps us more with his goal assist work than his actual goalkicking. Oliver is also criminally underrated by non-Melbourne fans who don’t appreciate how much ground he covers and how good he is in transition, in addition to his stoppage work.

We also can never again play a forward line of Brown, Smith, Melksham, Chandler and Neal-Bullen. All are either out of form or not real forwards (or both). Van Rooyen never should have been dropped (that’s two howler drops in two weeks from us, with Tomlinson the first), Smith shouldn’t be playing, and one of Chandler and Neal-Bullen needs to make way for Spargo (who can kick) or Laurie (who deserves another chance).

You’re too generous to us, Peter. We are in a major form rut. In 2019-20 we played like this and Goodwin couldn’t get us out of the rut. It’s been 5 games now of us dominating a number of key stats, having more than enough inside 50s and shots on goal to win the game, but failing to actually convert those chances. We’re running out of time to fix the problem.

Besides which, we decided to sell that game and play it on the “country cow paddock”.

Sure, but a number of our home games are played against co-tenants or otherwise Vic sides who play there frequently enough that we lose some of any advantage we’d get for having a home game in the first place.

Yes, we travel less than all 8 non-Victorian clubs. But we travel more than some Victorian clubs and ideally that should not happen. If you want to complain about Vic clubs getting a ride complain about the “bigger” clubs.

We play 8 interstate games this year, plus in Geelong.

Even accounting for 1 sold home game of ours, we play more interstate than all other Victorian sides except North and Hawthorn who sell 3-4 games to Tasmania.

Oh, and it would be nice to get the chance to play them next year at our home ground for once. Send Hawthorn down there. Or Carlton. Or, shock horror, Collingwood or Richmond. They deserve their home games down there but by virtue of the “big” clubs never being required to play there, we are forced to play there essentially every year.

There were so many reasons to believe Geelong would win this game. Contrary to Tim’s main premise, their best football this year has been sporadic and only seen in bursts between the most mediocre football they’ve played in years. Slipping to 6-8 with games to come against Port, Collingwood and Brisbane would have put their finals chances at genuine risk. So they knew how important this game was. Meanwhile as is all too often the case with us, coming off a big win we got ahead of ourselves, made indefensible decisions at selection (dropping Tomlinson for Petty and playing Spargo as sub), and shot ourselves in the feet with missed shots on goal when we had the upper hand in the contest.

At some point we will realise that a forward line of Van Rooyen, Smith, Fritsch and too many smalls isn’t going to win us a flag whilst simultaneously leaves us with too few midfielders to give Petracca, Viney and Oliver (when he plays) a chop out.

I like North’s endeavour under Ratten but the Dogs have too much on the line and generally get their game in order against bottom 6 sides. If the Brisbane-Sydney game were in Sydney I’d be inclined to think Sydney might pull an upset but it’s not, so they won’t.

For the other four games Port, Fremantle, St Kilda and Gold Coast all deserve favouritism given their seasons to date and those of their opponents. But I can mount an argument for the underdog in each. There’s a big part of me that thinks Geelong is going to “click” sooner rather than later and Port’s due for a loss. GWS can produce really good football from time to time, and Fremantle have a few missing. St Kilda are good enough to put Richmond away with ease but haven’t won two in a row since Round 4, whilst Richmond might have found a renewed hunger under McQualter. And Carlton is at some point soon going to kick straight and beat a side much better them, and this game is at the G rather than Marvel which I suspect suits Carlton more than Gold Coast.

Collingwood are good. They weren’t at their best today but that’s largely because we brought a level of pressure that they don’t often cop. We also don’t bring that level as much as we need to, so hopefully today is a reminder of what we can do when we hunt the ball carrier like that.

I don’t think Collingwood lose anything from that, but we do gain a bit of confidence I’d think, along with seeing more development in some key players (such as Tomlinson in the third tall defender, role, Salem getting back to 2021 form, McVee continuing his development, Grundy standing tall despite the pressure).

I agree but in 2020-21 Brisbane and Port were in this same spot and couldn’t get to the GF either year. They are, with Collingwood, the three best sides right now but I wouldn’t rule our our chances in a road final against either side given their history.

Two articles last week that we are “bog average”, now an article that we’re on track for the flag.

This article is closer to the truth than the “bog average” ones but neither is fully correct. We have work to do on selection and structure to ensure we stay in the top 4.

