From last to 13th

[Marki]

For the Dogs to make top 8, the following key games need to pan out (first some assumptions made):
1) Dogs win all remaining games, except lose away to Eels
2) Storm and Panthers win all remaining games
3) Teams playing each other at the bottom of table - home teams win (I.e. Knights v Titans etc)
4) Teams in the top 8 currently beating teams in bottom of the table (eg Rabbits beating Knights away)
5) Remaining games - all home teams win, except the following per round

Round 15
Cowboys beat Manly away
Eels beat Roosters at home

Round 18
Cowboys beating Sharks at home
Roosters beating Dragons at home

Round 19
Dragons beating Many at home

Round 20
Cowboys beating Dragons away

Round 21
Broncos beating Roosters away
Eels beating Manly away

Round 22
Eels beating Rabbits at home
Cowboys beating Roosters away

Round 23
Manly beating Sharks at home

Round 24
Raiders beating Manly at home
Cowboys beating Rabbits away

Round 25
Roosters beating Rabbits at home

As long as the above happens, any other game doesn’t really matter, Dogs will finish 8th by 2 points. Any change in the above could be a shootout on point difference

Hence why we need to keep winning and keep winning big

It’s a long shot, but yes, it is mathematically possible

If you look at our remaining games, all games are winnable, with tricky games being Sharks home and away, Cowboys at home, Eels away and Sea Eagles at home

Very interesting breakdown.
I assume you played with the ladder predictor to come up with it.

Basically the way I see it, Rabbits and Dragons on 16 points and in 7th and 8th spot are the 2 spots available for the chasing teams.

I haven't played around with the ladder predictor, but if we assume we lose no more than 2 games from here, we would get to 8+2(bye)+2×7(wins) = 24points.

Rabbits and Dragons have had their bye and have to play 10 more games. They would need to win no more than 4 games to stay on 24 points. Losing 6 games would mean their F/A will take a hit.

Roosters, Raiders and Manly have a bye coming up. They must also not win more than 4 more games from remaining 9. Roosters still have a good F/A. Manly is -4, Raiders is -39. If we match them on 24 points, we would need to beat the F/A.

I discount the Knights, as they are in same spot as us.

Therefore, expecting at least 4 teams above us to win no more than 40% of their remaining games is too much of a stretch.

If we only lose 1 game from here in, we get to 26points, meaning at least 4 teams need to win 5 games out of 10 and 9 respectively to match us. That's still 50%-55%.

And if we win all our games, we get to 28 points which is just about guaranteed to make finals with runaway leaders in Panthers and Storm beating teams around us.

I assume your ladder assessment has accounted for the above given you have singled out specific games of interest.

Let's just hope we can keep the momentum going and seeing how far we can go before we no longer can keep the dream.

 

[Marki]

Which leads me to the following question regarding sacking of a coach.

I've always felt if the coach hasn't shown improvenent by Round 8, you pull the trigger.

Why?
Because of our current predicament as well as that of the Tigers and Warriors.

Sacking the coach by Round 8 still gives the incoming (caretaker or permanent) coach to salvage the season and still try to make finals.

By sacking their coaches after Round 12, Dogs, Tigers and Warriors have pretty much kissed their season goodbye. Had they done it earlier and coach managed to revive the team, they'd still have a fighting chance.

So my question is.... if the writing is on the wall, why wait till halfway in the season to pull the trigger on a coach who's running in the bottom 4?

 

[Dawain87]

Round 16

• Storms (2nd) Vs Manly (10th)

Need Storms to win to keep Manly on 14pts

• Titans (16th) Vs Knights (12th)

Need Titans to win to keep Knights on 10pts

• Panthers (1st) Vs Roosters (9th)

Need Panthers to win to keep Roosters on 14pts

• Bulldogs (13th) Vs Sharks (4th)

Bulldogs need to win to advance to 12th. Tie with Knights on 10pts .69 points better for and against. Knights have a much better run home playing Titans twice and Tigers once. We play them once which will be a must win.

• Cowboys (3rd) Vs Broncos (5th)

Cowboys to win to keep Broncos on 20pts.

A tough game and a Broncos win can also work in our favour as we take on Cowboys later in year who may be down players.

• Eels (6th) vs Rabbitohs (7th)

Gone with Eels to win simply because the Rabbitohs play top 3 Storms/Panthers/Cowboys later so there’s points there to drop and need to keep South’s on 16pts

• Tigers (14th) Vs Warriors (15th)

Need Tigers to win simply because we play the Warriors and hopefully by then they will down on confidence.

