Despite being a bit different from what I anticipated at the start of the year, I do think still think the four teams that can win it are Melbourne, Brisbane, Nth Qld and to a lesser extent Cronulla.
As weird as it sounds I'm ok with the scenarios the Cows face. Finish 4th and we at least get a week 2 or 3 home game but finish 5th we get a home game anyway. I think the Cows could give it a decent crack even from fifth even though no team outside the 4 has won the comp in this system though I wish we beat the Tigers and Roosters more now. Could have had a finals game in Canberra which would have been awesome to attend.
I always hated top 5 as a player if you finished first. You go in to a grand final having played one game of footy in a month, its the main reason you see so undefeated teams lose grand finals in juniors imo.