I think you can.
Finishing above a team, does not mean you are a better than them.
So Hawthorn are no better than Geelong in 08?
Debate can and will happen but you can never draw anything more conclusive than a victory IMO. It's like the support of the losing team walking out after defeat saying "we were better than them". Ala grant Thomas a couple of years ago.
'Every other factor' is exactly what should be discussed. We are not better than Collingwood because we finished above them. We are better than them for 'other factors'.
Not least of all beating them. But yes you can spin on about "other factors"
but the variables are so large drawing any conclusion is inconclusive.
[/quote]We did fall into 4th. The only relevance if finishing 4th is that you get a double chance in the finals.
Outside of that, it simply means that for many other factors we ended up higher on the ladder than 12 teams below us.
Falling in implies a lack of control, with little understanding or effort. This is one of the shining examples where a club had clear control over where they finished - it was layed out for them before the Essendon game.
The relevance is psychological among many other things.
Finishing above others is the objective of the game.
Getting it happening isn't enough. What if every team gets it happening? Then what? It comes down to many other factors. What if you 'get it happening' but the fixture has you playing your last 4 games interstate? As opposed to another team who 'gets it happening' yet plays their last 4 games at the G?
What if you 'get it happening' but your best player does his knee?
We finished 4th, as opposed to as low as 9th because Jack Riewoldt's right leg couldn't kick 50m after 120 minutes of footy, and because some other Richmond bloke hit the post from 25m out.
You're introducing other factors that are irrelevant to the finish and not a part of what happened in 08. As for Jack I could quote several other incidents that happened to St.Kilda players that could have changed what happened as well - so what.
There's no way we were 'clearly' better than what was below.
If the ladder is the bible, then we were only about 3 or 4 goals better than those below us. Only 1 goal better than Adelaide!
If Ramanaskus slotted that goal under no pressure in the last quarter of the last game, we wouldn't have finished 4th.
It's almost like a photo finish in horse racing. The horse that wins gets the chocolates. The one that gets beaten by a whisker doesn't.
However when assessing the form for the next race, to look solely at the fact that one of them has a 1 next to it's name, and the other has a 2 - is crazy. There are many factors involved.
One of them may have had more weight. One of them may have travelled 3 wide the whole way. etc. etc.
The footy is the same.
I don't believe I've ever mentioned that the ladder is a bible - it is one indicator, one group of statistics - a starting point for discussion to occur.
If someone is a "moron" for mentioning it then what rock of insight do you stand on as the protagonist for intellectual debate.
I've never seen a bad St.Kilda player - that's just how they are.