Roar Rookie
Joined August 2013
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The moment after I was born, my father lifted me into the air like a sacrifice to the gods and proclaimed: "say Collingwood!" It's been downhill from there.
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At first glance, Sydney's reported offer of $10m over nine years to Lance Franklin – fresh off the back of last year's multimillion dollar…
With the top four and top eight mostly set in stone once Carlton stormed home against Port last weekend, the final round of the…
Gold Coast Suns meet GWS Giants at Metricon Stadium today with potentially the Brownlow medal, Coleman medal, wooden spoon and Kevin Sheedy's legacy at…
Essendon being stripped of points presents a massive opportunity to the teams circling just outside of the eight, but it also creates a bit…
The AFL finals are nearly here, and come September each team will be hoping for the best possible path to grand final glory. Football…
Hawthorn, Geelong, Sydney and Fremantle. The top four is pretty much locked in stone, and therefore - so the conventional wisdom goes - one…
Not at all, just that they have an impressive record against the title contenders in finals. They don’t have a dominant recent record against any of them in the regular season though, not even Richmond.
Your team's best and worst finals matchups
It’s pretty likely we’ll find out come September.
Your team's best and worst finals matchups
Freo have been desperately undermanned all year and managed to compete against all other comers. They lost by almost the same margin the year before to Hawthorn, conceding almost the exact same score (118 points this year, 119 last year, much higher than their average points against). As noted, they’ve lost seven of the last eight against the Hawks at a number of venues and conditions – the numbers don’t lie. Under Ross Lyon I’m sure Fremantle are capable of beating them, but they’d surely prefer to play anyone else instead.
Your team's best and worst finals matchups
Yep, very good point. Should have broken it up by saying Hawthorn have beaten Freo seven of the last eight games, and even once Ross Lyon came along with his defensive mindset they’ve belted them twice.
Still think the bogey side label stands – Tasmania was no doubt a factor but the way Hawthorn have torn the Dockers defense open even with Ross at the helm can’t be simply put down to a long road trip – the Dockers have been super-stingy everywhere else in the country they’ve been.
Your team's best and worst finals matchups
Sooner or later Steve, it will happen. There are so many variables at play – injuries, momentum, how particular teams match up against one another.
Look at 2007 – Collingwood finished sixth, yet made it all the way to the prelim to lose to Geelong by five points, who went on to demolish Port by over 100. Could have easily had not just a grand finalist from the bottom half of the eight that year, but a premier.
Will it be top four or bust this year?
Wow, that’s quite a run of results, and absolutely agree that you’d back it to continue on this year. Around 2006 though I remember there was talk that the week’s break was actually a bad thing as teams would be off their game come the prelim final – there was a run of teams who lost their qualifying finals but ended up premiers (West Coast 2006, Sydney 2005, Brisbane in 2003). That theory can obviously be put to bed now, but it goes to show that recent patterns aren’t always a great indicator of the future.
Also at the end there I take it you meant to ask if a GF team would come from outside the top four, not the eight… although if there was ever a year a team would win it from ninth, this’d be the one!
Will it be top four or bust this year?
Glad you liked that bit, especially as it wasn’t in the article – I used Collingwood as an example 😉
Agree that Richmond would be a very, very long shot, but have won eight of their last ten and should win the next three. Hawthorn certainly wouldn’t want to bump into them come finals time – the last two times they’ve played the Tigers have belted them by 40 plus points.
Will it be top four or bust this year?
Wouldn’t it be brilliant if after all these years of Richmond 9th place jokes, they ended up getting knocked out of the finals by the team that finishes ninth this year?
Your team's best and worst finals matchups