AFL update

Still the only obloid game on the planet (not counting rugby), here's an update on the world of Australian Rules Football...

North Melbourne stayed unbeaten at 8-0 with a pair of close wins over eminently beatable teams; many think the Kangaroos are ripe for the taking, though it's unlikely to be the surprising 4-4 Carlton Blues who do that. Not particularly a Blues fan, but it would be fun to see this young team doing it with defense and hustle take down the undefeated leaders! Geelong sits at 7-1, cruising just one game behind, having pulled away from 8th place Adelaide down the stretch. Patrick Dangerfield has been a stellar addition to their midfield, moving them from out of the playoffs last year to a Grand Finals prospect in 2016. The two Opera House teams, Sydney and Greater Western Sydney (GWS), share the 6-2 spots on the ladder in 3rd and 4th, followed by the similarly 6-2 Western Bulldogs and the defenders, the Hawthorn Hawks, trailing on point percentage. Rounding out the top eight are the West Coast Eagles, alone at 5-3, and the Adelaide Crows, ahead of three other teams on percentage at 4-4. If that's not the list for the eight finals teams, I'll eat my non-existent hat! They're far and away the better of the eighteen teams, still to be discussed.

In that 4-4 pack are Carlton, mentioned above, Port Adelaide, winning games against who they should beat; and the Melbourne Demons, who have been building towards this for a couple of years. Are they ready for finals? I think it'll be one year. Below them, the fast falling Gold Coast Suns, losers of five straight, and the disappointing Collingwood Magpies, who nevertheless have OUR interest as they removed their star player, Travis Cloke, several weeks ago, in favor of a rookie from (gasp!) AMERICA named Mason Cox, who has been nothing short of impressive and improving weekly. At 2-6 sit two potentially dangerous teams: Saint Kilda, losers to good teams by close margins, and Richmond, who upset Sydney on a goal after the siren (if you catch a longish kick, called a "mark", you get to dispose of the ball unimpeded - the advantage of a mark! - even if the siren's sounded; since it's unimpeded, it's a chance to kick a goal and win if you're behind by less than a goal beforehand). Some are saying it's the "beginning of something big!" because they ran off late season winning streaks before; I don't think so. The bottom three all look terrible, and for different reasons: Brisbane Lions, which got hammered each of the last three weeks and has the coach on figurative suicide watch; Essendon Bombers, who this year are a ragtag collection of half regulars and half replacement players for reasons we've talked bout more than enough; and the 0-8 Fremantle Dockers, last year's minor premiers, who have finally started looking competitive for large chunks of games (they even led Hawthorn at the half before getting annihilated in the third quarter).

On the player of the year front, we actually have a FORWARD leading for the first time in my memory - usually, the midfielders get all the glory, but after taking the end of the season off to recover from mental health issues, Lance Franklin from Sydney is aiming for 100 goals - and he may make it! It hasn't been done for eight years, since ... well, since he did it at Hawthorn in 2008!
Here's the current leaderboard after eight rounds:

Lance Franklin					SYD		148
Patrick Dangerfield					GEEL		146
Luke Parker					SYD		126
Jarrad Waite					NMK		101
Tom J Lynch					GCS		98
Joel Selwood					GEEL		97
Dan Hannebury					SYD		92
Max Gawn					MEL		92
Lachie Hunter					WB		90
Rory Sloane					ADE		90

Dangerfield has been nothing short of remarkable; Parker and Hannebury are getting Buddy Franklin the ball in record numbers;and it's good to see Max Gawn and Tom J Lynch getting the kind of credit they have deserved for awhile now!

As for my "tipping" record? Well, I'm doing about normal for me right now; I'm sitting in the top 1000 or so consistently (out of 188,000 bettors at the moment), and within the GWS campaign, I've been in the top ten most of the season and currently sit eighth again (I was up to second at one point...). 

Bonus AFL coverage on a Friday morning...

