May as well just give Essendon the flag now and have it done with.
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AFLW 2024 - Round 4 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
The Top 4 challengers
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Strapping Young Lad
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- Apr 19, 2006
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- #27
Glad I'm not the only one who has found some of the posts over the last 24hrs quite amusing.Good idea. Let's write off 5 teams after the first round.
Anyone would think the home and away season only runs for 2 weeks.
Geelong were missing Chapman, Ling, Pods and Byrnes for the game, Selwood for most of the night and was first game without Ablett
Doggies were missing Lake, Gilbee and Hargrave, and had below usual input from in particular Cross, Boyd, Griffen and Cooney, which won't happen all year.
Carlton were missing Jamison, Bower, Kreuzer, Henderson and McLean, first 4 will easily break into the team once fit, while McLean should be in their best 22 by end of the year.
Hawthorn were good most of the night, beaten by a quality team in Adelaide. I must admit I had my doubts about Adelaide, and yes it is only round 1, but they did play well. Wouldn't be stressing if I were a Hawks fan though.
St Kilda lost by a point, and IIRC had a few players out as well (Kosi, Schneider).
Not saying all these teams will finish top 6 or whatever, just saying that it is too early to be getting worried/excited about these teams prospects.
Doggies were missing Lake, Gilbee and Hargrave, and had below usual input from in particular Cross, Boyd, Griffen and Cooney, which won't happen all year.
Carlton were missing Jamison, Bower, Kreuzer, Henderson and McLean, first 4 will easily break into the team once fit, while McLean should be in their best 22 by end of the year.
Hawthorn were good most of the night, beaten by a quality team in Adelaide. I must admit I had my doubts about Adelaide, and yes it is only round 1, but they did play well. Wouldn't be stressing if I were a Hawks fan though.
St Kilda lost by a point, and IIRC had a few players out as well (Kosi, Schneider).
Not saying all these teams will finish top 6 or whatever, just saying that it is too early to be getting worried/excited about these teams prospects.
Too early to say who the top 4 challengers are (apart from pies obviously). I am still very confident about the Swans. After watching both the Dogs and Hawks get disgustingly overrated all summer it was somewhat satisfying seeing both teams put back in their place immediately. Neither of them are that good at all. Top 8? Probably. Elite/challengers? Hell no.
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No-one else rating Freo?
I thought given the travel factor and their huge injury list, that 4 points was invaluable for them. They'll only get better as the season goes on.
I thought given the travel factor and their huge injury list, that 4 points was invaluable for them. They'll only get better as the season goes on.
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- #31
Of course it is a long season & it's very much, a week at a time proposition. The whole Malthouse being in his last season means the hunger will be still there, 1 snippet of play, Tarrant chasing down Rodan & then Heath Shaw doing a Nick Riewoldt chase on Hitchcock, showed they still have it.
Geelong in 07/08 had the majority of their list in the peak years. Dawes, Sidebottom, Reid, Pendlebury, Thomas, Beams, Shaw, O'Brien, etc, etc, are still years away from their peak years.
Exactly how are the Cats and Blues top 4 aspirations dented? I thought 4 points were a good thing...
It's bizzare isn't it.
Geelong beat last years runner-up FFS.
They were missing Chapman, Ling, Pods, Byrnes and Selwood (pretty much), lost a pretty decent player during pre-season, yet won against a team which beat them in finals last year. So they looked a little rusty, being round one - doesn't that just leave even more room for improvement?
Surely if making ridiculously early calls in round 1, wouldn't the logical call at least be that Geelong have improved?
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Geelong, Rd 1 2008. Collingwood, North and Port Adelaide (the rest of the top 4 from 2007 - and West Coast who finished third on the ladder) all dropped significantly from 2007.
Someone else stepped up though...
Carlton was missing Jamison, bower, Mclean, Kreuzer ,Hendo Ellard.....
our back line consisted of Duigan a first gamer, Laidler who played first game for Carlton and only 3rd afl game ,Simon white only played 7 games , Yarran first game in defense, Thorton .... nothing more need to be said , the only defender out there that had played most of 2010 was Russell
our forward line was missing Hendo , and Waite went down early
i think we did pretty well against a spirted Richmond taking all of that^^^^ into consideration
our back line consisted of Duigan a first gamer, Laidler who played first game for Carlton and only 3rd afl game ,Simon white only played 7 games , Yarran first game in defense, Thorton .... nothing more need to be said , the only defender out there that had played most of 2010 was Russell
our forward line was missing Hendo , and Waite went down early
i think we did pretty well against a spirted Richmond taking all of that^^^^ into consideration
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- #36
Every year people pick the same top 4 as the year before and the last 2 years is one of the rare times its happened.
I expect a really unpredictable year coming up.
Still, round one always throws up some surprises, mostly they mean nothing but then sometimes they do. eg Pies over dogs 2010.
Which ones are which is anybodys guess.
Fun times ahead, definatley wouldn't give the Pies the flag just yet (think 2008) but all signs pointing that way. Was in Adelaide and the Crows were electric once they got going, Could be top 4 for sure.
I expect a really unpredictable year coming up.
Still, round one always throws up some surprises, mostly they mean nothing but then sometimes they do. eg Pies over dogs 2010.
Which ones are which is anybodys guess.
Fun times ahead, definatley wouldn't give the Pies the flag just yet (think 2008) but all signs pointing that way. Was in Adelaide and the Crows were electric once they got going, Could be top 4 for sure.
