Step 1: We play our goddamned hearts out until the finals (if nothing else as penance for our insipidness for the past couple months!).
Step 2. When we make the finals (which we should if we employ Step 1), we continue to play our hearts out which should facilitate...
Step 3. Play our hearts out again & again & again until we hold up the Premiership Cup for the first time since 1995, whether it be this year or next or the year after...
Step 4. CONTINUE to play our goddamned hearts out until we can do so no more, hopefully, with 3 additional Premiership Cups in our cabinetss.
Step 5. Rebuild efficiently and effectively and goto Step 1.

We beat Brisbane x2 last year and lost the elim though...

With 5 games to go in the H + A rounds and at least 2 wins needed to lock in a Top 8 finish, its get down to which games are likely to be won (all can be won but realistically all 5 will not be won).

I had hoped to win against the teams outside the 8 - Essendon* and Richmond with negative results against teams in the 8 - Collingwood, Geelong and Fremantle.

Essendon* have found form against St Kilda and given our history against this club this games is now at best 50/50.

Therefore to get the 2 wins needed there has to be a win against a team now in the 8.

What better way to get this done that against Collingwood today.

Did the ladder predictor again after today's games. I had Sydney finishing 7th, and Carlton 8th, both with 10 wins.

That would mean we would make the finals having lost 8 of our last 11 games...joke. ANd a joke that a team, let alone 2 teams, could make the finals winning less than half the games.

We don't deserve to play finals. I think the reality check we would get from not playing finals would be more valuable than making the 8 and getting thumped in the first week. But with all the teams around us falling over, we could win just 1 of our remaining games and make it.

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Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

Adelaide and North Melbourne doing us favours this weekends losing to Richmond and Western Bulldogs. If we can avoid anymore big losses, or beat either Essendon* or Richmond, we are a big sniff to make the eight with only 10 wins.

Can anyone seriously be confident of us winning another game?
Melbourne have a good run home and are only 6 pts behind us, they play Richmond, Hawthorn, Port and North. 2 wins and they may get in.

I've got a feeling that we'll have to do a Steven Bradbury to make the finals by default.....a sad end to a promising start.

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No ones listening till you make a mistake.

wow - i just did the predictor again and have port making the 8

geel
coll
saints
dogs
dockers
hawks
swans
port

nth melb 9th
melb 10th
ess 11th
carlton 12th
adel 13th
rich 14th
bris 15th
eagles 16th

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

I certainly think we can beat Richmond or Essendon*, plus we have beaten Geelong the last two meetings. Freo is a match we can win too, even over there.

Im fairly confident we'll make the eight, regardless of current form.

I've given this season away after the Bombers match.

Will they redeem themselves against the Bombers... not bloody likely...you cant field 12 princess on a footy field masquerading as highly paid professional footballers and expect to win.

I hope we'll win - but dont see how.

Judd, Simpson, Yarran, Garlett are excused.

Henderson just, but has been in the system for three years no excuses next season.

I agree, Sydney and us will fall in purely because the teams around us are worse.

Just had another play with the predictor. Carlton must win at least 1 game to make the finals. 1 win should see us there, 0 wins we miss out.

It is entirely possible that Sydney, Carlton, Essendon*, Port Adel and North all finish on 9 wins, with the highest % finishing 8th.

I had Melbourne 7th with 9.5 wins, and Sydney 8th with 9 wins and 5.

How can you play finals with 9 wins out of 22??? I hope it happens, so the AFL keep it as a final 8 with the introduction of new teams.

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Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

Said 2 weeks ago that the next 4 games (WestCoast, Collingwood, Essendon* & Richmond) are future definining for players & coaches and it looks as though it's heading this way. Players & Coaches must beat Essendon* & Richmond to make the finals and keep their jobs. They have been lucky over the past 2 weeks that other results have kept us alive. Now is the "team" good enough to take advantage of some luck?

I think so.

That's pretty much where we deserve to be IMHO.

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

why bother ?

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The problem with Socialism is, you eventually run out of other people's money.

Agreed. IF we happen to limp in, it will be only due to the other contenders falling over.

We will get absolutely spanked in the EF based on our recent form, doesn't matter who the opposition will be. 100 points plus. A further embarrassment to our once proud club.

That can hardly be a positive and will not assist us deal with our current situation.

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We are on our way back...

We may make it with only 9 wins....wouldn't that be something....

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

the Bummers snuck in last year at 8th with 10 wins, but we were 3 games ahead of them in 7th and only half a game behind the Brions in 6th, whereas this year the bottom 2 in the 8 will probably both have 10-11 wins which is amazing really.

imagine if they go to a final 10 when it's an 18 team comp. if the season panned out like this you could have the bottom 4 teams in the finals all having lost more games than they won!

yeah but crowds will be up..

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because we deserve it as much as anyone else.
For me
Melbourne 7th
Carlton 8th

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"I'll tell you what I didn't do;
I never injected anyone."
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