Round 23 Discussion. Farewell BJ

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
63

I agree with this and wouldn’t play a youngster if they are just going in the twos.

That said, potentially Walla, BJ, Bags and Dea could have a spell this week. If they’ve made a call on BJ then they’ll let him play.
I’ve been pleased with Lang but he looked sore and well off the pace so perhaps a spell for him too.

64

It’s the last round, it’s not having a spell. They don’t play the week after having a rest.

65

Changes:
In: Ridley Fantasia Laverde
Out Dea (omitted) Goddard (knee) Hooker (soreness)

Emg: Long Dea Stewart

66

Win, it’s a 12-10 season. Lose, it’s evens. If we want to attract players, I still reckon one looks much better than the other.

6 Likes
67

Houlahan? Are you joking?
I’d be delisting him, not giving him a game.

I know he’s contracted for a year, but it’s not unheard of to delist draftees after their first year and pay out their contract.

The guy just can’t get near the ball in VFL, so unless there is some sort of physical issue preventing him showing his best, I don’t see the point in keeping him for another year.

Very similar first year output to Eades.
Best case scenario for Houlahan imo is that he gets rookied to honour the second year of his contract, but personally I don’t see the point

68

Call me crazy.

But I’d love to see Francis in the the middle for 5 mins, just 5.

Kid has reaction speed with his hands and feet like a mid.

3 Likes
69

Kochie’s folks should have tarped up.

6 Likes
70

Hooli - Dooley - han? Haven’t read or heard much about him so this is interesting information. Sounds like he is somewhat less than vanilla. l would have preferred a benfti special.

71

will be very angry if we win this gaem

72

I personally like winning but that’s just me

26 Likes
73

Wow? You’re really that worried 1 or 2 places in the draft?

1 Like
74

is judas back in for port?

75

Yeah, he played on the weekend.

76

Booooooo

77

@Aceman

78

They already aren’t making finals. Play kids!

79

Massive difference.
This is a super draft.
One spot could be the difference been a top quality mid or not.

80

It’s THE super draft! They’re all going to be champions!

2 Likes
81

Which names are likely to go around 7, 8, 9, and what are their positions? I just wanna be better informed to know why we should lose.

82

Apologies for a similar post in another thread, so if you have read it in the Impossible Dream thread …

It is just sinking in, what a crazy season this has been now that the top 8 is decided, and both Essendon and Port have missed out; even if we win this week:

If we had beaten one of Carlton, Bulldogs, Fremantle (A) (which are all of the non top 8 teams that beat us), we still would have missed the finals because of our inferior percentage which needs to be above 125.7 to get past Geelong, and that could easily go up with Geelong playing the Suns. Which is a crazy percentage just to be in the 8, and 14 wins being a crazy number of wins just for us to make it, in lieu of that percentage.

So was it our losses against non finalists that hurt us most?

As it turns out, not really.

We lost 3 times against sides outside the 8 (so far) and won 4 times against finalists, this stacks up well against most of the finalists.

Consider the following about the top 8:

  • Even Richmond has dropped 2 games against teams out of the top 8, but won 7 times against finalists.
  • West Coast dropped 3 games against teams outside the top 8 and won 6 times against finalists.
  • Collingwood has only beaten 1 top 8 team (Melbourne), and lost to no one outside it (I would say they were soft except for the fact that stat includes beating us twice).
  • Hawthorn has lost 3 times to teams outside the top 8 and 4 games against finalists but will have to improve on that record to make the top 4, but more likely have performed this year about the same as us.
  • Sydney has lost 5 times to teams outside the top 8, but could make the top 4 if they win 9 times against top 8 sides (beating Hawthorn), and even winning 8 against fellow top 8 sides would be the most top 8 wins , so our win against them when they were hurting I think was a pretty decent one.
  • GWS has failed to win 3 times to teams outside the top 8 (2 losses and a draw to St Kilda) and has only won 3 times against finalists and could make that 4 next week, so have performed similar to us.
  • Melbourne managed to make the 8 by winning only once so far against a top 8 side (last weekend against WC) and lost twice against non finalists, again calling them soft hurts a little because they beat us too.
  • Geelong has also lost 3 times against sides that missed the 8, but won 5 times against finalists, so they probably deserve to be higher than 8th.

So our record stacks up well against 5 of the top 8 teams, even including our performance against lower sides.

The only major distortion in all this, is we can count 8 top 8 teams as opposition and only 9 bottom half teams. But, despite this, it still indicates that it was the AFL fixture, determining who plays each other twice, that has had more impact on our top 8 prospects than our performance relative to our opposition.

This is true for the whole shape of the 8 and the top 4.

14 Likes