Are we now a genuine Premiership threat?

[bloodspirit]

So 3 out of 5 is 'acceptable' but 4 or 5 out of 5 isn't a 'pass mark'? I sincerely hope your not a teacher!

Sorry, stevo, I didn't explain myself clearly. When I said "I don't consider 4 out of 5 to be a pass mark" I didn't mean that 4 out of 5 wouldn't be sufficient to satisfy me. I mean that I don't set the bar for passing that high. Hence, three out of five would be acceptable in my eyes. I'd certainly like to win all 5/5, and I think that's possible. But I won't grumble if we should only win 3 out of those 5 (depending also on the quality of our performances and any explanatory factors).

[stevoswan]

Sorry, stevo, I didn't explain myself clearly. When I said "I don't consider 4 out of 5 to be a pass mark" I didn't mean that 4 out of 5 wouldn't be sufficient to satisfy me. I mean that I don't set the bar for passing that high. Hence, three out of five would be acceptable in my eyes. I'd certainly like to win all 5/5, and I think that's possible. But I won't grumble if we should only win 3 out of those 5 (depending also on the quality of our performances and any explanatory factors).

Gotchya.....and I agree.

[Thunder Shaker]

I like the idea, But I think your scoring is a bit off.
If we pencil in a loss for anyone more than 4 spots higher, Bulldogs becomes a zero.
Anyone, 3 spots higher is a 1. Port stays at one.
Anyone +2 or -2 around us on the latter, is 50/50 : Westcoast (down to a 2),
Anyone -3 to -7 we are a good chance. Giants (up to 3), Freo (up to 3), StKilda (3), Gold coast (up to 3) , Carlton (3)
Anyone -8 and onwards 4/4: Pies, Dawks, LolNorf, Essendon (up from 2 to 4)

That gives us 3 more points than your prediction, so 15 wins. Thats top 4 material.

You are only assessing chances based on current ladder positions. That is too simplistic.

Consider West Coast. You have ignored the venue for the game, which is the SCG. West Coast's record against Sydney in Sydney is four wins in 35 years from 21 away games during the home and away season (19%). West Coast have won at the SCG three times (R18 1990, R11 1993, R9 1999), plus one at Homebush (R1 2007). Furthermore, West Coast has displayed a strong home ground advantage this year, winning against good opposition at home and losing against mediocre opposition away. There is no way that record justifies an assessment of a 50% chance of a win. If anything, my 3/4 chance is generous to the Eagles.

More generally, the ladder positions are strongly dependent on the opponents that each side has had over the first eight rounds. These are not completely reliable because a side that has played its easier games early will be ranked higher than a side that has had a few difficult games to start.

[barry]

You are only assessing chances based on current ladder positions. That is too simplistic.

Consider West Coast. You have ignored the venue for the game, which is the SCG. West Coast's record against Sydney in Sydney is four wins in 35 years from 21 away games during the home and away season (19%). West Coast have won at the SCG three times (R18 1990, R11 1993, R9 1999), plus one at Homebush (R1 2007). Furthermore, West Coast has displayed a strong home ground advantage this year, winning against good opposition at home and losing against mediocre opposition away. There is no way that record justifies an assessment of a 50% chance of a win. If anything, my 3/4 chance is generous to the Eagles.

More generally, the ladder positions are strongly dependent on the opponents that each side has had over the first eight rounds. These are not completely reliable because a side that has played its easier games early will be ranked higher than a side that has had a few difficult games to start.

Yeah, I know the ladder approach ignores whether its home and away.
But I was trying to overcome the shortcoming of your list where you have guaranteed wins 4/4 but no guaranteed losses 0/4.

Either way, we were only 1 win different, so same-same.

We actually have a pretty soft draw for the remainder of the year, so we could snag a top 4 spot. But I think more likely to stay where we are 6th or 7th.

Swans: Please, Please dont be the team that gives lolnorf their first win!

[Thunder Shaker]

Yeah, I know the ladder approach ignores whether its home and away.
But I was trying to overcome the shortcoming of your list where you have guaranteed wins 4/4 but no guaranteed losses 0/4.

Each of the scores I assigned were rounded to the nearest 25% or so.

Giving no scores of 0/4 for any game is not "no guaranteed losses". It can be interpreted as saying that I don't expect any side to hand us a 10-goal loss at any point in the season. I would have given the Melbourne game a score of 1/4 as well. We lost that by nine points.

As for the 4/4 scores for Hawthorn, Collingwood and North Melbourne, they aren't guaranteed wins. It's more accurate to say that the chances of dropping those games is low enough that it wasn't worth the effort of writing something like 3.5/4 with a lengthy explanation of our chances. I pushed other scores down just a little to compensate.

Either way, we were only 1 win different, so same-same.

Agreed here. My 14-8 may be a little optimistic, but we should win at least 12 games over the course of the season.

We actually have a pretty soft draw for the remainder of the year, so we could snag a top 4 spot. But I think more likely to stay where we are 6th or 7th.

Our soft draw is a direct consequence of finishing in the bottom four last year. It's AFL policy to give easier fixtures to lower sides each year.

Swans: Please, Please dont be the team that gives lolnorf their first win!

We don't play North Melbourne until round 22, so it's unlikely. The latest I have seen a side getting their first win in a season was Fremantle winning their first game in 2001 (against Hawthorn) in round 18. Hawthorn were 3rd on the ladder at the time.

[Vonsteinman]

Still agree with the above comment. Will need to keep most of the best 25 fit but we can ‘win ugly’, we can wrestle a game back on our terms and we can play tempo footy.

Listening to Bucks post game, I get that the Pies are struggling a bit this year, but he was almost bullish about their performance.

[MattW]

We should be an elimination final team, which is an achievement!

[The Runner]

We've already won more games than last year, and are 4-0 against 2020 finalists

[Markwebbos]

Big 4 weeks coming up before the bye. We should go in as favourites in all 4 games, but three of them look like danger games, starting with Freo in Perth.

[MattW]

Big 4 weeks coming up before the bye. We should go in as favourites in all 4 games, but three of them look like danger games, starting with Freo in Perth.

That Freo game is even money, at best.

[Markwebbos]

That Freo game is even money, at best.

On the AFL tipping website we are $2, Freo $1.84. I think we'll win because we are a team that travels extremely well and the wide open spaces of Optus suit our game style (and because we are a better side than the one that lost to Freo last year)

[mcs]

On the AFL tipping website we are $2, Freo $1.84. I think we'll win because we are a team that travels extremely well and the wide open spaces of Optus suit our game style (and because we are a better side than the one that lost to Freo last year)

Freo are hot and cold, but always tough to beat at home. Should be a pretty interesting clash, but we play well generally at Optus, and definitely we are a better team this year to what we were last year.

9-4 going into the bye would be an outstanding result if you ask me - its a tricky little month coming up. Could easily win all 4, could easily lose all of them and not be entirely suprised (though I reckon we will should the wees and poos pretty comfortably and I remain to be convinced at all by Carlton).

[MattW]

I think we pretty much secure a final spot if we win this weekend. We are two games ahead of three teams in 9th-11th: Freo, GWS, St Kilda. GWS have just lost Greene, St Kilda just lost Marshall, and if we win we'd be three games up on the Dockers.

[bloodspirit]

Plus we have a softer draw than most.

[Bexl]

Plus we have a softer draw than most.

Yes I saw a couple of weeks ago we supposedly had the 17th hardest fixture for remaining games. Richmond was rated 18th hardest. Way to go AFL to a Vic. based 3 time out of 4 premier team.