If we could sneak into the 8, and sneak a finals win I’d take the 6 or 7 draft place hit just to shut up all of the trolls and to get that particular monkey off our back before we’re facing a finals series that we think we can make a serious impact on
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We’re two games outside the 8 but obviously it’s all a little messed up during the bye rounds.
I reckon there is very little chance of that top 8 changing. I think it’s as close to being set in concrete as any year at the halfway mark.
Ah sh*t, we are too.
Well, that just means that the season may not be alive for us for too much longer. But until then…
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Out of our 10 games to go, I’d think we should be a really good chance in 7, if not 8.
I’d be fairly confident that we could give Geelong a good shake at Kardinia Park if we had half our midfield injured available.
We’ll probably struggle against Dees and Dogs, but I’d rate us against Hawks, Swans, Suns, Giants, Roos, Pies, Crows assuming they’re all in Melbourne (except for the Suns).
Ok, so I just did a ladder predictor…
I had us winning all bar the Melb, Doggies and Geelong games, and went the obvious (ladder position) result for all other games. We knock out West Coast for 8th under that scenario.
West Coast are legit vulnerable, imo. (Regardless of what we do.)
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It’s always an interesting exercise doing those ladder predictions.
On us, I just don’t see us not dropping a single game out of those other ones (Hawks, Swans, Suns, Crows, North, Giants, Pies). I just don’t think that is likely at all. I’d say we are far more likely to drop two of those if anything.
On the Eagles, yeah they are probably the most vulnerable but even then with a two game head start and regaining McGovern, Shuey and Duggan a week after their bye should see them steady enough.
P.S. Sorry, may have misread what you meant a touch. It seems you had us losing to the Swans as well maybe with your ‘ladder position’ reference. That aside I’d expect us to drop 2 of those other games.
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Call it hardworking then…
8 Stop a run of goals against us 
Oh don’t worry, I get it. I am also an Essendon supporter 
It’s hardly fanciful, though.
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I think it’s highly unlikely we play finals, especially with injuries adding up, and the expectation that the kids tire. (I means Cox, Jones, Perkins have such little behind them prior to this year). A lot would have to fall out way. But I don’t think we just “pack it up”. We keep going, and either circumstance dictates we’re done early, or we just go right to the end.
I suspect circumstance leads us to being about 10th with 4 rounds to go and some decisions about whether to target 13th, or to try and make sure Darcy wins the Brownlow!
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To be clear, so do I really.
But preseason (and particularly after round 2), I thought it’d be highly unlikely we’d be sitting 9th at this point.
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For those that say they are happy to forego wins to develop kids.
its who would you play.
Reid/Zerk → Stewart - is he too old if this was strategy why even give him a contract?
Cahill - > Zaharakis
Bryan → Hooker/Wright?
apart from that there isnt much quality younger depth demanding to be played
Its not like we are Brisbane and have Eli Smith, Keidan/Blake Coleman running around in our ressies.
Bryan can develop playing ruck in the two’s unless we have injuries
Zerk is at a cross roads - but good depth, may look eslewhere for more opportunity good nough to get a game
Cahill - is limited in ability height/speed/strength, but likely going to be given a chance next week with all the injuries we have, and he has performed to an acceptable standard in the VFL…
Reid we look keen to get games into
Brand -potentially ready to go buy behind too many.
Hird/Johnson/McBride/Eyre not ready
Baldwin/Mosquito/Caldwell - injured
kids are really already playing only good ones that aren’t are injured.
efc 26 and under
b: Hind Reid Laverde
hb: Redman Francis Ridley
c: Langford Parish Cox
hf: Waterman Jones Perkins
f: Snelling Wright Mosquito
R; Draper McGrath Merrett
int: Caldwell, Guelfi, Ham, Bryan
Emg: Zerk-Thatcher, Durham, Cahill
Depth Brand, Hird, McBride, Johnson, Clarke, Cutler, Gleeson
answer this first, if hooker retires this year, do you think it’s good for team development beyond this year to have become accustomed to scoring a certain way with a certain forwardline structure, only to have to re tweek it next year cos you’d be replacing hooker with Jones who people don’t rate good enough to take the no.1 defender as is, and who else exactly ?
alot of my issue on the hooker selection was about peoples perceptions about not being able to win games of footy this year without hooker, ironically not long after everyone has agreed win’s don’t matter this year as much.
that’s the part that always didn’t make sense to me
Blitz - it’s a development year, wins don’t matter yada yada
me - ok if that’s the case lets develop new ways to try and kick a high enough score with someone else, who will most likely be there beyond this year.
Blitz wow wow wow, you can’t do that, we need hooker to win, or to be competitive because we can’t be competitive without him, jones isn’t ready, you want to ingrain a losing culture, yada yada.
It really is still so surprising how many people just will not deviate from the status quo and their rigid thinking and belief system, despite on the other hand saying how the club needs to change and how crap it’s been in certain areas for so long.
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I think this is a fair point, especially if we did it from the start. But it did ignore that:
- Sometimes kids learn faster against a weaker opponent. Jones not getting demolished by the #1 KB may have helped his confidence and growth.
- That once Hooker was playing, and playing well, the message to the group if he’d been dropped would have been very bad. When trying to instill a winning culture, effectively telling the group you’re dropping your leading goal kicker doesn’t align with that. They would right go “WTF?”.
If you play Wright as FF from Round 1 with Hooker in the reserves, then staying that is easy to do. But once he’s in and kicking heaps of goals, you can’t drop him without (rightfully) making the playing group ask questions. Similarly if Zaka had come in as depth but got 30 possessions each week and a goal, we couldn’t have really dropped him even if we wanted to. Because of the message it would send to the playing group.
One of Parish or Merrett goes down we could be well back in the hunt for a top 5 pick.
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That will come with more practice and with greater chemistry on the field. It took Richmond 2-3 years the bring it all together and win a flag. The big picture plan is progressing well knowing the next year or two will have bumps sling the way.
I wanna see the kids being given greater opportunities. Can’t lose focus that this is still a development year and the kids have shown that they aren’t pushovers
So I wanna see Merrett, Parish and Langford supported by Draper, Bryan, Perkins, and Cox in the middle for the rest of the season.
Bring Durham in to play off a flank and Cahill to play a small forward role with Ham stationed forward too.
And I wanna see Reid and Baldwin to be given some games to wet their appetite for 2022 if Hooker and Stewart look to be fading towards the end of the season
@Ants pretty well answered for me. A lot more in-depth too I might add. What I will say to that though, is that the decision making process was made a whole lot easier without anyone else performing enough to force their way into the team.
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