There's a few things statistically which point to the fact that we're in contention, but I think it's clear that it's going to take a lot of luck to get there. For the most part, we've lacked the firepower up forward to convincingly beat any decent teams this year, but the flipside of that is that we've never really been blown out of the water either. In the 7 games we've lost, we've lost by an average of 10 points. In the 4 games we've lost to top-8 teams, we've lost by an average of 5.25 points The five games we've won against top-8 teams includes a 50-point drubbing against Sydney in round 3 when they were struggling, but the other 4 games were decided by an average of 10.75 points. In other words, excepting the Sydney game, our 8 matches against top-8 teams have had an average margin of 8 points either way.
To me, that suggests that we can expect to be competitive and in with a real chance of winning every final we play in (even if the eye-test suggests we're not playing exceptionally well), but our odds in each case might not be any better than a coin-flip. I'm not sure my heart will be able to take 3 close finals in a row, so here's hoping we can pull off a 2021-esque type of run of domination from somewhere.
To me, that suggests that we can expect to be competitive and in with a real chance of winning every final we play in (even if the eye-test suggests we're not playing exceptionally well), but our odds in each case might not be any better than a coin-flip. I'm not sure my heart will be able to take 3 close finals in a row, so here's hoping we can pull off a 2021-esque type of run of domination from somewhere.
