Is the lid off for you? Look at the fixture...

[shwany]

I'm talking top 4. No posts about fence sitting and one week at a time nonsense.

Have a close look at the fixture, I can't see us not making the top four. 11 of our remaining 15 games are against bottom 8 teams.

I see the current form ladder as:

Hawthorn
Small gap
Geelong/Collingwood/Port
Medium gap
Sydney/Fremantle
Small gap
Gold Coast/Kangaroos
big gap
The rest


We play hawthorn twice, port at mcg and gold coast away. There the only top 8 sides.

Our last three games are against Brisbane at the mcg, gws and hawthorn which I'm tipping will be a dead rubber.

Our next five games are Adelaide west coast st Kilda melbourne western bulldogs.

Our injury list now is minimal. Reid fassalo maxwell young brown can all be eased back in. If any of our list gets injured it won't matter too much as we've essentially got a decent back up player for every position.


We are 1/3 of the way through the season in the top 4 probs with a 1 game buffer to other genuine top 4 threats I.e sydney freo.

Start of the year most of us would've been happy with us making the 8. Which I agree.

However from this point onwards anything but top 4 would be a failure.

Definitely easiest run home and best injury list we've had going into a bye round in the last 5 years.

The other thing that has been a standout this year is there's no uneasy feeling about anything.
- Swan looks to have matured greatly, no longer perceived as a part animal
- no overhanging contract talk ala daisy and cloke
- no coaching pressure / talks. No one is mentioning mick now.
- not relying on injured hasbeens. Lynch and jolly.
- no dickheads. Can't see any incidents like shaw and didak this year.

[Brown26]

Relax mate, this is a young list. Let's see how we go against the next 5 teams before we start talking top 4. I agree, exciting times, but not a lock that's for sure.

Then we have to play the bench mark and our nemesis (Hawthorn). That will be a test of the kids. Let's see how we go then before we take the lid fully off!

- Ben

[MagpieBat]

Round 17, 2013 was pencilled in as a lay-down misere of a win.

How did that work out?

Nah, one week at a time, please.

[AN_Inkling]

It only takes a couple of surprise losses to miss top 4. We're a young side that does not yet have a settled lineup. I agree we're certainly a good chance for top 4, but we are a long way from being certainties. The teams outside the 8 are not all rubbish, we could easily lose to one or two of them on a bad day.

[shwany]

[shwany]

The other thing is we've improved every week.. Our loss to freo was horrible, we played bad against a poor swans team but won. We played better against Geelong but lost. Improved against Richmond and won comfortably, likewise against kangaroos, played amazing against essendon for three quarters and then had our best win this week.

I can't remember a side that has improved on every single game 7 times straight in a row.

[AN_Inkling]

Maybe. But if we lose to the Hawks twice, Port and Gold Coast. Then to Essendon and Richmond (or some other team if we're not playing them - even Adelaide in Adelaide is an upset chance). That's 9 losses and 13 wins. Maybe enough to make 4, but maybe not.

I do agree that we are looking good for top 4. I've adjusted my expectations on the season and see it as one where we should be trying to win the flag, not just develop the team. But missing top 4 a failure? Not quite, though it would depend on how we went about missing it.

[Mugwump]

I agree that the weather is fair, but accidents happen even in good weather.

The key test will be whether we can beat Hawthorn and Port or at least run them close, and prove that we are a real contender. Beating the easybeats will mean nothing if it only means we get exposed in September.

Still, better an easy-ish run home through a minefield than a slog through the best....

[shwany]

15 wins will get u in the top four this year.
We've won 5 so far, would need to win 10 of the next 15.

Certainties:
Gws, melbourne, st Kilda, Adelaide at mcg, Brisbane at mcg,

Almost certain:
Western bulldogs, Carlton, west coast at mcg

Likely:
Adelaide away, essendon


There's 10wins there say we drop 2 in big upsets. Then we would need to win two games out of:

West coast away
Port at home
Gc away
2x against hawthorn

If we don't make top 4 this year it's a massive failure from here.

[Brenny]

Adelaide in our next game will be tough

Yes they get tex back and it will take time for him to get up, but they will come out fired up.

We also will come out fired up wanting to win at Adelaide oval and I think maybe keep Adelaide winless there.

It's going to be a very tough game I think.

Anyways on topic, for me it's one week at a time.

Let's see how we do against the bye with week and take it one game from there.

[David]

I agree that we're a big chance for the top 4, but I still see Essendon as a bigger problem than the Suns, even at Metricon (last year was a massive embarrassment; even with their improvement I can't see it happening this year). As for Essendon, have we forgotten the first quarter of Anzac Day so quickly?

Top 4 is no easy target for any team (well, except for Hawthorn!). But I agree that we're most certainly playing to that standard right now on form, and that if we don't drop the games we should win we'll have done most of the job. I guess we'll see what happens.

If we can find a way of beating Hawthorn, then the lid may well be off. Until then, my excitement will be tempered.

[HAL]

I haven't seen it. What did you like about top gun ?

[Piesnchess]

I know one thing, the longer we go on losing to fccking Hawthorn, the closer we are to a win against them, maybe when it counts too, in the finals. Those creeps are not invincible, they bleed too, we can kill the beast of dawks land.

[David]

^ I think that's the so-called "gambler's fallacy"—except in this case we don't even have probability on our side. I can't believe we keep beating Sydney, either, but there's no reason to think we are (or aren't) getting any closer to their next win.

The trouble with the Hawks isn't that we keep losing to them. It's just that we rarely even manage to run out the game competitively. I'd actually be happy about a close loss in round 14 because it would mean we at least can beat them.

[AN_Inkling]

These discussions are such a reminder of 2010. We had exactly the same problem. When are we going to beat the Hawks? What about the Cats? When we finally did it in 2010, the tilt at the flag was truly on. It will be the same this year, though we already know we can beat the Cats, the Hawks are the ones this year. The Power will also be a big challenge, they're going as well as anyone.