Analysis The Run Home

[Lore]

How many wins will we get from here? What place do you think we'll finish?

Can you predict the top 8?


For me....

Wins: 11 or 12
Place: 9th on percentage (12 wins) or 10th on points (11 wins)

Top 8:
Richmond
Sydney
Geelong
Melbourne
West Coast
Port Adelaide
Hawthorn
Collingwood





I also decided to do this thing again. It reads vertically.

Ladder current to last night's game. Essendon and West Coast along with Richmond, Sydney, Geelong, Adelaide, Fremantle and St Kilda (who have their bye this week) have thus already played 13 games, compared to 12 for everyone else.

Threshold for solid green or red is +/- 36 points (6 goals... what I would consider a convincing win but ultimately just an arbitrary number).

• Richmond and Sydney are basically a lock for top four you'd think, barring crucial injuries or exceptional circumstances.
• West Coast will have to learn from yesterday, or they'll easily drop a few from now. With ten wins on the board already they'd have to absolutely tank to miss finals though.
• Melbourne and Collingwood have interesting runs home as well, and poor records against the current top ten. Collingwood could conceivably miss finals, having won eight games so far. Melbourne less likely to miss, with nine wins and enough percentage to cushion them if they tie on premiership points.
• Geelong with eight wins and an easier draw, unlikely to miss finals but to make top four they'd need to overtake Melbourne or West Coast.
• Port Adelaide, North Melbourne and Hawthorn with dream fixturing. That's what you get for finishing bottom 6 last year I guess... unless you don't finish bottom six North could easily make finals and not win any though, looking at that record.
• GWS and Adelaide both have crappy runs home and seem kinda dysfunctional.
• Fremantle have the most cut and dried looking win-loss record, having lost to everyone above them (convincingly) and won against everyone below them (convincingly)... with minimal exceptions.
• Dogs and Suns... well. lol? Both have one win each against a top 14 side to date For the dogs that team was us
• Saints have a draw to factor in... which basically just means they won't be in the race for the wooden spoon?
• Brisbane interesting in how infrequently the score blows out. A few close losses for them... they're better than they look.
• And then Carlton. Well I guess they did beat us so I shouldn't laugh too loudly? Good on them for committing to a full rebuild and not trying to speed it up with guns for hire.

 

[DapperJong]

I think your prediction is spot on. 10th for me.

 

[boncer34]

6th. We'll win the flag.

 

[PhoenixBonez]

So we are the anti-Richmond? (They only lost to Adelaide, Port and WCE).
Also gotta love how we are the ones with the clear outliers.

 

[AcuteWhistle]

6th. We'll win the flag.

Wont lose again this season.

 

[JayJ20]

8-12 our range

North ES 50-50
Collingwood MCG 40-60
Gold Coast MS 65-35
Fremantle ES 60-40
Sydney ES 45-55
Hawthorn MCG 50-50
St Kilda ES 65-35
Richmond MCG 30-70
Port AO 40-60

Next 4 games crucial. We would need to win 3 out of our next 4 to give us a shot. I think Collingwood is the one we might lose. If we beat North next week and Collingwood the week after, then we'll be up for it

I'd say Richmond is the only "certain" loss.
Port, Sydney and Collingwood unlikely.

Hawthorn, North and Collingwood effectively 8-point games.

 

[Lore]

So we are the anti-Richmond? (They only lost to Adelaide, Port and WCE).
Also gotta love how we are the ones with the clear outliers.

The outliers where we've beaten a team above us are not too uncommon... Hawthorn has just as many and Adelaide are funny looking (losing to everyone except the top 2? da****?) The real outliers are the thing we've complained about all year... and previous years too. Dropping games we shouldn't. And moreso than any other team does.

 

[PhoenixBonez]

The outliers where we've beaten a team above us are not too uncommon... Hawthorn has just as many and Adelaide are funny looking (losing to everyone except the top 2? da****?) The real outliers are the thing we've complained about all year... and previous years too. Dropping games we shouldn't. And moreso than any other team does.

Yeah that's pretty much the part I was getting at.
I do like that one of Hawthorne's outliers though. Losing to Brisbane by 56 points. Nice to have that highlighted again.

 

[blitzer]

I doubt we will make the finals but honestly we can beat anyone at our best. If we can beat West Coast over at Subi we are a chance to win any match. People like to look at the matches and go "oh we can't beat Richmond" or whatever but the truth is if we catch them at the right time we can beat them.

Unfortunately we simply left out run a bit too late and we already have a number of long term injuries to Daniher, Gleeson, Parish and Zaharakis. A few more injuries will probably just wreck us. Its our own fault, if we had got our crap together earlier we wouldn't have lost to a crap team like Carlton and top 8 would be much more achievable.

