Tbf there's only one contender this year
Whilst they are clear and well earned favourites, I saw enough today to show they can be beaten. Hell, last year souths were an intercept away from beating them in the gf, after beating them in week 1. Parra also arguably should have beaten them in the semi too. Melbourne dusted them in the grand final the year before.
They have been one of the best regular season teams, arguably ever. But they don't scare me in the finals like a dominant Melbourne did. In the finals, teams always find a new level. We shut down for big periods of this game, and were still in it up to our eyeballs with 5 to go.
On tonight, **** I thought we were impressive in our first 25, and 50th-70th. We were tough and defended brilliantly, just did exactly what McInnes said we couldn't in his interview this week. We turned over too much ball, gave them too many chance on our line and of course we cracked.
Cleary's kicking game was on point and allowed them to sustain repeat pressure. However I thought Api was the difference. He controlled the ruck brilliantly and showed why he is the form 9 in the comp at the moment. If he was playing for us I think we could have led by 20 with the go forward we were getting in that first stint
Massive wrap to the team and the club, this time last year we were counting how many bottom 8 teams we could beat to scrape into the 8. This year we are an outside chance at winning the comp. I'm sleeping easy tonight as a very happy sharks fan.