00:00in the margins because your capacity to win close games is going to be critical when it gets to the
00:06five to ten. I reckon the top four just about sorted themselves out, I reckon. I might be
00:11wrong in that. It's a long way to go still. But I reckon the top four have just about organized
00:16themselves out. It's going to be about the teams that can win the games that are tight. Now we'll
00:22go through the fixture as it currently has been so far. If I can just organize myself here, Steve-O.
00:26You fancy, what is that, a Kindle? No, it's not a Kindle. It's a very, very good remarkable.
00:31So the dogs, right? So the list of the dogs so far, they've won five, sorry, five, six,
00:37two, they've won, lost by three, four, and six. The Cats have won games by four, one, and
00:41one. They've lost games by ten and eight. The Saints have lost one by one and two, won
00:47one by four. The Pies are fascinating. Normally the close game Kings, they've lost games by
00:51four, six, six, and eight this year. They've had a five-point win, a ten-point win in the
00:55draw. And the Crows have lost by six, eight, two, and nine, and have won three games by
01:00a point.
01:01They're crazy, isn't it?
01:02So those sort of margins, those single-digit margins, are going to be critical when it
01:07comes to trying to qualify for the six, five and six probably, and then the seven to ten
01:11margins for the wildcard round. Because the Saints need everything going their way, the
01:16way things are going. The Crows are going to be similar, I reckon. They can't afford to
01:19lose too many games by single figures, but they're winning three by one point. So it's going
01:23to be fascinating to see who can stand up in these close games in the back end of the
01:27season, because it will make or break the year.
01:29Yeah, it's a tick for Greg Swan, isn't it, in footy that we're talking about all these
01:32close results, half. Not as many blowouts. Bulldogs, Adelaide, Thursday night. It's
01:37coming up quickly. It's only 48 hours away, a little bit more. But yeah, so that's a huge
01:42game. But also half with the wildcard round. I was for it because it gives everyone hope.
01:49A lot of people were cynical. I think those people may be coming around now. If you're a
01:53St Kilda supporter without a wildcard, you're cooked at five and eight. You need to probably
01:58win another eight games to get yourself in. Eight of the last ten. Now, I probably still
02:05need six or seven, but give you a chance.
02:08The way things are going.
02:08Yeah. I've done my sum. I think you still need 11 with a good percentage or 12 to get
02:14into the wildcard. But even Carlton supporters have got hope. So I'm actually a supporter of
02:19the wildcard. Even though it's a novelty, if you don't finish top six, you're finished.
02:23Yeah.
02:24But it gives you hope to at least have some finals action and celebrate a wildcard.
02:28Yeah. Well, I'm not sure they're finals, but all that the O-Funds dictate that they've
02:31been counted as finals. But I'm a bit of one of those in the camp that's not a massive
02:35fan of the wildcard action. I think the final eight was a nice system. It just seemed to
02:39work pretty well. This is purely a cash grab. And that's all right. They've almost been
02:42open about that. Almost. About that. But it's going to give us something to think about.
02:46It was on the back of last year's season too, Steve, where there was a two-tiered competition
02:50effect. It was a top sort of seven.
02:53No, top nine. I mean, the Dogs won 14, 130% and missed out.
02:57Top seven.
02:57What?
02:58You can make the finals, mate. Not good enough. And then the rest of the competition, there
03:01was a big gap in between. So that was the problem last year. That's why the conversation
03:04really heated up about the wildcard. That why would you give the chance to teams that are
03:09sitting at nine, 10 wins, give them a chance to play in a post-season game? It didn't
03:15make any sense. And I'm still sort of in that ring. So we'll see how it goes. But at the
03:18moment, there's some excitement coming the way of the wildcard.
03:21Yeah, I've got a few ideas around. We'll talk about maybe finals and fixturing and how we
03:25can fix it. But I'd split it half. So you play everyone once.
03:30Yes.
03:30And then after 17 games, you split the latter three ways. Top six are locked.
03:34Well, it's been mentioned that.
03:35For finals.
03:36Okay.
03:36I said, I don't know if we can lock the top six out for 17 games.
03:40Then they shuffle. So what you create is sort of excitement, go up to 17. The middle
03:44six, then separate and then fight for those last spots. Now, this is where it gets-
03:48But if you're saying you can't win it from outside six, which is what we said before,
03:51then after 17 rounds, you've only got six contenders.
03:54No, no. You can still make- It's only top eight. So you can still make it. The two in
03:58the middle of fighting for the top eight. So we go back to the top eight. And then this
04:02is where it gets interesting. The bottom six, and this is contentious, then play off to get
04:08the first pick.
04:09No. We need to talk about this. We need to workshop this. We need to workshop this.
04:13We need to do a special on this.
04:14And we'll table this another day.
04:15This is like the boardroom, mate. The NRL show. We're digging deep here.
04:17This is another day conversation. We're not ready for that on Six Points on a Tuesday morning
04:21up around 13.
04:22Too confused, though.
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