Will we make finals?

[Charlie Bucket]

Another reason to play Sweet or Martin when fit. Must keep English fit for the run home and finals. Playing him one out each week is a recipe for burn out long before finals.

English missed 6 games prior to last round.

He’s no chance of burnout only playing 75% of the season.

 

[X_box_X]

****…just had a look at our last 8 rounds. You would be hard pressed to choose a harder run home.

Regardless, if we stay healthy and keep building momentum I think we will duck some of these teams up and make finals.

If we somehow end up finishing in the top 6 it will have been some season.

That's why it's pretty important we win our next three. That will give us a little bit of breathing space.

The other thing to consider which can't be underestimated is a block of matches can look more challenging two months out. I.e. some of those teams we play in the run home could hit a forum slump, could receive some key injuries, etc.

 

[footscray1973]

Maybe. Maybe not.

Seriously, coming back from an ACL takes times to get in the groove again, usually players take until the following season. Sure, Bruce will free up Naughton and whoever is the 3rd tall forward, but hopefully they manage him well, but his impact if we make finals this year is unlikely to be close to his 2021 form.

 

[dogwatch]

Maybe. Maybe not.

Seriously, coming back from an ACL takes times to get in the groove again, usually players take until the following season. Sure, Bruce will free up Naughton and whoever is the 3rd tall forward, but hopefully they manage him well, but his impact if we make finals this year is unlikely to be close to his 2021 form.

Slight segue here but it reminds me that in 2020 Bruce had become a whipping boy on this board. Our memories here are notoriously short but people were saying what a dud trade it was etc etc. Turned out he needed to lose a few kegs and maybe it took longer than normal to settle in and develop a rapport with Naughton.

Fast forward 12 months and we were all devastated when he did his ACL after kicking nearly 50 goals in less than a full season.

Moral of the story is we rush to judgement a bit too readily. Sometimes that judgement is correct … but sometimes players need just a bit more time.

 

[synchrodogcal]

He has featured in all the training videos and he looks to be running at full tilt.
Can anyone that has watched training give us an update of Bruce - what drills has he be missing, is he doing any contact work at all yet?

have heard he is training the proverbial house down and is pretty much ready to go, but club is holding him back, grain of salt with the sauce, but believe it to be pretty reliable

 

[LittleG]

Bruce will play VFL in about 3 weeks. He will hopefully get closer to game speed in 4 weeks of VFL and we hopefully will see him in round 18 or 19.

 

[RedWhite&Blue]

Bruce will play VFL in about 3 weeks. He will hopefully get closer to game speed in 4 weeks of VFL and we hopefully will see him in round 18 or 19.

Has he kept the weight off? He played his best footy last year after slimming down.

 

[Sharpiesadog]

Has he kept the weight off? He played his best footy last year after slimming down.

He has looked in superb condition to me. I feel that at this stage of his career he knows it’s now or never (next couple of years) to win a flag so he’s giving it all he’s got. I think that is why his pre-season before last year was so good and he got the rewards prior to his acl.

 

[Northernsoul74]

Has he kept the weight off? He played his best footy last year after slimming down.

Looked in good nick watching the vfl last week. Had his hands full with his kids so that should help.

 

[dogwatch]

Bruce will play VFL in about 3 weeks. He will hopefully get closer to game speed in 4 weeks of VFL and we hopefully will see him in round 18 or 19.

If his rehab goes to plan (no setbacks) he will play seniors before Rd18.

 

[LittleG]

If his rehab goes to plan (no setbacks) he will play seniors before Rd18.

Mine is a Conservative estimate. Rather have my expectations beaten than be disappointed.

 

[X_box_X]

Bruce will play VFL in about 3 weeks. He will hopefully get closer to game speed in 4 weeks of VFL and we hopefully will see him in round 18 or 19.

He was a guest on That's Good For Footy last night and he mentioned he will be playing VFL on June 17 (two weeks).

 

[ScragCity]

You can't win em all boys

We had a good run. Three wins in a row!

Was nice to get a few cheapies before we had to start playing the serious teams and got our reality check

 

[Chicago1]

 

[Optimistic Dog]

The dogs will not play finals as they have the NBN disease. You might ask what is the NBN disease it is not an acronym for the disease itself. It has the same charateristics as the National Broadband Network that is very poor connectivity. resulting in not getting bang for your buck.

The dogs get it in the forward 50 enough but due all or some of the following we fail badly, the delivery, the personnel, the game play or the structure.

When we get it right like in the finals last season we are good save the grand final fade out when we get it wrong we are in most games but fall short.


The delivery can vary some games it is good other nights it is off. The most obvious is personnel and not enough talls to assist Naughton. That is why i cannot workout why we do play Tim forward for a lot of the game and ruck Sweet. By the time Bruce comes back in the ones the season will be done and dusted.

