We’re getting to that time of year where it all ramps up for the finals.
It means it’s time for a programming note. This year, The Shinboner finals posts will look like so:
The Finals Dossiers return
2025 will mark the sixth edition of the Finals Dossiers, the aim to comprehensively profile each of the top four* teams.
Each post will cover a team’s evolution from week to week throughout the year, how they beat you, how you beat them, along with a couple of other tweaks to previous editions that won’t be revealed until the first post drops.
(*The only way this changes is if Gold Coast’s rescheduled game looks set to finalise the top four. If that’s the case, there’ll likely be more than four posts given the lead in time for each of these.)
Depending on an individual’s Patreon subscription level, they’ll receive access Finals Dossiers access at different times. The current schedule looks like this:
Tuesday, 26th August: Team 1’s Dossier
– Tuesday: $10 Tier only
– Thursday 28th: $5 Tier gains access
– Saturday 30th: All paid Patrons gain access
– Monday 1st September: Available to the public
Wednesday, 27th August: Team 2’s Dossier
– Wednesday: $10 Tier only
– Friday 29th: $5 Tier gains access
– Sunday 31st: All paid Patrons gain access
– Tuesday 2nd September: Available to the public
Thursday, 28th August: Team 3’s Dossier
– Thursday: $10 Tier only
– Saturday 30th: $5 Tier gains access
– Monday 1st September: All paid Patrons gain access
– Wednesday 3rd September: Available to the public
Friday, 29th August: Team 4’s Dossier
– Friday: $10 Tier only
– Sunday 31st: $5 Tier gains access
– Tuesday 2nd September: All paid Patrons gain access
– Thursday 4th September: Available to the public
Once the Finals Dossiers are live to all, there’ll still be plenty more throughout September:
The Notebooks continue
In previous years the Notebooks have stopped at the end of the penultimate round. This year they’ll keep going throughout, and right up until a Preliminary Final edition – on Mondays rather than the mid-week format so far this year:
Monday 25th August: Round 24’s Notebook; most likely in some sort of summary format that’s still to be determined
Monday 8th September: Week 1 Finals Notebook
Monday 15th September: Week 2 Finals Notebook
Monday 22nd September: Week 3 Finals Notebook
Then to cap it off, there’ll be a bumper Grand Final preview to drop the day before the game: Friday 26th September.
Whether there’ll also be a Grand Final analysis post on the Sunday morning depends on how the game unfolds and if there’s any tension in the result. In other words, the game has to be closer to 2023 than 2024.
The only question remaining for the blog this year is whether it will continue into October with trade and free agency posts. As we get closer to the date it should become self-evident whether it’s a worthwhile endeavour. The update on that will probably arrive around about the start of finals time.
Until then though, all the above is coming soon. It should be a fantastic finals series.