A
few finals tidbits…
As things
stand right now, it seems very likely that while the Western Bulldogs are
favored to defeat Hawthorn Friday night and finish the season 12-10, the
Essendon Bombers are likely to defeat Fremantle on Sunday and knock the
defending champions into ninth, keeping them out of finals a year after their
second-ever premiership. (I’m also assuming the odds makers are prescient in
that the two other competitors for the last finals spot, St Kilda and West
Coast, will lose to the top four teams they’re facing this weekend.)
It’s
therefore worth noting that back in 1955, the year after Footscray won its only
previous title, the Doggies were knocked down into fifth place and out of
finals when, despite winning in the final round (round 18) by sixty points to
go 12-6, they were thwarted by Essendon, defeating Hawthorn 92-50 to edge them
for the last spot in finals. In fact, the margin between fourth and fifth was
just seven points scored, or less than one percentage point!
So the irony
of being prevented from even reaching finals after both of their title defenses
by the same Essendon club – a Bomber team which in both cases were returning to
the finals after an absence! – by just percentage points should not be lost on
Bulldog fans.
It should
also be remembered that Essendon would be the first “wooden spoon” recipients
to make finals since South Melbourne pulled the same stunt in 1923, finishing third
on the ladder after being ninth out of nine in 1922. (They lost in the preliminary finals to eventual runner up Fitzroy.)
Strangely, Essendon itself did the same thing the year before, placing second
in 1922 after spooning in 1921. But after two straight years of bottom to
finals, it’s been 94 years since it’s been done – and it took the World
Anti-Doping Agency to create the strange situation that made it so much more
likely in 2016-17.
Back in
April, some writers (myself included) declared the death of two lengthy finals
streaks – Sydney and Hawthorn had both qualified for seven straight finals. Of
course, Sydney has made us all look the fool and extended their streak to eight
years in a row, while Hawthorn made a great charge that finally fell short just
this week.
But the
eight-year streak is not all that unusual, historically. Even in the last
twenty years, you’ve got a eight-year streak by Collingwood from 2006-13 (including a title in 2010), Essendon’s
seven-year streak from 1998-2004 (including
three minor premiers and a 24-1 title run in 2000), and Geelong’s eight
year span of finals from 2007-2014 that included three titles.
More
impressive to me are that some of these streaks are simply parts of larger
strings of finals appearances interrupted by a single year missing the top
eight. Geelong’s appearance in 2017 will be their 12th trip to
finals in the last 14 years, with two near-misses in tenth place in 2006 and
2015 stopping a fourteen year streak, Sydney’s comeback from an 0-6 start
creates a 14-out-of-15 streak since 2003, broken only by a stray twelfth place
in 2009. Stretch the timeline back to 1996, when the Bloods got its first minor
premiership in a half-century, and Sydney has 19 out of 22 trips to the finals
under its belt, missing just 2009, an 11th place in 2002, and 10th
in 2000.
If round 23
goes as expected (not a given, especially
in 2017!), and Melbourne and Essendon take the final two spots this weekend,
we’ll have the first finals in a decade where fully half of the teams from last
year’s postseason have been replaced. Richmond, Port, the Demons and Bombers
will be replacing Hawthorn, North Melbourne, and (presumably) West Coast and the Bulldogs.
And just to
rub salt in the wound, I’d like to point out how few of the Roar’s patrons
could imagine more than ONE of last year’s finalists dropping out. The
Kangaroos were the obvious choice (and if
Brisbane wins as predicted on Saturday, they’ll reverse the Essendon leap and
fall from finals to wooden spoon), and maybe a few saw the Hawks’ struggles
pulling them below eighth place. But very few saw the Eagles failing to make
finals, and NONE of the predictions I tracked pre-season expected anything less
than a double chance for the reigning premiers, forgetting that they were in
seventh place and looking doubtful at best before making their run, (Having said that, I had them in the top
three as well, alongside GWS and Sydney. Mea culpa.)
Finally, realize that because Richmond is
likely to win its match against the Saints, Geelong is NOT likely to be in
third place in a week. Either they win and move past the Giants (and most likely host GWS again in a
qualifying final), or they fall to fourth, losing to GWS and falling
two premiership points behind Richmond. In fact, there are only two ways the
Cats might remain in third: the Giants’ third draw of the year (which would be a record), or the Tigers
regress to what they would’ve done two years ago and choke against St. Kilda.
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