I love this thread. The game was high quality so much better than many games on the weekend. They never throw in the towel. And are way ahead of quite a few teams un the comp. Plus we still have a few players to come back.
Sorry to be negative in a positive thread, but I disagree.
I wouldnt call it high quality, lots of errors…lots or penalties, it was a bludger of a game imo
And all thos banging on about 3x2 point losses, yes- while its better than 20 point losses...these are the losses that cost teams semis spots - are we the new canberra raiders?
Well ink that's a bit of data selection bias going on there.
Close losses and big losses both cost teams semi finals spots. Total losses is what is important, regardless if a significant # of those are close losses. In fact I'd argue even a run of close losses are manageable, because it at least means you are closer to winning than a run of heavy losses.
I haven't crunched all the numbers but I would expect that teams who only lose by small margins typically end up winning enough of those games to make the Top 8\. Teams that miss the finals would normally have a liberal number of big losses under their belts as well.
Take Saints 2017 for example. They won 12/24, won 5/10 games decided by 6 points or less, but everyone thinks about that last-round loss to Bulldogs where a maligned Lichaa barges over from DH. Sure it hurt, Tigers fans know the feeling, but it ignores the 10 other losses they incurred in the previous 17 rounds. Any one of those losses, any of a handful of bad decisions or missed tackles could have had a different outcome.
To be a successful year in 2018, all Tigers have to do this year is make the finals - that's huge progress for us. We will probably make the finals by winning 50% plus one games, i.e. 13 wins. That means 8 more wins in the next 16 rounds. If you can't do that, well honestly you don't really deserve to be in the Top 8, even if we lose another 9 games by 2 points or 9 games by 22 points.
