As for the AFL, hitting its midseason lull for the three bye weeks to give players a chance to recover a little bit (what LeBron James wouldn't have done for a bye week to recover during the NBA finals!), the league-leading Fremantle Dockers have finally hit a bit of a lull themselves, first losing to Richmond in week 10 and then barely hanging on to beat last-place Gold Coast by seven points this last Saturday!
This must give their pursuers some hope for a change - Sydney sits just one game behind at 9-2, riding a five-game win streak; West Coast and Collingwood both proved their form last week with decisive victories against top-level teams and sit at 8-3, two back; and the five spots filling out finals (and the dreaded ninth place) all hold teams with positive spin and records above .500 - GWS, Hawthorn, Adelaide, Richmond, and the resurgent Geelong Cats, reaching 6-5 following a great victory over Port Adelaide last weekend.
Slots 10-12 hold reasonably close contenders Port, Western, and North Melbourne, all with five wins after eleven rounds. Below that are two 4-7 teams moving in opposite directions: rising St. Kilda and plummeting Essendon. The bottom four figure to stay that way, although all show signs of life - Melbourne at 3-8, Brisbane at 2-8, and the one-win teams Gold Coast and Carlton contending for the wooden spoon.
Here are our Following Football ELO-style ratings as of today, June 17th, 2015:
Hawthorn (84.1) - Sydney (76.5) - West Coast (76.0) - Fremantle (70.4)
Geelong (64.6) - Richmond (59.9) - Port Adelaide (58.6) - Collingwood (57.6)
North Melbourne (55.6) - Adelaide (55.5) - Western Bulldogs (43.8)
GWS (43.6) - Essendon (42.7) - Gold Coast (27.8) - Melbourne (25.4)
St. Kilda (21.3) - Brisbane Lions (18.8) - Carlton (17.9).
Curiously, although Fremantle is 10-1, their rating is scarcely a point above their starting level of 69.1! Meanwhile, for example, 8-3 West Coast has jumped over seventeen points from their starting posture of 58.6! Hawthorn's bumpy season has not moved their rating significantly (less than a point from their initial score), and Sydney is exactly where it started. The biggest gainer is actually Collingwood (up 21.6 points), while the two 1-10 teams have both been down as many as 23 points before coming back up slightly to their current positions (Gold Coast down 19 from its opening; Carlton 20).
Predictions for Week 12: This week provides some confident choices for the Following Football punters, who have six games to pick again this week: Hawthorn big over Adelaide; West Coast "upsetting" Richmond (can't believe Richmond's favored!); Port Adelaide over Carlton big; North Melbourne defeating GWS, who lost two important players last weekend for the season; Western over Brisbane with ease, and Geelong annihilating Melbourne. Inside the AFL's own "tipping" competition, the FF predictors are in the top 1% on all fronts, inside the top 1600 of a 175,000 member contest! Which means: trust us! We know what we're doing! (We went five out of six last week, nailing one upset but missing our pick on another one.)
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