Aussie Rules update

Hello from down under! As we get ready to tip Week 4 of the AFL footy season, here's where the teams stand after three games:

3 and 0) Scoreboard!... Gold Coast Suns (the big surprise, but then they've had an easy schedule so far), Sydney Swans (looked strong three weeks in a row - Luke Parker leads our Player of the Year voting, and Buddy Franklin is scoring like Steph Curry again!), and North Melbourne Kangaroos (first time they won game ONE, let alone the first three, in ten years! But they're strong enough to have earned those wins).

2 and 1) A series of teams who are either imperfect or ran into a bad week or a better team or... Hawthorn Hawks (no surprise - tough wins against West Coast and the Bulldogs earn them their cred back), West Coast Eagles and Western Bulldogs (been great and each lost a tough game to the Hawks), Geelong Cats (looked great all season; GWS bullied them in a bad week), Adelaide and Port Adelaide (the Cats are the better of the two, but Port's had two easy games besides getting whooped by their cross-town rivals).

1 and 2) Teams which have their teeth clenched right now... GWS Giants (an up and down team), Melbourne Demons (ditto - no bad losses), Collingwood Magpies and Richmond Tigers (weaker than expected), Essendon Bombers (upset the Dees somehow in week 2), and St. Kilda Saints (upended the Pies in Nick Riewoldt's 300th game!).

0 and 3) Exactly where they deserve to be, although all show signs of a pulse, at least...Brisbane Lions (don't expect more than a few wins), Carlton Blues (but number one draft pick Jacob Weitering is the real deal), and last year's minor premiers, the Fremantle Dockers (who don't seem to understand that you have to score more than five goals a game to win in this league. The walls may be caving in if they can't scare up a win soon...)

So, this week, some easy calls: West Coast over Richmond Friday; Geelong over Essendon, Hawthorn over St. Kilda, Gold Coast over Brisbane (but in a rivalry? Never know...), Western over Carlton, and on Sunday expect North Melbourne to add to Fremantle's misery. As for the question mark games, I'm thinking GWS gets over the line against Port Adelaide, I'll take the Adelaide Crows to upset Sydney, and by flipping a coin I've got Melbourne nipping Collingwood (they show more positive signs).

Right now, my record is 20-7; I'm sitting in the top 10% of tipsters in the AFL competition, and there's a long way to go...