Are Collingwood good enough to sustain this run, take 3rd, beat Geelong and make the GF ?

[bulletproof]

They’ve come up short every other year, they don’t seem to be able handle the tag (and excuse the cliché) as the hunted. For the purporting to be Australia’s ‘Manchester United’ they really are best placed as plucky underdogs. Glamour potentially dangerous underdogs, but underdogs none the less.

Even with Geelong’s huge injury list and reportedly being on their last legs, with no backline or forward line, an ageing midfield and no depth they are three games and a whack of percentage behind them.

How good are they? I mean really?

The loss against Hawthorn was telling, yet has received little of the press that Geelong’s meaningless loss to Cartlon gained.

 

[understudy]

yeah that sums it up

For the AFL boarders, Understudy says he is a collingwood supporter he has just yet to actually prove he enjoys collingwood success over failure

Considering Im a veteran member of this site and have always posted on Collingwood Id say Ive got more cred on here than some little stalking try hard newbie ...

The problem with these collingwood supporters posting re me is they cant accept others opinions and any one dare questioning or seeking to improve the club (as them following me on here testifies to ) ....

 

[Mr.X]

Pies are a big chance for the flag.

I'm sure they are enjoying having the expectation and hype directed towards the saints.

Collingwood always seem to attract a lot of attention when they are travelling well, but the extraordianry performance from St Kilda and Gellong's recent troubles have taken the attention away from Collingwood.

They will give it a decent shake this year, and it wouldn't surprise many people to see them make the GF.

 

[understudy]

OK - this is not a troll, and it's not bitterness over the weekend's result

I think there's a few people in the media and on BF who are seriously overrating Collingwood this year (good to see a few Collingwood supporters here being more realistic).

Yes, they are a good team and yes they are very well coached. And yes, they beat Adelaide on the weekend (but we played very badly and it is a game we should have won).

But have a look at the record this year - who they've beaten, and where they got enough wins to (probably) finish top 4.

They play Geelong and St Kilda once each (lost both)
They play Carlton and Essendon twice each, in a year when both of those sides are middle of the ladder at best (1-1 in both cases)
They play Sydney twice (1 win and one TBA)
They play Melbourne twice (2 wins)

Switch a few games around in the fixture (like give them 2 each against Saints and Cats instead of, say, Melbourne and Sydney) and bingo, they're on 11 wins and fighting it out in the bottom half of the 8.

Yes, I know you can only beat who you play, and I know it's swings an roundabouts with the fixture - but the point is, if you're going to rate Collingwood as a contender it has to be on the evidence, and the evidence is thin.

Based on the fixture I don't rate Collingwood any higher in the Premiership contention stakes than Adelaide or Brisbane. And I don't rate Adelaide's chances

Collingwood are likely to finish 3rd or 4th so certainly have a higher chance than the others on that alone at this point in time ...

 

[Grumpy Bum]

So we cannot be happy for the wins that play a big part in leading to a grand final? Let me tell you, the win over the weagles in 07 elimination final was one of the happiest times of my life!!!

the less brains,the less expectations.

You can rah rah rah all you want over wins, but unless they culminate in a flag, then it is another failed campaign. Geelong won all but 2 games last year, I bet Thompson and the players consider that a failed campaign, because they lost the one thing they were aiming at. Unless you are telling me that the premiership is not the goal of any team in the AFL, let alone the finals. Is that what you are telling us?

Ask Malthouse what he would consider a successful season and I bet he will tell you its a flag. Everything done within the season is to reach that one goal. If you don't reach that goal, then you have not succeeded.

Some people are so inured to failure they grasp at anything other than the ultimate goal in the game.

 

[anubis]

Of course we can Geelong has always had trouble beating us in the years they have dominated.The only exception in this was the J.Selwood cup at the start of they year.As for our easy draw after this week we will have only played 1 of the bottom 5 teams twice this year and that will remain so for the rest of the year.So i guess there are a fair few teams with a easier draw than us?

As for the thumpings we copped from St.Kilda and Carlton ,we should have been on the recieving end of them.You take out 5 of the starting forwards out of any team and see how they go against other teams.Doggies have lost 4 forwards and are struggling..cats two defenders and the same, as for the hawks i doubt we will beat them for the next 5 years no matter where they are on the ladder.They have a fast leading power full forward and a rolling zone two things we struggle against.

I think since the start of the year we have improved alot and Geelong is struggling with injuries and form a little that helps our chances dramatically.
I just find it amusing how every team we beat in the 8 so far nearing the end of the season has pretty much said they have had a bad night and if they played us again would win or they really should have won but for some reason didn't.

