Has the job just been made easier?

[Carlos Parra]

Following the results on Thursday night and last night, and if Easts win by a decent margin tonight, we'll join Souffs and Broncos on 28 points and jump momentarily into 5th on the ladder. Hopefully the Eels and Raiders lose, but I'm not banking on it. But with more teams level pegging on 28-30 points, surely that makes us a safer bet to play semis.

[Vasco]

We still need to win one of the Melbourne or Souffs games. We haven't beaten either team for a while.

[Noosa Rooster]

Following the results on Thursday night and last night, and if Easts win by a decent margin tonight, we'll join Souffs and Broncos on 28 points and jump momentarily into 5th on the ladder. Hopefully the Eels and Raiders lose, but I'm not banking on it. But with more teams level pegging on 28-30 points, surely that makes us a safer bet to play semis.

Yet mathematically we are still only 1 loss away from missing out. At this stage, keep winning is the only guaranteed finals spot.

[itsdan]

It's very tough to say it makes it easier, the reason being is that we're in the race against:

- Grubbitohs (28 pts)
- Broncs (28 pts)
- Eels (28 pts - to play today)
- Raiders (24 pts - to play tmrw)

- Chooks (us) - 26 points - to play today

Basically the situation looks like this:

The Grubbitos have a draw of:
- Cowgirls
- Us

This is the one that can go either way, because we play them in Round 25. If we win both games vs Tigers/Storm, and the Grubs beat the Cowgirls next week, we'll both be on 30 points, so that match in 25 will be do or die for both squads.

Broncs:
- Eels
- Dragqueens

If the broncs win both these games, they will sit on 32 points, meaning we will need to win all 3 games remaining to be on equal points and beat them in for/against. If they lose to the Eels next week, then we will only need to win this week and 1 of Storm/Grubs.

Eels:
- Dogs (today)
- Broncs
- Storm

If parra wins all 3 matches, they'll be on 34 and out of reach for us, but in the case that they lose 1 of the 3 remaining games, they'll be on 32 points, meaning we will need to win all of our remaining games to match them in points and beat them in for/against.

Raiders:
- Knights (today)
- Manly
- Tigers

They have the easiest draw into the finals and theoretically could win all 3 of their remaining matches, which will put them on 30 points, which means we will still need to win 2 of 3 of our last 3 remaining games to be on equal points with them and beat them in for/against.

The best case scenario for us to end up in 5th place would likely be:
- If we can win all 3 remaining matches
- Parra loses 1 of the last 3

We can end up 6th if we win 2/3 of our last 2 matches (and parra wins all 3).

[ism22]

Following the results on Thursday night and last night, and if Easts win by a decent margin tonight, we'll join Souffs and Broncos on 28 points and jump momentarily into 5th on the ladder. Hopefully the Eels and Raiders lose, but I'm not banking on it. But with more teams level pegging on 28-30 points, surely that makes us a safer bet to play semis.

I wasn't expecting Souffs and Brisbane to win so to me we're no better or worse off. If anything, the Drizz winning now means we can't make the top-4 (we weren't gonna anyway but now it's almost a certainty + our game against the Drizz just got harder as they're in red hot form... whereas there were questions about their form a few weeks back).

IMO our situation remains the same. No games are guaranteed and we need to be playing good footy against the Tigers, Storm and Souffs if we wanna have a serious shot at finals footy for 2022.

While I'll back us every time, the Drizz and Souffs will be VERY tough opponents. Souffs almost beat Pemriff and the Drizz are now crushing everybody in their path, having had their short lull.

[Carlos Parra]

Good summary itsdan.

I think we'll be needing some upsets along the way.

As for Easts, I see it as:

vs. Balmain = Should win (but we've seen throughout this year what happens in such matches)
vs. Storm = Not a chance in hell
vs. Souffs = Could win, but I fear they'll have more at stake and possibly a bit more intensity/passion

[Rooster R]

I think we still need to win 2 out of 3, and I can see the drongos missing out, especially after last night dismal performance, looks like the drongos of last year.

[Spirit of 66]

Good summary itsdan.

I think we'll be needing some upsets along the way.

As for Easts, I see it as:

vs. Balmain = Should win (but we've seen throughout this year what happens in such matches)
vs. Storm = Not a chance in hell
vs. Souffs = Could win, but I fear they'll have more at stake and possibly a bit more intensity/passion

If we have "not a chance in hell" of beating the Storm - with the Roosters fielding the best pack in the NRL with Lindsay and SST back - then none of this matters.

[Nigel Gaffey]

No matter what happens, we are in this predicament because firstly we lost to Newcastle in round 1, which in hindsight is a disgrace and secondly we lost to the bulldogs when we shouldn't have. Throw in a couple of close losses to the drizz, penriff (robbed) and raiders, we should be a top 2 footy team but for some reason we like to make things harder for ourselves. Anyway, we have the team capable of beating up the storm and souths through the middle if we have our entire front row at our disposal. We need to get through tonight with a win and remain healthy and then welcome back Lindsay and SST. Drizz get Fus but next week but Angus and co are waiting for him.... should be interesting to see the boys smash him after his elbow to Sammy

[RoosterFanNZ]

We’re lucky the broncos and eels final games mean we could probably afford one loss in the last two games.

Hoping cowboys beats south’s next week also

[Thirteen]

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

[zac]

don't think the job of making the 8 has been made easier but we now have a greater chance of finishing up the table

[ism22]

If we have "not a chance in hell" of beating the Storm - with the Roosters fielding the best pack in the NRL with Lindsay and SST back - then none of this matters.

I think we're a chance and we need to be if we think we're worthy of playing finals footy.

We'll need to play better than we did against the Cows plus integrate Collins / SST into the said performance though. All possible but our form isn't there yet. We need to bring ourselves to the next level... not just go in expecting a result.

[King Salvo]

Roosters still need to win 2 of 3 games to finish on 30 points which will be the minimum required to make the 8 - for and against would come into it as well

Parra should move to 30 as they play the Dogs and they play the Bronco's on 28 next week - Broncos on 28 have the Dragons in the last round so could still finish on 30 even if they lose to the Eels

Souths on 28 play Cowboys then Roosters

Raiders on 24 play Knights/Manly/Tigers and in reality would be strongly favoured to win all 3 games and finish on 30

Roosters on 26 play Tigers/Storm/Souths

[RoosterFanNZ]

Would be great if the bulldogs pull their shit together and let us get into 5th.

Additionally, other than addo carrs speed hes nothing incredible. Defensively he’s trash. Tupou miles better