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  • SwallowdaFonz
    Pushing for Selection
    • Sep 2003
    • 79

    #61
    On West Coast's chances:

    * They've not won a final since 1999.
    * Most players would have 2-4 finals games experience only (knocked out first round last 3 years from memory).
    * They will feel the pressure just like Port did come the first week of finals - runaway minor premiers with a poor finals record playing the nothing-to-lose Swans.
    * Sure, they are odds-on to make the GF but once there will meet a team much more comfortable and experienced on the MCG.

    So it's still a very open year I reckon. I have doubts about Adelaide's talent to go all the way (don't tell me they can "fluke" a third flag?) and St Kilda's mental toughness. Brisbane are past their best but still a danger, while Geelong might still turn it on. We are as good a chance as any of them.

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    • NMWBloods
      Taking Refuge!!
      • Jan 2003
      • 15819

      #62
      Originally posted by SwallowdaFonz
      On West Coast's chances:

      * They've not won a final since 1999.
      Haven't they been rebuilding through that time?

      * Most players would have 2-4 finals games experience only (knocked out first round last 3 years from memory).
      I seem to recall these types of argument for our match against StKilda last year.

      * They will feel the pressure just like Port did come the first week of finals - runaway minor premiers with a poor finals record playing the nothing-to-lose Swans.
      No one has 'nothing-to-lose' in finals. As stated previously, I think this is quite different to Port.

      * Sure, they are odds-on to make the GF but once there will meet a team much more comfortable and experienced on the MCG.
      Who would that be?

      So it's still a very open year I reckon.
      Absolutely - has been all year.
      Captain Logic is not steering this tugboat.

      "[T]here are things that matter more and he's reading and thinking about them: heaven, reincarnation. Life and death are the only things that are truly a matter of life and death. Not football."

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      • SwallowdaFonz
        Pushing for Selection
        • Sep 2003
        • 79

        #63
        I guess I see more similarities than you do, NMW, between the situation of the Eagles this year and Port in 2001-3. Which is not to say there is any evidence yet that the Eagles are chokers; just that all the expectation and pressure will be on them come first week of finals, and they don't have a strong finals record. Simple as that.

        I would have thought (stats not to hand) that Saints, Crows and Brisbane would all be much more comfortable and experienced at the G on Grand Final day than the Eagles. Dunno which of them will make it (and yes, it might be Swans also) but it seems a likely scenario that it'll be West Coast versus one of those. So that's another reason why I don't regard them as flag shoe-ins.

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        • barry
          Veterans List
          • Jan 2003
          • 8499

          #64
          If anyone is going to beat WC in Subi its in the first week. Once they are guaranteed 1st spot (in a couple of weeks), they will probably go into a fine-tuning mode for the remainder of the H&A which will have a slight drop in intensitiy.

          Like Port, they may assume two finals at Subi = GF. So could be caught on the hop by a committed side 1st week.

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