I forgot we are a average team with average players who are not actually any good and have not beaten any good teams.

Geelong are ranked 2 for a reason, but i think we can make the GF in the end.

 

[The Spike]

The pies are playing good football and are worthy 3rd favs atm.

BUT, just a few weeks ago, they got badly exposed by the hawks. The issue for the pies is that their team has a lot of young players and some downhill skiers.

Therefore, when the pressure is turned up by a team with hard bodies and some class, they lose their shape and confidence. The ease at which they fell away from the relentless hawk pressure showed that it will be their biggest issue against the main contenders in the finals.

 

[surfer1605]

It's a shame you don't play either Saints or Cats before the end of the H&A season, then you'd have a much better idea of where you're at. It's like the Dogs & Crows, they improved heaps since the last time Saints played them, however, what no-one realised was so had the Saints, it's jst because Saints started off so strong that no-one noticed this.
I will admit, I am scared to play Collingwood and wish we had another game against them before finals, I think you guys are doing really well at the moment, and you probably will take 3rd place, but I don't think you can fully be assessed until you meet Geelong or St Kilda again.

BTW Which Collingwood players were out when they played Saints earlier this year?

 

[OniAu]

It's a shame you don't play either Saints or Cats before the end of the H&A season, then you'd have a much better idea of where you're at. It's like the Dogs & Crows, they improved heaps since the last time Saints played them, however, what no-one realised was so had the Saints, it's jst because Saints started off so strong that no-one noticed this.
I will admit, I am scared to play Collingwood and wish we had another game against them before finals, I think you guys are doing really well at the moment, and you probably will take 3rd place, but I don't think you can fully be assessed until you meet Geelong or St Kilda again.

BTW Which Collingwood players were out when they played Saints earlier this year?

I think we can handle ourselves in finals, our young kids have had experience in finals over the past 3 years. Its not really daunting to them in any sense like it would be to an essendon or carlton who havent been there for a while.


Ins and outs based on our game against you earlier in the year to our team we put out against the crows on the weekend.

Ins: davis,didak,goldsack,medhurst,anthony,beams,wood,dawes,johnson,dick

Outs: corrie,wellingham,clarke,n brown,fraser,stanley,macaffer,rocca,barham,sidebottom

Some fair changes, i think you guys even had a few out aswell at the time , i cbf checking that. I know that week though i wasnt confident at all going in with the team we ahd against you guys. Usually i think we match up well against you guys.

The bolded ones in the Ins are ones i think would make a massive difference to us against you guys. I may even be underating the likes of beams and johnson and others as they are a massive improvement over barham,stanley and macaffer.

Fraser would be about the only inclusion to our team that would be worthy to make it our best 22 atm.

I rate our chances against the likes of the cats and saints as fairly good. "Weak draw" or not , we still have won our games to be there in the finals.
No one rated us in 02 or 03 going into the finals and we did reasonably well, well as well as you can do without winning the flag. Beating the lions in one qualifying final from memory.

People can down play our draw all they like , fact is we have beaten every team apart from the Saints,Cats and the Hawks. More deserving to be in the top 8 unlike the teams losing to bottom four teams at the end of the season

 

[Lazyboy]

The saints would be shitting bricks, they got hold of us when we had 10 different players running around earlier in the year, they also handed us a belting in the finals last year, however we where missing loads of decent players yet again and had the youngest finals side in AFL history..

Oh well still a long way to go yet.. But we have nothing to lose this year. Still a young developing side.. Unlike the saints and cats, they are getting old and the windows about to close for a good 5-10 years..

We also smashed the saints twice last year..

 

[krisholio14]

The saints would be shitting bricks, they got hold of us when we had 10 different players running around earlier in the year, they also handed us a belting in the finals last year, however we where missing loads of decent players yet again and had the youngest finals side in AFL history..

Oh well still a long way to go yet.. But we have nothing to lose this year. Still a young developing side.. Unlike the saints and cats, they are getting old and the windows about to close for a good 5-10 years..

If the Saints are shitting bricks about anyone, and I doubt they are at the moment quite frankly, it won't be Collingwood they'd be filling their pants over thats for sure.

 

[MadAboutPies]

OK - this is not a troll, and it's not bitterness over the weekend's result

I think there's a few people in the media and on BF who are seriously overrating Collingwood this year (good to see a few Collingwood supporters here being more realistic).

Yes, they are a good team and yes they are very well coached. And yes, they beat Adelaide on the weekend (but we played very badly and it is a game we should have won).

But have a look at the record this year - who they've beaten, and where they got enough wins to (probably) finish top 4.

