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Robert Heatley Stand / Early Season Games
Generally Richmond is a given for round 1 (or 2 for 2014), but it's the flanking game that seems to impact us the most.
Port Adelaide:
PA finished 2013 in the 8, but were eliminated in the first week of the finals. In 2012 they were the laughing stock of the AFL.
We played them in round 1 2014 with high expectations of the win. We lose, we have a crappy year the rest is history.
PA Win and end up 5th for the season (including winning 9 of their 1st 10 games).
West Coast:
WCE finished 2014 just outside the 8 and 2013 was a fairly poor season finishing 13th.
Our rd 2 match this year was an expected win as they "didn't have a back line". We lost, we've had a crappy year, the rest will be history.
WCE win. They've now won 12 of 15 games and sit 2nd on the ladder.
So my question is, are losses to the early season "surprise packets", in games we expected to win, having an impact on the rest of our season?
Would we rather play teams from the top 4 the previous year to remove these expectations? We lose round 2 this year and then immediately after that match "we're re-building"! Would that have been mentioned had we have know what WCE were going to produce so far this year?
Let other teams work out who the surprise packets are and then we can play them in later rounds.
Thoughts?