Preview Round 17 - Essendon VS Collingwood, MCG, Friday 5/7/24, 7.40pm AEST

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So? Over the past 3 seasons, our record with Parish is 15-25-1 and without it's 12-7 and aside from Bruno, nobody says we're a better side without him.

As I am arguing for a combo of players not a single player so I don't think Parish as a single player matters at all in this conversation.

I don't think we can play well sustainably with all of Goldy, Draper and Wright playing.

If we can only go with two I would drop Wright first and allow a combination of two of Caddy, Jones and Langford the room in the forward fifty to lead up with Draper deep forward (0-25m from goal). The other three players need to be there for defensive pressure.
 

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This game has a huge mental element attached to it.

If the playing group are hyper aware of last year's drop off and it's been spoken about all week I reckon it has the potential to creep into the psyche if things don't go well on Friday.
We showed against Geelong things got hard and the players mentally cracked and couldn't regain composure.

Pies are gonna do their blitz, either to run us down if we take the lead or to try and break the game open, if/when that happens and the avalanche of momentum happens, it could very easily send the group spiralling as they hope to avoid the season fade out rather than play their natural game.
Drop this game and the cats game and all of a sudden the panic starts to build, it's happening we are dropping.
Then you have a dees game that is very much not a given. Drop that and this becomes a 5 alarm fire and the season starts to slip away.

So much of this groups issues are above the shoulders, massive test Friday. Pretty keen to see what happens.

I'm very much of the same mind. Way too much noise is being made of this in the media, on socials, in general conversation for it not to be putting pressure on.

The club/players will say "nobody puts more pressure on us than ourselves" but when the whispers become something of a roar it's definitely a distraction that can be seeded and come forth when the going gets tough on field.
 
Apart from the Swans, every top 8 contender has had their bad patches this year. If the end result is a top 6 finish then it’s not a bad result.
Every team other than North have beaten at least one of the current top 8 sides... except Essendon. To be fair that was Fremantle last week and they beat Sydney away so we have an opportunity to beat a top 8 side tomorrow. If we lose, then I'm prepared to write the year off because we simply aren't winning a final. We've seen this too often and I'm not sure 12 months will change that.

Also, I'm not really too big on making finals alone. My interest is winning a final which will require us to beat a top 8 team. Finishing 6th and getting kicked out first week doesn't do anything for me.
 
We need to unlock the beast. Wright has the Hulk inside. Hopefully he gets a punch in the head early. Or maybe Scott can arrange a brawl in the race between 2M and Cam Mooney just before the start. This is Collingwood we're talking about. Whatever it takes.
 

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Every team other than North have beaten at least one of the current top 8 sides... except Essendon. To be fair that was Fremantle last week and they beat Sydney away so we have an opportunity to beat a top 8 side tomorrow. If we lose, then I'm prepared to write the year off because we simply aren't winning a final. We've seen this too often and I'm not sure 12 months will change that.

Also, I'm not really too big on making finals alone. My interest is winning a final which will require us to beat a top 8 team. Finishing 6th and getting kicked out first week doesn't do anything for me.
we’ve beaten sides that were in the top 8… and went out after we’ve beaten them, such as GWS
 
A close loss incoming, nothing surer


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Haha I have that feeling too. Regularly against the Pies we get into what seems a commanding position someone hits the post then they get one against the flow and 10 minutes later we have a sub 1 goal lead we try clinging onto. Then one of their marquee players destroy us.
 
My interest is winning a final which will require us to beat a top 8 team. Finishing 6th and getting kicked out first week doesn't do anything for me.
Cool but finishing 6th and hopefully with the buds of a gameplan that Scott is trying to implement will be an improvement no matter how you spin it. I don’t think many people had winning a final as the pass mark this season until we were sitting 3rd somehow.
 
Every team other than North have beaten at least one of the current top 8 sides... except Essendon. To be fair that was Fremantle last week and they beat Sydney away so we have an opportunity to beat a top 8 side tomorrow. If we lose, then I'm prepared to write the year off because we simply aren't winning a final. We've seen this too often and I'm not sure 12 months will change that.

Also, I'm not really too big on making finals alone. My interest is winning a final which will require us to beat a top 8 team. Finishing 6th and getting kicked out first week doesn't do anything for me.
If the teams we have beaten are so shit why is everyone talking up the Dogs and (until this week) GWS?
That's why I hate the "havent beaten anyone in the 8" argument mid season.

The fixture is so compromised it's hard to get a read of who the real top 8 is till seasons end and it's a pointless exercise using the ladder as a guide to retrospectively judge which teams of quality we've beaten vs lost to.
 
As it stands 13th is literally 2 points outside the 8. If we win it won't matter because Collingwood will drop out of the 8. There's 6 points separating 3rd and 13th, this is the most even season ever. Whoever has the best record in that 11 team group amongst themselves will likely finish top 4. As it stands we're 3-3-1 in that group, with 5 of our last 8 in there. If we win 3/5 and beat Adelaide/Saints again we finish 14-8-1 and that could be enough to finish 4th.
 
It's all relative. Wheatley and Kingy do seeding on Mondays show and have Hawks and Dogs in the top 4. Gws was regularly too. Most in the media have us out of the 8. We have Ben tenth favourite for the flag all year even when we were second. It's as simple as our form was good now isn't.
 
It's all relative. Wheatley and Kingy do seeding on Mondays show and have Hawks and Dogs in the top 4. Gws was regularly too. Most in the media have us out of the 8. We have Ben tenth favourite for the flag all year even when we were second. It's as simple as our form was good now isn't.
Yep the fox sports power rankings consistently have dogs in top 4. But apparently our win against them counts for nought.
 
As it stands 13th is literally 2 points outside the 8. If we win it won't matter because Collingwood will drop out of the 8. There's 6 points separating 3rd and 13th, this is the most even season ever. Whoever has the best record in that 11 team group amongst themselves will likely finish top 4. As it stands we're 3-3-1 in that group, with 5 of our last 8 in there. If we win 3/5 and beat Adelaide/Saints again we finish 14-8-1 and that could be enough to finish 4th.

Send this to Kingy so he can recite them as his own on 360, The Tackle, First Crack or whatever other show he presents other people's work as his own.
 
Added to what I said above, if:

We beat Collingwood
Hawthorne beat Geelong
Bulldogs beat Port
Gold Coast beat Norf
Melbourne beat WC by enough
Adelaide beat Brisbane

The entire second half of the 8 will drop out. Just in one round.
 
Added to what I said above, if:

We beat Collingwood
Hawthorne beat Geelong
Bulldogs beat Port
Gold Coast beat Norf
Melbourne beat WC by enough
Adelaide beat Brisbane

The entire second half of the 8 will drop out. Just in one round.
Wild
 
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