Round 16 Discussion

[Eastdog]

Round 16 Fixture

Date Fixture Venue AEST

Jul 17 North Melbourne vs Essendon Etihad Stadium 7.50pm

Jul 18 Geelong vs Western Bulldogs Simonds Stadium 1.45pm

Jul 18 Gold Coast vs GWS Giants Metricon Stadium 2.10pm

Jul 18 Collingwood vs West Coast Etihad Stadium 4.35pm

Jul 18 Sydney vs Hawthorn ANZ Stadium 7.20pm

Jul 18 Fremantle vs Carlton Domain Stadium 7.40pm

Jul 19 Melbourne vs Brisbane MCG 1.10pm

Jul 19 Port Adelaide vs Adelaide Adelaide Oval 3.20pm

Jul 19 St Kilda vs Richmond Etihad Stadium

[Twodogs]

Essendon playing more fluent football than North so far.

[GVGjr]

I'm flicking between channels but I don't mind the game tonight. North are up and down again and often undo a lot of their good work.

Goldstein dominate again as he really beats up on undersized ruckman.

[Remi Moses]

Same here . North were unimpressive, and for a team loaded to for a tilt, they're nowhere near it .
Goldstein just obliterated Essendon, and Hird doesn't pick a ruckman .
:confused::confused:

[Flamethrower]

Collingwood's best 2 forwards are out - Cloke has a calf injury & Elliott is out for 2 to 3 weeks with a stress related back injury, but they are hanging tough against the high flying Eagles. If the Pies can pinch this it will be huge, but if the Eagles hold on the Pies spot in the 8 becomes increasingly precarious.

[boydogs]

Collingwood's best 2 forwards are out - Cloke has a calf injury & Elliott is out for 2 to 3 weeks with a stress related back injury, but they are hanging tough against the high flying Eagles. If the Pies can pinch this it will be huge, but if the Eagles hold on the Pies spot in the 8 becomes increasingly precarious.

Lost by 5 goals. Adams is suspended too. We might be a chance

[bulldogtragic]

Give Hawthorn the flag now. They're crazy good.

[Remi Moses]

That result flattered the pies .
Only a matter of time before the dam wall broke

[bulldogtragic]

I like how Sydney have evened the comp up by using the $900,000 cola on the highest paid, and highest under performing player in Tippett. He's so average it's not funny and not returning on the salary.

[Remi Moses]

Hawthorn just demolished Sydney .
Sydney look old and tired

[Go_Dogs]

Hawthorn just demolished Sydney .
Sydney look old and tired

Was just looking at the scores this morning. Hawks are just about unstoppable again.

[azabob]

Give Hawthorn the flag now. They're crazy good.

Agree, well sort of.

Did Hawks lose too many early games?

They can't afford to play in Perth in week one of the finals and lose. I think they can beat Freo, but not sure they can out score West Coast.

West Coast have still have to play Sydney (Perth), Hawks (Perth), Fremantle (Perth) and Crows (Adelaide).

Based on current form West Coast would have to go in slight favourites in all of those games and if they win all of those games they finish first.

On the other hand Hawthorn's draw looks pretty good, other than West Coast in Perth. No interstate trips.

Freo's draw is very interesting indeed: Richmond (MCG), West Coast (WA), North (ES) and the final round of the season Port Power (Adelaide).

Sydneys draw is also isn't easy, W/C (WA), Adelaide (SCG), Geelong (Kardina Park), Collingwood (SCG), and GWS at Spotless Stadium.

Ladder as it stands

1. Freo - 13 wins, 128%
2. W/C - 12 wins, 156%
3. Hawks - 11 wins, 159%
4. Swans - 11 wins, 118%

I think the best Sydney can do is 4th, and the other 3 spots are still up for grabs.

[GVGjr]

I don't exactly know why I'm interested but the Saints appear to be on the same path as we are. They have some great young talent and it's going to be interesting to see and hear about McCartin and Goddard starting their careers with them this year.

[Go_Dogs]

I don't exactly know why I'm interested but the Saints appear to be on the same path as we are. They have some great young talent and it's going to be interesting to see and hear about McCartin and Goddard starting their careers with them this year.

They've done well through the last couple of drafts, but I don't think they bat as deep as us with their young players and think they'll end up having a few less A grade players under 23 than we do.

Despite some concerns over their recruiting whilst they were up, they came out with a much better balanced list than we did.