They play Geelong and St Kilda once each (lost both)
They play Carlton and Essendon twice each, in a year when both of those sides are middle of the ladder at best (1-1 in both cases)
They play Sydney twice (1 win and one TBA)
They play Melbourne twice (2 wins)

Switch a few games around in the fixture (like give them 2 each against Saints and Cats instead of, say, Melbourne and Sydney) and bingo, they're on 11 wins and fighting it out in the bottom half of the 8.

Yes, I know you can only beat who you play, and I know it's swings an roundabouts with the fixture - but the point is, if you're going to rate Collingwood as a contender it has to be on the evidence, and the evidence is thin.

Based on the fixture I don't rate Collingwood any higher in the Premiership contention stakes than Adelaide or Brisbane. And I don't rate Adelaide's chances

No troll mate - supporters of any team that have won 10 of 11 have a right to feel a little bullish about their team.

The only thing is that bar Hawthorn (one game, oa loss) and Richmond (one game, playing them this week) we've beaten every team below on the ladder at least once, and turned around initial losses to Carlton and Essendon by beating both teams convincingly (by 53 and 35 points) second time around; and have beaten teams in the last five weeks sitting 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th (only blip was hawthorn).

If I had a hand in fixturing I would love to play the best teams (Geelong especially) twice a year as a way of gauging form at a point in time - its just unfortunate that we played both St. Kilda and Geelong by Round 7 this year and we're nowhere near full strength in either game.

The best that Collingwood can do at the moment is keep on winning, finish in the top 4 and gauge their form by playing either the Saints or Geelong in the first week of the finals.

So back to the original question:

• sustainability - yes (on the premise that Collingwood have three winnable games and will start favorite in all of them)
• take third - see above
• beat geelong - maybe (if the two teams played this week then 'yes', but player turnover can change from week to week)
• make the GF - maybe (will not start favourite in any of them unless collingwood beats geelong first week and play bulldogs in prelim)
• win the GF - no (i'll concede that saints are a 4-6 goal better side, but then again, the saints have only won one GF...)

 

[DidakDelight]

COllingwoods Lifting the cup this year.
Book a holiday for october

 

[Glassjaw]

we played both St. Kilda and Geelong by Round 7 this year and we're nowhere near full strength in either game.

Who was missing against Geelong? Medhurst and who else?

 

[buzzbuzz]

We weren't actually missing anyone against the Cats. There were a few players playing who are currently playing in the ressies for us though (Cox, Clarke, N. Brown [i would much prefer Nate to be playing over Leroy]). We just played poorly.

 

[Daics35Marvel]

Contrary to what was stated earlier, we fielded close to a full strength team against the Cats. Medhurst played.

Compared to last weeks line up:
Didn't play in Round 3: Wood, Goldsack, Dawes, Toovey
Played in Round 3: Fraser, Clarke, Cox, N. Brown

Can't blame injuries for that loss. Against the Saints, injuries were a factor but it's hard to make a case that our outs would have made up 88 points.

The difference from then to now seems to be our confidence and ability to break down different game plans (except for the Hawks). As others have stated, it's hard to know where we sit until we play the 2 teams above us.

 

[carnasaint55]

I'm not sure about collingwood.

They definitely have a good side and a great coach--I would not want to meet them on their day. However their lack of a big target up forward (cloke and anthony and even rocca aren't so great and would be well covered by the saints defense) is what will prevent them from going all the way IMHO. however, as has been said 32049738 times, anything can happen in finals.

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

I tipped it to happen 2 months ago.

I've seen nothing to change my mind. If anything, it seems MORE likely than it did 2 months ago.

 

[Thommo 42]

Who was missing against Geelong? Medhurst and who else?

We weren't actually missing anyone against the Cats. There were a few players playing who are currently playing in the ressies for us though (Cox, Clarke, N. Brown [i would much prefer Nate to be playing over Leroy]). We just played poorly.

We weren't really missing anyone, but I don't think we played that poorly either.

We dominated the first quarter, but couldn't get it between the big sticks, missing heaps of easy shots. Geelong then dominated the 2nd quarter, kicking 8 straight to reverse the 1/4 time margin from 20 points down to 20 points up. The game was then pretty even from then and I think we lost by about 25 points.

 

[VEEBEE]

I'm not sure about collingwood.

They definitely have a good side and a great coach--I would not want to meet them on their day. However their lack of a big target up forward (cloke and anthony and even rocca aren't so great and would be well covered by the saints defense) is what will prevent them from going all the way IMHO. however, as has been said 32049738 times, anything can happen in finals.

i agree carna,travis cloke is of little value marking the ball between the wing and half back flank.the last thing we need is another tarrant,he must make more of an impact inside fifty if we are to match it with the likes of the cats , and saints.

