On an AFL survey, 2 out of 3 say we will win, squiggle says 57% likelihood Port will win, Bet Easy says Port 1.62, Essendon 2.30
What does that all mean ?
We will pulverise them !
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Bit harsh on Rocky. The kid has his faults, but he has more than carried his weight in the sides he has played his career in.
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I think I was the one who started talking about whether the season was a success or failure and I wish I hadn’t.
What I was really thinking about was heading into summer. If we win this one we’ll be 10-4 in the last 14 games, and we’ll know we’ve had some really good wins since being beaten by FC. If we lose to Port it will be 9-5, and the loss to Port, who are not much of a side, and even though it’s interstate, it will leave a bad taste.
I got invited by an MCC ember to wathc the Coll v Port game last Saturday at the MCG.
Rockliff was a disgrace - on two separate occasions he deliberately pulled out of a contest/tackle to avoid body contact.
Not that Polec was much better on the “physical stuff” - he twice coughed up easy goals in the Pies goal square despite having prime position in each marking contest - first time to mark, next time to spoil. Weak as butter. Looked great in space though when there was no chance of physical contact.
Ryder’s ruck work in the middle was sublime, on occasions, and directly responsible for quick goals in both Q1 and Q3.
Problem was, he was clearly playing hurt and went to a key forward role after every centre square contest. Meant he kicked 3 goals and Grundy dominated around the ground against Westoff etc.
Apply any physical pressure and, believe me, they will crumble. Let them run and create in space and they will likely cut us up.
Selection wise I would drop Dea and send Hooker back to cover Ryder.
With Bellchambers out I would select Leuy at FF and debut Draper in the ruck as they have a young ruck playing who will shoulder the bulk of the ruck work anyway.
Bring the pressure around the contest and we will win and win well. Don’t do that and they have the potential to embarrass us.
He certainly has carried his weight… too much of it. But irrespective of what he’s done in the past, he was no magic bullet for Port.
I said at the start of the year that Port’s recruits wouldn’t improve them and I expected them to be bottom half of the 8 at best.
At some points through the season they looked like they could make top 4 but that was probably as inevitable as their final finishing position.
I can’t see them getting any better over the next few years. Their key players are mostly approaching or past 30.
I don’t know much about their youth, but considering how they recruited last season you’d have to think their youth is thin for quality.
Protecting his shoulder ? If so he was not fit to play and should not have been selected.
Agree.
Lol didn’t some pundits say Port won the trade period at the start of the yr?
Lol,we smashed them.
Now lets smash em again.
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As anybody know if Sam Draper travelled to Adelaide today?
I hope he gets a shot at it tomorrow night
Rocky out for the year. So, 1 week?
He is definitely out for the next 2 days.
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The team will be announced soon.
In: LAV, Leuey
Out: Dea (omitted), Belly (injured)
Emergencies: Ridley, Green, Stewart, Dea
Damn, you are 4 min early, where’d you get the teams?
Somebody put up the talk verde gif pls!
AFL app
Surely Hooker won’t play
And once again we miss an opportunity to give kids AFL experience.
It’s not the end of the world, but I do think it is a pretty conservative and unimaginative approach.
How big a failure 2018 was?
(Sorry I started writing this earlier in the day, when this was the thread title - I got waylaid.)
We have already well exceeded the performance of 2009 where we had 10 wins and 1 draw and a percentage of 97.79.
2014 we had 12 wins and a draw against Carlton (13th), with a percentage of 106.69, so if we win tomorrow we are in the same ballpark, considering we only beat 3 top 8 sides, lost against 17th and 18th and 11th that year.
2017 was similar with 12 wins and a percentage of 106.5. However we again only beat 3 top 8 sides, this year we beat 4. We lost against 5 non finalists in 2017, including Carlton (16th) and Brisbane (18th). This year we lost against only 3 (albeit one against Carlton again at a very bad time), but if we win tomorrow I would say we have had a stronger season.
I think the frustrating thing about 2018 is that we think we were good enough to be top 4 in the second half of the year. But were we really top 4 worthy?
We know we aren’t better than Richmond.
We don’t know if we are better than the Eagles teams that won 15 games so far, given they were down with injuries when we played and even Melbourne managed that.
Collingwood beat us both times, so we can’t put that down to our first half of the season, and if we were good enough we really should have beaten them at least once.
Hawthorn also beat us when it mattered, sure if we had another key forward we coulda shoulda woulda…
Sydney we had a great win against but no one but Richmond comes close to their record of 8 and possibly 9 wins against sides in the top 8.
GWS we did beat on their turf, but they are better performed against bottom sides than us losing only to one other team besides us (North) and similar to us against top 8 sides. We are in their ballpark though and their draw to the Saints was a sub par effort.
Melbourne, I do think we are better than them, but they beat us which has secured their top 8 place (so that loss probably hurts the most).
We also had a good win against Geelong, but they have still beat more top 8 sides than us beating 5 to our 4, but we are comparable.
So while we could argue we are thereabouts for maybe a 4th placed performance, I don’t think we are a lot more deserving than West Coast or Collingwood or Hawthorn or Sydney or GWS or Geelong.
I think our biggest failure this year was not beating Melbourne, if we had done that, I would say we deserved to be in the top 8, and also if we had beaten Collingwood twice given they also haven’t beaten anybody in the top 8 besides Melbourne, we would be in line for the top 4.
So yes if we had done that we would have been up there on 14 wins, vying with Sydney and the Hawks for a place in the 4 and passing one of them if we beat Port tomorrow night. But we’re not, and we didn’t, so we probably deserve our lot this year.
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