The end result is they should remain competitive the next few years but I'm not sure they have the potential a few other developing sides have.

[Remi Moses]

Tend to agree . Stkilda chap I work with says the same thing .
They're carrying probably one or two to many older types

[westdog54]

Cracking showdown yet again. Great finish, Port unlucky in the end.

[GVGjr]

The Saints are piling it on. They can really play in bursts.

[comrade]

The Saints are piling it on. They can really play in bursts.

More like when the heat is on they get killed and then they can pile it on when the other team drops off.

Both teams had just under 100 games of experience per player so they should have been close.

Saints are getting a free ride with the media. If we had the year they're having, the heat would be on a lot more, IMO.

[Remi Moses]

Port play in spurts, and it would be extremely frustrating .
Stkilda's issues are with their medium tier players( they just don't have any)

[bornadog]

Both teams had just under 100 games of experience per player.

They have a few young players, but the Saints are still basically an old team.

On the weekend, The Suns, GWC, Bulldogs and Essendon fielded the youngest teams (in terms of games experience) - all less than 75 games with GWC being the youngest team.

[Sedat]

That was an abomination of a round of football, save for the Showdown and Hawthorn. Every other game was so dull and boring, with teams scared to try and score quickly lest they cough up possession. Been like that for a number of weeks now. In pristine conditions for the most part, scores of 10 goals are indictment on the modern game. I used to watch as much footy on the weekend as possible - now it is not even background noise.

[Mantis]

That was an abomination of a round of football, save for the Showdown and Hawthorn. Every other game was so dull and boring, with teams scared to try and score quickly lest they cough up possession. Been like that for a number of weeks now. In pristine conditions for the most part, scores of 10 goals are indictment on the modern game. I used to watch as much footy on the weekend as possible - now it is not even background noise.

Yep, it's bloody horrible.. Just not enough 'mature' teams to play decent footy through the tough part of the season.

[Ozza]

Didn't catch that much of the showdown yesterday - however, from what I saw, my key take out was that Chad Wingard can change the course of a match like few others in the league. 21 years of age....pretty happy that we have about 10 more years to watch him play. Wish it was in our colours!

[1eyedog]

They've done well through the last couple of drafts, but I don't think they bat as deep as us with their young players and think they'll end up having a few less A grade players under 23 than we do.

Despite some concerns over their recruiting whilst they were up, they came out with a much better balanced list than we did.

The end result is they should remain competitive the next few years but I'm not sure they have the potential a few other developing sides have.

How will they go with no Gilbert, Riewoldt, Fisher, Montagna and Dempster in the next 1-2 years?

[Happy Days]

How will they go with no Gilbert, Riewoldt, Fisher, Montagna and Dempster in the next 1-2 years?

Begrudgingly I'll cop that they have some young talent, but as you've pointed out their key defensive stocks are rooted; Bruce really shot them in the foot by being a potential GUN forward.

They'd want Goddard to be a player, because the cupboard seems entirely bare otherwise.

[Twodogs]

That was an abomination of a round of football, save for the Showdown and Hawthorn. Every other game was so dull and boring, with teams scared to try and score quickly lest they cough up possession. Been like that for a number of weeks now. In pristine conditions for the most part, scores of 10 goals are indictment on the modern game. I used to watch as much footy on the weekend as possible - now it is not even background noise.

Is it because the talent pool is getting spread thin with 18 AFL clubs to share it around? Footy is less an instinctive game these days and large parts of games are played out to a script prepared through the week by the coaches.

[Sedat]

How will they go with no Gilbert, Riewoldt, Fisher, Montagna and Dempster in the next 1-2 years?
No Gilbert will make them better ;)

Agree with your other outs though. Although the same thing was said about us in the mid 2000's when we lost Brown, Darcy, Grant, Smith and West. Draft well and the list can recover relatively quickly.

[Go_Dogs]

How will they go with no Gilbert, Riewoldt, Fisher, Montagna and Dempster in the next 1-2 years?

It will hurt them no doubt, but it is somewhat offset by still having a few mature bodies in Steven and Armitage along with continued development of their kids.

[bornadog]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKZMwD6UwAE8wKP.png

[Go_Dogs]

I wonder how far off Dahl is from making this side?

[Happy Days]

I wonder how far off Dahl is from making this side?

He's just got to do nothing for two months first like Betts I guess.

[lemmon]

I wonder how far off Dahl is from making this side?

At the same time Bonti must be holding on by the skin of his teeth