The first eight rounds ranked in difficulty

[shanegrambeau]

OK..its just fluff, but I'm interested in picking up bits and bobs along the way. What do you reckon will be our toughest games in the first eight rounds,

For some reason, I get this feeling that Fremantle away might be our toughest, even to it is only...Fremantle! duh> and secondly, I suspect Melbourne at the MCG..

After that the usual suspects.

3. West Coast home
4. Essendon "home and away"
5. Adelaide home
6. GWS Canberra
7. Hawthorn home
8. Gold Coast Home

So I think if we could eek out three wins it might be GC, Hawthorn and GWS. Does anybody else have any ideas about what could be our toughest games?

[tedtheodorelogan2018]

Every game is tough these days. I would probably only pencil in home games against Carlton and Gold Coast as dead set certainties to win for the Saints...thus far.

[dragit]

Interesting start to the season, if we lose 2 of the first 3 I will say Richo is gone, because after that we play 5 games against 2018 finalists in 6 weeks.

By the end of round 14, we'll have had 8 games against sides who didn't play finals this year, so no excuses if we are fair dinkum about improving.

1 - 17th - H
2 - 11th - A
3 - 14th - A
4 - 5th - H
5 - 4th - A
6 - 12th - H
7 - 7th - A
8 - 1st - A
9 - 2nd - A
10 - 18th - H
11 - 10th - H
13 - 17th - China
14 - 15th - H
15 - 3rd - H
16 - 9th - A
17 - 8th - A
18 - 13th - H
19 - 4th - H
20 - 12th - A
21 - 14th - H
22 - 18th - A
23 - 7th - A

[Yorkeys]

Just taking the couple of scenarios above; if we lose 2 of first three and 13 wins is needed to play finals (a 59% win ratio) we then need to win at over 60% for the rest of the season to make it. If we win 3 of first 8 we then need to win at 71%. All three ratios are well above ARs PB and long term average. It seems therefore that the club management as a collective know the likelihood of AR taking the current team to the finals is low, so are they setting up a succession plan and waiting for the performance trigger clause or do they have a goal that doesn't make finals a must. It would be a big ask for any coach to get us into the 8 so I hope they are not being too cruel to Alan If we can beat GC convincingly in game 1 I think all other games are winnable. But I almost always think/hope that. Winning the first will be a big deal. If we don't AR might as well resign immediately. For that reason and its significance I choose game 1 as the hardest, even if we are at $1.24 in early markets.

[desertsaint]

Every game is tough these days. I would probably only pencil in home games against Carlton and Gold Coast as dead set certainties to win for the Saints...thus far.

wouldn't pencil any in as dead set. for any club. instead just hoping we can nab two wins over the first 8 rounds. more likely we'll have just one. but who knows. essendon may again start the season half asleep. we may hit 2016 form. the eagles may suffer the mother of all hangovers...

[shanegrambeau]

Mnn...eight rounds in is usually the time we start saying - or I start saying - looks like x, or y is panning out for the year and we can have a guess about where we are going to be by the bye rounds. I know we have recovered before after some crappy starts but the odds are it will be tough..Unless somehow we have the "Buckwick" effect and bounce back, come out of the blocks flying!

I guess the stakes are high for the first few rounds 'externally' as they say. One thing I think about here is, what other of these teams will also be reeling under pressure when we meet them? Essendon play the giants in Sydney before they play us? What sort of state will they be in? Fremantle have only North and the Suns before they meet us at home. If North batters them, will they be easier for us? It is all conjecture of course, but the sequence must count for something.

[Cairnsman]

I think they are all winnable. We could be 5 wins by round 8.

[Jacks Back]

Every game is tough these days. I would probably only pencil in home games against Carlton and Gold Coast as dead set certainties to win for the Saints...thus far.

Who is this? Who has taken over this account? Obviously someone from "the sky is gunna fall" brigade!

[Jacks Back]

Just taking the couple of scenarios above; if we lose 2 of first three and 13 wins is needed to play finals (a 59% win ratio) we then need to win at over 60% for the rest of the season to make it. If we win 3 of first 8 we then need to win at 71%. All three ratios are well above ARs PB and long term average. It seems therefore that the club management as a collective know the likelihood of AR taking the current team to the finals is low, so are they setting up a succession plan and waiting for the performance trigger clause or do they have a goal that doesn't make finals a must. It would be a big ask for any coach to get us into the 8 so I hope they are not being too cruel to Alan If we can beat GC convincingly in game 1 I think all other games are winnable. But I almost always think/hope that. Winning the first will be a big deal. If we don't AR might as well resign immediately. For that reason and its significance I choose game 1 as the hardest, even if we are at $1.24 in early markets.

Apparently we have the easiest draw according to Champion Data.

[tedtheodorelogan2018]

Every game is tough these days. I would probably only pencil in home games against Carlton and Gold Coast as dead set certainties to win for the Saints...thus far.

Who is this? Who has taken over this account? Obviously someone from "the sky is gunna fall" brigade!

Huh?
There are no easy games for any side, especially the Saints.

[ace]

OK..its just fluff, but I'm interested in picking up bits and bobs along the way. What do you reckon will be our toughest games in the first eight rounds,

For some reason, I get this feeling that Fremantle away might be our toughest, even to it is only...Fremantle! duh> and secondly, I suspect Melbourne at the MCG..

After that the usual suspects.

3. West Coast home
4. Essendon "home and away"
5. Adelaide home
6. GWS Canberra
7. Hawthorn home
8. Gold Coast Home

So I think if we could eek out three wins it might be GC, Hawthorn and GWS. Does anybody else have any ideas about what could be our toughest games?

I think 22 of our games out of the first 24 rounds could be pretty tough.