• Dragons (8th) Vs Raiders (11th)

Dragons have some tough games ahead playing Broncos twice and Sharks/ Cowboys.

Need to keep Raiders on 14pts

In Summary for us to jump into outright 12th we need to beat the Sharks and Knights to lose to Titans.
If knights win we can still leapfrog them week after (round 17) as we have the bye and they play the Rabbitohs provided they lose that game.

We also need the current top 3 to keep winning and not drop any games Panthers/Storms/Cowboys. Positions 7-8 are up for grabs (4pts gap for rank 6 to rank 7 currently) potentially we can get 6th if results go our way but as others mentioned we can jag a spot if we drop a game or two.

 

[ILiveForDib]

Imagine what a player like Adam Reynolds would do with this side.

 

[Bulldogz82]

The losses against the raiders and knights are whats going to cost us any hope of top 8. They were both on multiple losses in a row and struggling. If Potter coaches those 2 games we would have won. We scored 1 try in each of those games, fucken baz!

 

[dogwhisperer]

Which leads me to the following question regarding sacking of a coach.

I've always felt if the coach hasn't shown improvenent by Round 8, you pull the trigger.

Why?
Because of our current predicament as well as that of the Tigers and Warriors.

Sacking the coach by Round 8 still gives the incoming (caretaker or permanent) coach to salvage the season and still try to make finals.

By sacking their coaches after Round 12, Dogs, Tigers and Warriors have pretty much kissed their season goodbye. Had they done it earlier and coach managed to revive the team, they'd still have a fighting chance.

So my question is.... if the writing is on the wall, why wait till halfway in the season to pull the trigger on a coach who's running in the bottom 4?

Because we won against the Roosters that's why. It bought him another couple of weeks.

 

[Malla]

Just shows how much of a gap there is top to bottom
If we have another few good weeks, with a bye in hand, we could literally be a couple wins out of the 8

But we should not worry about that, just take it week by week and keep building. It' really good to be on the up side as opposed to being shit fucks

 

[KiwiDog7]

The losses against the raiders and knights are whats going to cost us any hope of top 8. They were both on multiple losses in a row and struggling. If Potter coaches those 2 games we would have won. We scored 1 try in each of those games, fucken baz!

If Baz won those two games then he probably keeps his job and we suffer long term

Double edged sword

If we compare Baz (last minute, hold on for dear life /heart attack material) with Potters win by 30’points Razzle dazzle

I know which one I prefer

 

[wendog33]

Because we won against the Roosters that's why. It bought him another couple of weeks.

Unfortunately...but still...it is what it is for us atm.

We can't be accused of not giving Baz a fair go ....but the club were by media. Now the DT and Fox Murdoch media etc have to eat their words.... bc Potter doing an outstanding job of resurrecting the team and proving that these players were not playing well under Barrett.

 

[djdeep4172]

Has anyone noticed that we are playing faster and looking fitter playing out the full 80 mins? Harry Potter has put the broomstick through Barrett's strategies and game plan.

We are much much more disciplined (ok TPJ may of once stuffed up yesterday) which will happen but the mentality of being disciplined all over the park is getting rewards.

We are not lying around the ruck trying to slow play the balls down, we are not stupidly trying to take guys out unnecessarily, we are tackling ensuring we aren't going high etc etc. Harry Potter has planted a spell on the players to be more disciplined and if we do that we aren't tackling all game and we are fresher for when we have the ball. Isn't that showing ten fold?

We can all see Harry Potter has thrown out the spell book and are letting the players play more freely. They are enjoying themselves, they are smiling and they certainly don't look like they are playing with fear of playing outside the game plan like they were with Barrett.

 

[repolski]

Potter says ‘let’s take it one game at a time’

 

[Marki]

Just shows how much of a gap there is top to bottom
If we have another few good weeks, with a bye in hand, we could literally be a couple wins out of the 8

But we should not worry about that, just take it week by week and keep building. It' really good to be on the up side as opposed to being shit fucks

I don't like taking it week by week. It's a BS cliche.

I'd rather the whole team is very aware of where we're at and the understand it and know the expectations that come with it.

Our short term goal must be to keep improving and finding wins, with a re-assessment to be done after every week. Hopefully in 6 weeks time, we are still in contention.