August is the ‘wet season’ in Northern Tasmania. Most of the rain comes in the form of fronts from the north-west this time of year. Sometimes the rains makes it to Launceston (i.e past the Western Tiers), sometimes it doesn’t. BOM really struggles with rain patterns this time of year. I wouldn’t pay much attention at all to the forecast until Thursday. The forecast of ‘a shower or two’ a week out is as standard as ‘31c and sunny’ this time of year in Darwin.
It’s been a wet winter, but with no more rain this week, the surface will be quite dry. Sunset is an hour later than for the match against Hawthorn, so the late dew that came in during the 4th quarter then won’t be an issue if it doesn’t rain. Wind is much more of an issue this time of year than it was in June. We could get the situation where there’s a strong wind advantage in the first half before the wind dies down after half time.
4 day rule applies most anywhere as confidence of computer modelled predictions only increase with increased data inputs. Inside ~3-4 days, OCF modelling is generally very precise, even down to individual topography at around ~10km resolution.
At this stage it looks like the game will be fine, rain arriving overnight and into Monday.
On Langford, I don’t think it’s anything earth shattering to claim he’s in our best side or even in our best 5 to 10 players.
Of course he’s an automatic in if he’s up and running.
But he’d be heading into a finals match of manic intensity having only got through 3 quarters of a game in 7 weeks and with no integration into VFL/Scratch match footy in the lead up. And to boot it was a recurrence of the same injury which calls for more caution.
As much as I want him there and he’s a core part of this team, that presents too much of a risk for mine.
But, the guys best placed to know all the facts and weigh up the pros and cons will be the ones making the decision so I guess we just trust them to make the right call.
Bruce out is a huge loss for Dogs. Kicked 3.2 when we played Dogs and should of been more like 4-5 goals(easy misses). We struggle with the strong forward type. Think our backline matches up well. Draper is probably the most important player in this game.
I have Stringer the most important player this game. closely followed by Wright and Draper.
Thing with UTAS is ground is so big, unlikely to be a goal fest, and finals footy will be a hard slog, all goals will be super important.
Dogs will be kicking themselves, blew top 4 chance and now playing in TAS in front of feral essendon fans. If we get on top early with goals, will be great for our mindset.
Yeah it’s pretty obvious when our best 3 every week for the past 3 months have been Merrett, parish and stringer then yesterday with finals sewn up our best were 3 smith, cutler and waterman.
I mean… 11 wins and 8th place is not an amazing season. No one is saying it is.
On the other hand - we beat West Coast on their home deck. Had we lost that game they would be in and we would be out. We beat the Bulldogs which given recent form against them and their form at the time was a massive scalp. We won our last three on the trot and have travelled more then any other Melbourne team this year.
I’d describe our win yesterday as “workmanlike”
We got the job done by working smarter not necessarily harder
It’s been a while since we could rely on the Bombers for this kind of a result
In the past we’ve been more like the first year apprentice turning up hungover
Selection will be interesting. I just have a feeling they are going to roll the dice on Caldwell with Clarke to make way. I’m doubtful they will risk Langford.
