With seven home and away rounds left to play in the AFL, the question remains which teams will end up making the final eight by September.
Presently, the only two teams assured of making the top two are Hawthorn and Geelong; the other two spots in the top four can be raffled between Essendon, Sydney, Fremantle and possibly Collingwood and Richmond.
The question is, how will each team perform in the next four weeks and how much will the fallout of the performance enhancing drugs investigation affect Essendon’s standing, especially if the league happens to strip them of premiership points?
Currently, there is a two game gap between seventh position and the rest of the pack down to tenth on the ladder, which brings teams such as Port Adelaide, Carlton and West Coast with North Melbourne in contention to fight for the last spot in the eight while Adelaide, Brisbane and the Gold Coast still have a remote chance of participating in September action.