 

[Walsh Bay]

I'd advise anyone still contemplating finals, or even being in contention, to do a ladder predictor.

 

[hutchy31]

I'd advise anyone still contemplating finals, or even being in contention, to do a ladder predictor.

Yep. Even if we win all four of the double up hawks and gws games (doubtful) there’s not many other games you’d expect a win.

9-10 wins and finishing around 10th or 11th is what I’d expect right now.

 

[Dogsman16]

I'd advise anyone still contemplating finals, or even being in contention, to do a ladder predictor.

Yeah it looks grim. I've been super generous on our wins and loss column. Basically wins against sydney, freo and saint kilda and basically every game that we start as fav or 50/50 games like 2x GWS + 2xHaw.

Basically we have to be superb just to get to 7th position. No doubt we slip up on one of those games also. A slip up of one of those games + good richmond percentage would leave us 9th.

 

[_Mike_]

Using the predictor I see us finishing 10th on 12 wins

 

[hutchy31]

So only 6-6 and outside of the top eight at the bye, after the following:

Dees
Blues
Swans
Tigers
North
Crows
Bombers
Port
Pies
Suns
Eagles
Cats

I don't see how a finals side can be 6-6 after that run. No more games left against the bottom three sides (who hardly anyone is losing to) while others around the finals bubble have multiple. Six games left against the top six in the ladder plus double ups against Hawks and GWS - neither of whom will be easy beats imo.

Getting to 11-11 will be a trial, let alone playing finals. Needed at least two wins from the Crows, Port, Richmond and Geelong games and lost all of them.

Without getting all doom and gloom it's a pretty damning first half of the year from a team that made the GF. It could also have been mitigated by better team selection and gameplan/tactics which could have had us at 8-4 or thereabouts but we'll leave those debates for other threads......sorry!

 

[Doggy]

Doesn't help when we have a coach so out of it he thinks we play Carltank again

 

[Hoges64]

Nope.

GWS away - Loss? (The ol' dead cat bounce)
Hawthorn home - Win (Even this is iffy, Hawks very capable of turning it on for a day, seem to play well against us)
Brisbane away - Loss (No chance)
Sydney away - Loss (Chance, but we'd be underdogs for very good reason)
St Kilda home - Loss (When Saints are shit, we thrash them, when they're in half-decent form they always beat us)
Melbourne home - Loss (Unless Melksham hits May again, no chance)
Geelong away - Loss (Is there ever a bigger certainty than losing to ****ing Geelong)
Fremantle home - Loss? (Home ground helps, but Freo could be looking to seal top spot on the table with 2 easy games to follow)
GWS home - Win (Hopefully that dead cat is well and truly dead by here)
Hawthorn away - Loss (Pffft, like we'll EVER win a game in Tassie against anyone other than LOLBumbers in a final, let alone if this one were to actually mean something for Finals)

Unless something DRASTICALLY changes I see us at 9-13, and about 12th.

At least it gives us a very decent chance to snare Jedd Busslinger in the draft....

 

[footscray1973]

We have a surprisingly decent percentage - only 3 times in the 2000s have we finished a season with a better percentage - last year, 2009 and 2010.

Sadly, I suspect that % will take a beating on the run home, and concur with many recent posts.

I tend to steer clear of ladder predictors, but just flew through one for the hell of it, ended up like this:


Tipped us to win Round 14 v Giants, Round 15 v Hawks, a surprise Round 18 v Saints and Round 22 v Giants again.

I'm not excited about that top 4, or even the entire top 8 - hopefully will ride Dockers all the way to the flag.

 

[Al dente]

So only 6-6 and outside of the top eight at the bye, after the following:

Dees
Blues
Swans
Tigers
North
Crows
Bombers
Port
Pies
Suns
Eagles
Cats

I don't see how a finals side can be 6-6 after that run. No more games left against the bottom three sides (who hardly anyone is losing to) while others around the finals bubble have multiple. Six games left against the top six in the ladder plus double ups against Hawks and GWS - neither of whom will be easy beats imo.

Getting to 11-11 will be a trial, let alone playing finals. Needed at least two wins from the Crows, Port, Richmond and Geelong games and lost all of them.

Without getting all doom and gloom it's a pretty damning first half of the year from a team that made the GF. It could also have been mitigated by better team selection and gameplan/tactics which could have had us at 8-4 or thereabouts but we'll leave those debates for other threads......sorry!

good summation, its been a really poor first half year, even with injuries factored in,

i hope we keep one eye on next year as we move through the remaining games

 

[Mofra]

If we beat Geelong last week we were a real chance.
I'd say we're very likely to miss out now, following a trend for teams who get smashed in the GF to miss the finals in the following year