No matter how this year ends I believe that this club is heading in the right direction. It was important for us to reshape the game plan to be more defensively solid so that it has a chance to stand up in finals. It just kind of sucked that it took us about 8 weeks to sort it out and get our new recruits fitting in with the team. I reckon from next year onwards we will be a genuine contender with a fit and firing Daniher running around again.

 

[eth-dog]

Collingwood, Hawthorn, North and Port are all 50/50's. We need to win at least 3 to make finals. We should beat St. Kilda, Gold Coast and Fremantle. Don't see us beating Richmond (though that would be very nice, best way to prevent their flag would be having them finish 3rd to Sydney and WC) or Sydney.

 

[Towno78]

We are essentially 3 games out of the 8. So need to win 7/9 for an outside chance, but realistically 8 or 9 for a real chance.
That's extremely unlikely!
But we do play all of nth, hawks, coll and port in the run home, which helps. Winning them would be 8pt games. And 3 of them in the next month. Win all of those 3 and we can dare to dream.

 

[IggypopsTshirt]

One of the many criticisms of Essendon in recent years is the gulf between our scintillating best and putrid worst and the need to reduce it and become a more consistent side. This year has been no different and unforgivable performance lapses like the Carlton and Hawthorn games will cost us a finals spot that we really should have waltzed into this season.

 

[ant555]

Who knows. If we play to close to our best level we could well win nearly all of them. However who really trusts us to play at our best level week in and week out ? Right now I hope we can win another 7 or so but I suspect we may finish with 10 or 11 wins and miss with that bloody Carlton game where we played a reasonable pressure game but could not get the job done as the one that may hurt us.
With our percentage it is likely we will need 13 wins unless a few sides go into a tail spin.

 

[DERO]

I reckon we could win our next 4 games barring serious injuries. 10 and 7.

 

[hotkorma]

I reckon we could win our next 4 games barring serious injuries. 10 and 7.

I like the cut of this guys jib

 

[Keystone agony]

Collingwood to miss finals?

They have carlton and goldcoast in next 2. They will be 10-4 then they play us who spabked us and eagles at the mcg probably still without 2 key forwards in darling and JJK.

Not to mention Brisbane late aswell.

Collingwood are locks for top 8 IMO

 

[Milanista28]

Collingwood to miss finals?

They have carlton and goldcoast in next 2. They will be 10-4 then they play us who spabked us and eagles at the mcg probably still without 2 key forwards in darling and JJK.

Not to mention Brisbane late aswell.

Collingwood are locks for top 8 IMO

They're a top 4 chance.

 

[Nuggs Bunny]

Who knows. If we play to close to our best level we could well win nearly all of them. However who really trusts us to play at our best level week in and week out ? Right now I hope we can win another 7 or so but I suspect we may finish with 10 or 11 wins and miss with that bloody Carlton game where we played a reasonable pressure game but could not get the job done as the one that may hurt us.
With our percentage it is likely we will need 13 wins unless a few sides go into a tail spin.

I think it's going to haunt us no matter what because even in the realistic best case scenario, we're going to sneak into the finals at 8th, probably go interstate to play Port or play a team at the MCG, get spanked and first round exit again. I'm glad the early season form slump was rectified relatively quickly by the club leaders/coaches and that the team is playing even better football now, but in an ideal world it wouldn't have happened at all and we'd have booked two or three extra wins.

 

[AcuteWhistle]

All the commentators Ive heard since our win over the Eagles still have Essendon written off - 'the win said more about West Coast, blah, blah, blah'.

Get on

 

[revival_mode]

too hard to make any accurate assessment on us. we are about the most inconsistent team in the comp.

 

[maskmcgee]

If we make the 8, with who we are playing, we will actually get there in some sort of form, unlike last year when we limped in barely beating a bunch of bottom 4 teams in the weeks prior.

 

[Old Stuckup]

If we make the 8, with who we are playing, we will actually get there in some sort of form, unlike last year when we limped in barely beating a bunch of bottom 4 teams in the weeks prior.

And we’ve actually shown we can beat quality teams away from home unlike last year.

 

[JayJ20]

The thing that will likely stop us from making it is our percentage. Even if we get the wins, the teams we're competing with essentially have a game in hand because of the percentage

 

[BOMBERS 4 LIFE!!!!]

The thing that will likely stop us from making it is our percentage. Even if we get the wins, the teams we're competing with essentially have a game in hand because of the percentage

GC and Saints our only chances to get a % boost

 

[Old Stuckup]

GC and Saints our only chances to get a % boost

Perhaps Freo in Melbourne too.