 

[rickyp]

OK - this is not a troll, and it's not bitterness over the weekend's result

I think there's a few people in the media and on BF who are seriously overrating Collingwood this year (good to see a few Collingwood supporters here being more realistic).

Yes, they are a good team and yes they are very well coached. And yes, they beat Adelaide on the weekend (but we played very badly and it is a game we should have won).

But have a look at the record this year - who they've beaten, and where they got enough wins to (probably) finish top 4.

They play Geelong and St Kilda once each (lost both)
They play Carlton and Essendon twice each, in a year when both of those sides are middle of the ladder at best (1-1 in both cases)
They play Sydney twice (1 win and one TBA)
They play Melbourne twice (2 wins)

Switch a few games around in the fixture (like give them 2 each against Saints and Cats instead of, say, Melbourne and Sydney) and bingo, they're on 11 wins and fighting it out in the bottom half of the 8.

Yes, I know you can only beat who you play, and I know it's swings an roundabouts with the fixture - but the point is, if you're going to rate Collingwood as a contender it has to be on the evidence, and the evidence is thin.

Based on the fixture I don't rate Collingwood any higher in the Premiership contention stakes than Adelaide or Brisbane. And I don't rate Adelaide's chances

You casually forget to mention that we also played

Adelaide twice (1-1)
Brisbane twice (2-0)
WB twice (1-0 with 1 to go)

So your basic point is that if we played every top 8 (we're only missing Geelong and St. Kilda) team twice, and none of the bottom 8 twice, we wouldn't have as good a record as we do now?

Are you serious?

 

[AFaiL]

No team has ever won 12 in a row and NOT made the GF. End of story

First time for everything

there aren't too many teams who've won 12 in a row, so the stat loses some value.

 

[Lunchlady Doris]

We are in it to win it this year, and i'd say being a 20 per cent chance to win it this year, and than an 80 per cent chance to improve next year, means that Collingwood supporters have alot to look forward to.

Hawks supporters gave themselves a 200% chance of improving this year

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

OK - this is not a troll, and it's not bitterness over the weekend's result

I think there's a few people in the media and on BF who are seriously overrating Collingwood this year (good to see a few Collingwood supporters here being more realistic).

Yes, they are a good team and yes they are very well coached. And yes, they beat Adelaide on the weekend (but we played very badly and it is a game we should have won).

But have a look at the record this year - who they've beaten, and where they got enough wins to (probably) finish top 4.

They play Geelong and St Kilda once each (lost both)
They play Carlton and Essendon twice each, in a year when both of those sides are middle of the ladder at best (1-1 in both cases)
They play Sydney twice (1 win and one TBA)
They play Melbourne twice (2 wins)

Switch a few games around in the fixture (like give them 2 each against Saints and Cats instead of, say, Melbourne and Sydney) and bingo, they're on 11 wins and fighting it out in the bottom half of the 8.

Yes, I know you can only beat who you play, and I know it's swings an roundabouts with the fixture - but the point is, if you're going to rate Collingwood as a contender it has to be on the evidence, and the evidence is thin.

Based on the fixture I don't rate Collingwood any higher in the Premiership contention stakes than Adelaide or Brisbane. And I don't rate Adelaide's chances

Actually, it was Collingwood that played poorly. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. We allowed you guys to run at will. The ONLY area of the ground we played well was the backline. Even then, some straighter kicking in the second quarter could have made things different.

You were beaten by a MUCH better side, plain and simple. Mind you, beaten by a better side playing poorly.

Abotu our draw, it's the same almost every year. Don't whinge. We've been playing Essendon and Carlton twice for about what? 100 years? NOW you decided it's unfair?

Melbourne and Sydney we play twice because up until last year we NEVER played them twice thanks to our fixed draw with them on particular rounds.

We played St.Kilda 3 times last year (including the final) I doubt the AFL knew St.Kilda would go 19-0 this year and though "Gee, let's make sure Collingwood only plays St.Kilda once".

We've played almost all the top 8 sides twice, and our draw is no more difficult or easy than previous years. We have our draw for a reason, and it's goverened by the fact that Collingwood has supporters that ACTUALY SHOW UP.

Get over your crying at the fact that you THOUGHT Adelaide might have been a chance this year. Read one of my past posts BEFORE the Adelaide game as to why Adelaide APPEARED to be a great side, and you'll see that the result on Saturday night just confirms I was right.

Get over it, we are in the ladder position we DESERVE to be. We're not as good as St.Kilda or Geelong, but better than everyone else, so we're third.

 

[The Fireman]

The majority of the football loving public is hoping...no.