Visions
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Yes, Carlton did well without some of their main players out but I find it amusing when their fans bring up McLean as missing. It's like the Collingwood fans who always said Rusling was missing from their squad. When a player is forever injured, he shouldn't come into excuse discussions.
People look to round 1 for answers to there pre-season predictions. Just happens that they way most games played out where really left with more questions rather than answers with most teams.
What is the go with Henderson? I keep reading that he was missing which I interprete as injured but I can't find anything about him being injured and he was named as an emergency to play.
there is not a chance in hell that geel stk wb will fill the remaining top 4 spots this year
pies clear no. 1. all 3 other spots up for grabs based not on what we have seen in rnd 1 but what we have seen since the middle of 2010
pies clear no. 1. all 3 other spots up for grabs based not on what we have seen in rnd 1 but what we have seen since the middle of 2010
i watched all the games with the apparent top 4 contenders to collingwood and while we fell away in the last qtr we were easily the best of all of them. Geelong were shocking so were the saints and if the blues had played anyone other than the tigers they would have lost. We played an emerging side (top 6 imo) over there and were in control of the game till halfway through the 3rd qtr, the game should have been over by half time, we need to fix up stupid mistakes and kick a bit straighter and with more matches i think we will do that.
every man and his dog can see Collingwood are clearly favorites but how can you come to any conclusion about Geelong or St Kilda when they basically played a stalemate. All you can really say is it looks like not a lot separates them. Hard to judge where they will finish until they play a team like Hawthorn, Adelaide or Collingwood.
Had a hip operation around Christmas time ..and has played a half of a practice game in the Ants ..and played most of the game in the Ants on the weekend ...they are easing him back into it .
He missed some 2 months of preseason due to hip surgery. Played 1/2 games in the VFL (3rd week of NAB Cup) and Carlton's last Challenge game. Also played VFL last week.
Taking a while to get back into it and seems to lacking match fitness. Many thought he'd be in the side on Thursday but the MC is very wary of playing underdone players as it's seen to have cost us games in the past. They played it safe by giving him another game in the VFL to regain touch.
Expect him back in the side next week or against Collingwood at the latest.
- Banned
- #46
Crows were better. They will be close to the top 4.
- Thread starter
- #47
This is what i was alluding too.
Obviously im not writing these teams off and its still more than likely top 4 will end up being Pies, Saints, then a raffle between Cats, Dogs, Dockers, Hawks and possibly the blues and Swans.
My point was -
Geelong looked less than convincing than they have in the past (even when they were a few guys down theyve had the cover.
Saints are supposed to be the second best team in the comp, and i reckon they probably are, but they play a counterproductive gameplan.
Blues usually smash the tigers by 60pts plus and the tigers look hopeless. They were far from that. And had Kruezer, Jamison, Bower and McLean been out there, i dont think the difference would have been 40 pts more on the board. Rattens face at 3 qtr time summed it up.
Hawks were just out-jostled. Adelaide are hard to read, but for a team i consider close to the best on paper, they did their best not to look it. Feel for Clarko. At one point Sat night i was that frustrated i had to leave the room.
The Doggies today were undermanned in the backline, but that midfield still had Cooney, Boyd and Cross (3 superstars of the comp), they werent missing a ruckman as far as i know, and they unearthed some bloody good talent in Liber as well. Yet their forward line was starved.
As for the dockers, they were lucky to get away from a lions outfit that hasnt looked this bad in a long time and minus Brown.
I dont think the 8 is going to be as locked as everyone thought it was.
Have to disagree - aside from the scoreboard, the tigers were smashed - they were walloped in every statistical category. In comparison to previous years
2009 - blues 23.12 - 150, tigers 9.13 - 67
2010 - blues 18.12 - 120, tigers 9.10 - 64
2011 - blues 14.20 - 104, tigers 13.6 - 84
A similar level of scoring shots across all 3 season - the only difference this year has been the blues accuracy was poor and the tigers accuracy was very good. A slight change in kicking accuracy to both teams to 50% goal conversion rate would have added another 6 goals to the margin and resulted close to a 10 goal loss to the tigers (comparable to previous years)
We were missing - from the best 22 we were missing kreuzer, henderson, bower, jamison, ellard/mclean (1 of), houlihan (definite best 22 despite being overlooked by many)
Thats 6 from the 22 missing + waite lost to injury before 1/2 time (so effectively 7 players) - which, as many have pointed out covers the entire 1st choice spine.
Goal kicking aside, the Blues played reasonably well
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- #50
Not sure on the rating of Ellard and McLean. Esp given Curnows performance.
Kruze and Hendo definately make that forward line better.
Im not really focusing on the scoreboard though. Cos you'd technically argue the saints and cats played a tight one and they are pretty even in terms of their projected ladder spots.
Its more the way they played.
Tigers gave the blues a challenge and i think even with Hendo and Kruze out there, and had Bower and Jamo lined up, it was the fact that the tigers took it to the blues and they werent expecting it that jerked them into reacting. the last qtr that the blues put on was pretty damn good. But in years past, its generally been a walkover where the foot comes of the gas towards the end.
Hawks just gave up after the crows got back up. Saints are playing negative football in what should be one of the most attacking teams in the comp. And the cats, while they ground out that game superbly, looked a shadow of their former selves. and the dogs were supposed to be shoe-in against the dons.
All im wondering is if this is the year where the top 8 really turnsover.
Top spot is a lock for Collingwood. I reckon the saints have a mortgage on 2nd spot.
3-10 is looking wide open.
