This is Greatness...

The finals are here and as Timmy Rogers keeps saying... This is greatness!  Looking back at my predictions per season and I wasn't massively off the mark.  I had...

1. Hawthorn
2. Geelong
3. Collingwood
4. Carlton
5. Adelaide
6. West coast
7. St Kilda
8. Sydney
9. North Melbourne

Swap the sinners for North and my only real miss was the Blues - and we are all happy about that, including half the Carlton players who clearly lost the will to play for the big wingnut.  The commentators kept talking about how the players had to dig deep to play for him... but they couldn't play for themselves and a finals spot the week before so not sure what they expected.

The Hawks finish the season with the Minor Premiership and deservedly so.  They looked pretty comfortable in their win over the Eagles and despite losing Guerra to a hammy they will go in as favourites against the Pies in the first qualifying final.  Franklin kicked 4 in the first quarter and was everywhere that bear.  On the other hand the Pies looked pretty average against the Bombers.  On the plus side Clokey looked like he was coming back into a bit of form, and jailbait definitely adds value. Even dids seemed to have a couple of moments.  On the minus side the Bombers are a crap team and they were in the contest for a long time.  The Hawks will win with the only chance for the Pies being a full Cloke revival.

The Testeagles were never in the game against the Hawks, but finishing 5th means they will be playing against the Roos in Perth.  The Roos played very ordinary footy against the Giants and I STILL don't rate them despite them getting a couple of good wins over the journey.  It doesn't make any difference who wins the final between the Beagles and Roos cos they will lose against whoever they play the following week.  But the Beagles will win by plenty and NicNat will have a day out.

In what was billed as the biggest game of the weekend the Cats played the Swannees down at Unskilled.  And it was VERY close.  For a half.  Then the Cats smashed them.  Thats not good form leading into the finals for the Swannees - they have lost to the Hawks, Cats n Pies in the last few weeks.  The Cats on the other hand are looking like the real wild card of the 8 and I wouldn't want to play them.  But I would like to see the Hawks play them.  The Cats play Freo in Melbourne in the other elimination final and have the players to beat anyone on their day.  From the Swans point of view Goodesy needs to lift and Jetta to get his skates back on to be any chance.  Freo's win over the Dees was stock-standard but they lost McPharlin - that's trouble and the Cats will knock the Haze out.

The Mighty Mighty's rested half their team and had an easy win over the Suns as expected.  They will be looking forward to taking on the Swans at home but there are no easy wins in finals.  The Suns did have a few good players - Dixon a stand-out adn there was some bald guy in the middle who seemed to get a bit of it - but only a completely rubbish team with no character and no spirit would lose a game against them.

Speaking of which, Carlton finished the season with a loss to the Sinners.  That left the Saints finishing in 9th and Bluebaggers in 10th.   Ok ok - I hear you - who cares about the detritus at the bottom of the table... Yet again The Falcon didn't pick his own team so why would they bother? They eat their own down there.  The sad part is you would think they were a successful club rather than a team that has done SFA for the last decade.  Tell em they're dreaming.  But Milney is a lovable rogue isn't he?

The Lions smashed the Dogs who have had their worst year in my memory.  A totally forgettable game except that Daniel Rich kicked some ripping goals.  And finally in what was probably the most unlikely match of the round ever, the Tiggers and the Paps had a draw - the first of the year.   In it, Riewoldt cried his way to the Coleman, Newman retired as captain (but is still playing), and the Paps played some good footy to come from 7 points down with a minute and a half left and tie the game up. 

Now bring on the real stuff!

Tipping 

There were ELEVEN tens for the last round of footy, with the Blues/Sinners proving the only real hard game to pick.  Oh thats cos draws count as a correct pick in this comp.  We are including the finals all the way through this year, so keep on tipping!

Leading the way and looking fairly unbeatable if she keeps picking the Crows is IH8Crows.  She is 4 point clear of Pavsthaman and TheNipsters, and 6 points clear in the household battle against OnceGreat.  That said, we have the Spooner/Grand Final bonus points to come into play and amongst them so far are some -2's through to 3 points... see the GF/Spooner picks tabs to see who has what, and remember that there's money all the way through to 10th.  I'll post the $ breakdown soon.

The sidecomp is all over now - there aren't enough games left for people to catch up on the Top 3.  The winners were...

1. Magyver - 34 points
2. Peter Tancred - 29 points
3. Owen Bailey - 25 points

Money will be paid at the end of the season.

Finals Round 1
So the first week feels pretty clear cut although we know anything can happen.  Hawks over the Pies unless Clokey pulls one out of the bag, Crows over Swans unless Goodesy pulls one out of the bag, Eagles over the Roos with no one to pull anything out a bag, and the Cats over the Haze with no bag for the Haze to pull anything out of. 

And from there we have...

GO YOU CROWS!