Like others, I can’t agree. There is too much subjectivity over what is a “football act” vs a “non-football act”.

The use of “careless” vs “intentional” wouldn’t result in fair outcomes either. All dangerous tackles and all bumps are deemed “careless” unless there is clear intent to hurt. De Goey, and Pickett, don’t deserve to win the Brownlow because they’ve made bad decisions, but under Tom’s model would be eligible. So would have Tom Stewart last year. None deserve it.

There is a separate question to debate here on Merrett and that is whether a week’s suspension for the borderline dangerous tackles is where we want the game to be going.

I agree that there has been an over-reaction to the De Goey bump (it’s not a “weak act”) but it’s still something that should not occur on a footy field in 2023 and is closer to the Stewart-Prestia hit than Collingwood supporters care to admit. A 4-week penalty would be appropriate.

Gerard Healy’s past it. His commentary is awful.

There was a really interesting article on the ABC this week (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-01/afl-what-makes-a-good-kick-in-2023/102420562) about the disposal efficiency stat, arguing it’s no longer fit for purpose given it was developed decades ago and the game has changed. Principally focuses on how a 40m+ kick to a contest is “efficient” regardless of whether the ball is retained or lost. There is a poor correlation between DE and retaining possession. Funnily enough, it uses our game last week as examples – Fremantle had high DE from kicks that were statistically unlikely to be retained.

So, whilst I agree that Brayshaw’s kicks are poor (we can all see it – he picks bad options and then poorly executes his kicks, all too often), I don’t care if Petracca’s DE stat is 60% because I don’t really consider that stat to be terribly meaningful, and he was our best last week (the coaches agreed, by the way) and was the best on the ground again last night despite a 68.8% DE.

I’ve never rated Smith but agree he should get at least one more game. Agree on Brayshaw, the more he thinks about his kicks the worse they get.

Two articles about us being “bog average” in two days, it’s been our lucky week!

Expected score last night had us winning by 40, almost entirely due to our inaccuracy (we left 23 points on the table to Carlton’s 1). Had we kicked the shots we generated and won by 40 points this article wouldn’t exist. 40 points would reflect the work we did around stoppage and at contest, as well as in our back half.

No, we weren’t similar to the Dogs at all.

As you’ve mentioned, we finished on top. We were 17-1-4 with a percentage of 130.8%. We beat 16 of the 17 other sides, only missing out on Collingwood (who didn’t make finals that year). Our wins included Geelong twice (including at Geelong), Port in Adelaide, Brisbane on neutral territory and the Dogs at Marvel. Our 2021 finals run was the culmination of an incredibly strong season. To suggest otherwise is, to borrow Patrick Cripps’ words, factually inaccurate.

The general contention of the article, that we’re not one of the league’s best sides right now, is correct.

But “bog average” is a ridiculous way to describe us. We’ve played five bad quarters all season (Q1 v Brisbane and the entire Essendon match). 50% of our losses have been to Brisbane and Port on the road, the two toughest road trips against two of the clear top 3 sides to this point. One of the other two losses was to an in-form Fremantle by 7 points, hardly disastrous. The Brisbane, Port and Fremantle losses can all be tied to the same major weakness of ours, and that’s defensive 50 stoppages. We conceded well above our season average and the league average of goals from D50 stoppages in all three games and the margin in each was lower than what we’d conceded. If we’re good enough, that’s fixable. The rest of our game remains in good enough shape to challenge.

Yes, we’ve played well, but the W-L hasn’t been very good.

After the Freo loss in Round 11 last year we beat Brisbane twice plus Fremantle in Perth (a venue they went 8-4 at). We lost twice to Collingwood and twice to Sydney, plus to Geelong, the Dogs and Brisbane in the finals. We led all of those games by 20+ points at some stage except Geelong. At no stage in the losses were we awful, we just weren’t good enough for long enough. It was a poor way to go through the season but it would be unfair to suggest we didn’t play well against those good sides.

This year we’ve beaten the Dogs and lost to Brisbane, Port and Freo (the former two on the road) by a combined 22 points. Again, we weren’t awful in any of those games, but just weren’t good enough for long enough. We played some really good football against Port, and some good (but not great) football in the other two games.

Our worst loss, by a mile, was the Gather Round loss to Essendon, the “worst” side we’ve lost to since 2021.