A lot of dribble has been said about how we are ‘tanking’. First and foremost, it’s not ‘tanking’. That is when you deliberately try to not win to gain a better position, on the ladder, in the draft, whatever. Whoever takes the field against Port will be expected to do their best to win, no question about that.
There’s also been a lot of dribble about the effects of resting key players. We did this in 2013 and came out firing against Geelong. After winning that game, we had a week’s rest, and we came out at home against Sydney in the prelim and that got us to the GF. What’s the difference now? Not much as far as I can see. Rest your best (and tired) players this week, win the QF, rest, then play the Prelim here. That puts us in the best position to make the GF. After that, well, like we saw in 2013, we gave it a red-hot crack, but lost.
But the key to this year is that when we’ve played well, we’ve blitzed teams in the first quarter. BTW, I reckon the template for this started with Port in their 2014 final against Richmond. That game was basically over in the first 10 minutes.