The battle for the bottom 4 of the top 8

[mightytiges]

1) Have to beat Adelaide. 8 point game.
2) Barrack against West Coast and Adelaide for the rest of the year.
3) Keep on winning!

Yep we are in control of our own destiny. Beat Adelaide and go two wins clear of them with a game in hand and that's one less side we have to worry about. I don't see the Crows making it anyway.

[mat073]

Up until yesterday I saw the Crows as our major threat.

West Coast are done and dusted.

Don't laugh but our biggest threat may come from the most unlikiest of teams...the Gold Coast .

Would rather be in our shoes in terms of making finals

[Gigantor]

I reckon our biggest threat is us

[tigs2011]

We should be home if we win 4 of the next 5.

[yellowandback]

Before the season started, 5 "locks" for the Top 8:-
Magpies, Hawks, Swans, Cats and the Eagles.
Still going to leave Pies and Eagles in this mini ladder for the time being.
Bombers and Freo becoming "locks" for the 8 in the next month.

Current status
1. Essendon 32 points 129%*
2. Freo 30 points 125%
3. Blues 24 120%*
4. Tigers 24 111%
5. Pies 24 points 97%**

6. Eagles 20 points 116%**
7. Crows 20 points 108%
8.  Power  20 points 107%
9. Suns 20 points 96%*
10. Norf 16 points 111%*

* Played this round already
** Play this weekend

Gold Coast are ahead of Roos with 20 points but after scaring the Cats, beating the Roos and having the Crows, Bombres, lions and tigers  in the next month become relevant - particularly if they beat us and the crows which are 8 point games.

Bombres appear safe and secure and with  Gold Coast and the Eagles away - should only have a drug conviction and the integrity of the AFL competition to impact them playing finals this year.
Freo have Lions, Roos and Cats. Win 2 of these and they look in finals.
Pies have the dream run of Demons, Bulldogs and Power to gain points and lost %. Beating Power helps us but also starts ruling out another top 8 spot.
Weagles have Saints, Bombres and Hawks and now face a real battle to even make the 8 with a number of tricky games in the run home.
Crow bots have  Tigers & GC - another key game for us. Crows lose to us and it impacts their top 8 chances significantly. They have a very tough run home.
Blues Hawks and Swans. Ideal world sees them lose those last 3 to keep our season open and the loss to the Bombres was the first of hopefully 3 straight losses
Nort have Saints, Dockers, GC and GC - this draw is why I leave them on the ladder for the time being. They must win every game in the next month if they want to win 10 of the next 13.
Power look stuffed with the loss to the Bullies but just need a few more losses to put paid to their hopes psycologically.
Tigers have Crowbots, Bulldogs and Saints. 3 of the biggest weeks of our season for a few years.

One point to those who think we are "stuffed" "not good enough" "rebuild a failure".
Having watched a fair amount of footy this year, I would say we are definitely good enough to play finals.
What isn't yet proven is if we are good enough to play several years of finals.
The Crows, Eagles and Roos have all proven that they are good enough to play finals one year before seemingly fallen straight back out again this year.
I might be proven wrong but right now could anyone defy my point that we aren't good enough to come out and beat the crows and the roos if we bring our a game?
Having said that, we are guaranteed the crows "A Game" at the G next Saturday.
It will almost be opposite circumstances to our game against the Eagles last Monday night.
It will be interesting to see how we respond.

[Stripes]

Good post yellowandblack - Adelaide and North are huge games!

We need to be careful of being flat after the bye too. Over the last couple of years teams seemed to start their first game after the break down on intensity. With Adelaide likely to begin the game in a rage after their loss we need to be careful.

Agree mat73 about Gold Coast. As the only team to have never beaten them and now them playing so well, that becomes an 8 point game for mine.

North Adelaide, WC, Carlton, Collingwood and now GC are the threats now. Collingwood will take a spot unless the sky falls.

[Smokey]

I reckon our biggest threat is us

x 2

[tony_montana]

Carn the saints!

[Eat_em_Alive]

Interesting thread this one
The team's destiny is is its own hands, after reading the posts in here I went and jumped on the AFL ladder predictor and played around on 3 or 4 scenarios.
The one I think is most likely to happen (play well and win the ones we should win and lose the ones I think they'll lose and barring catastrophic injury)
I had:

Adelaide- win home
Bulldogs- win away
St Kilda- win home
North- loss away

Suns- loss home kinda
dockers- loss home
swans- loss away
hawks- loss away
lions -win home
carlton- win home
giants - win away
essdanks - loss away

That has us on 12 wins in 7th spot on mine, also has either carlton or west coast in 8th spot with 12 wins also
I know many have said on here 13 wins will get you in and that is most likely the case but Ive had the teams at the top only getting better as the season goes eg: geelong, hawks, sydney, freo etc, hence why I think team like north, crows, GC may drop off completely.

I dont really believe we will lose all 4 of those games in a row that Ive stated above but very hard to tell what we will actually do, win one of those and thats 13 wins.
As yellowandback said above the next few weeks will be season defining and what I did find whilst using this ladder predictor is that if we do win the next 3 games we dont fluctuate much on the ladder whilst teams around us will. Win the next 4 (difficult but not impossible) and that will really set us up for a finals berth.

I very much doubt this will happen but with 15 wins would put us in contention for top 4 however that would mean we would have to beat freo and bombers as I have them in 4th and 5th respectively. Very unlikely but "dare to dream"

btw I had us either playing bombre or pies in the elimination final depending on how many they win/lose 

Sorry for the long post, just surfing atm and reading Nought melb meltdown threads on BF 

[WilliamPowell]

I reckon our biggest threat is us

x 2

X 3

And BTW reckon you need 13 wins to guarantee finals this year without relying on other teams winning/losing and % getting you in

[tony_montana]

Way too early to worry about it yet imo, footy is a funny game

[bojangles17]

I reckon our biggest threat is us

I think so to to a point G, we gotta win the games that we should, to date we have , and with a full side in i expect that will continue

[Gigantor]

Reece and ellis coming back ,and foley finally starting to find form will help our midfield no end.WE should see lids ,cotch  and dusty cutting loose a lot more now

[Chuck17]

It's just going to get better and better as we lift towards finals, good things are happening







unless we lose and miss out and then we can go back to sacking Hardwick threads

[Eat_em_Alive]