Several points of interest as the penultimate round of the home-and-away season begins:

1. With Geelong's stunning upset at the hands of the excoriated Magpies (and we were the excoriartors on Tuesday) in Friday Night Footy (time difference! If you wanna listen to the future, tune into Australian radio!), the eight teams for finals are set in stone, seventeen games from the end of the season! There's still a bunch of position jockeying to be done (places 5-8 - Richmond, Western, Adelaide and the Kangaroos - all have seven losses), but Geelong's spectacular championship run over the last eight years is over. Eight years, eight post-seasons, three titles, 70+% winning percentage (season and finals), and a host of players in their thirties now who have given their footy lives to my wife's beloved Cats and are now on their way out...either now or soon enough. Some tough decisions will have to be made, and it leads into a conversation about how a team handles this scenario, one many if not most great teams have to deal with: how to handle the transition period. More on this topic in a blog post in the near future, I'm sure.

2. Fremantle's wunderkind Nat Fyfe had such a spectacular first half of the season that not only was he the Brownlow Medal favorite for MVP, one betting house actually paid off bets on Fyfe by round eight and closed the betting on him! But between his own niggling injury problems, his brushes with being disqualified for the award through suspensions (a head hit two weeks ago that by all rights should have ended his quest somehow escaped punishment from the Match Review Panel), and Fremantle's struggles as a team over the last few weeks, the Brownlow is no longer a certainty by any means. On our Player Of The Year tally, after ten rounds, Fyfe had 208 points when no other player had yet past 100 - but now, he's been stuck on 221 for five or six rounds, while Dan Hannebury (Sydney) leads the charge up the hill towards him at 168. It's only theoretically feasible for Hannebury to catch him at this point, but with Fyfe out of the last two games with an undisclosed medical issue (I think it's charlielossphobia - "the fear of copping a penalty that would ruin my chances of winning the Charlie Brownlow medal"), the chances are at least there. Interestingly, since Fyfe has missed four (and probably five next week) games this season, it's the second year in a row that the medal favorite will have missed so much time: Gary Ablett Jr. went out with the shoulder injury in round fifteen (and with him, Gold Coast's finals chances), and still came in second to surprise winner Matt Priddis of West Coast. Suddenly, the awards voting will be interesting!

3. Carlton hired a new coach this week: a man named Brendan Bolton, a great assistant at Hawthorn for many years, a proven winner who should bring a strong organizational model to a club in disarray, if he's allowed to (and they're saying all the right things). Bolton will join the Blues immediately, even though Carlton has nothing left to play for and Hawthorn is in the thick of the hunt for a historic three-peat. Wouldn't he be better served staying with the team who needs (and was PAYING for) his services NOW, rather than the one who'll be in the same place in a month? Again, here's a subject we'll be addressing in the near future, in all sports.

4. Finally, a great story: Daniel Menzel, a 24-year old Geelong player who's suffered through FOUR knee reconstructions since he last played in the big leagues four years ago, was the Cats highlight in the Friday night game, scoring four goals, taking some incredible marks (high flying catches), and generally showing why the team was so patient with him. How wonderful to see THAT kind of hard work pay off like that!

UPS and DOWNS for AUGUST WEEK 4!

Things are looking UP if you're a fan of young quarterbacks!

This weekend saw some very positive performances from the two start 2015 draft picks, Marcus Mariota in Tennessee and Jamies Winston in Tampa Bay! Both started for their teams, both have had glowing reports for their performances and behavior in camp (when was the last negative Winston story you've heard?), and this weekend they each demonstrated their command of the new offenses they've been hired to run. Remember, these two teams were 2-14 last year, and there are STILL a ton of problems, but they look to have the possibility of strong leadership in the pocket for a while to come. (The caveat of the dangers of injury for a scampering quarterback come into play, Right, RG3?) More exciting for us was the strong performances of Johnny Manziel in Cleveland, who looks to actually be challenging for a starting position, as does EJ Manuel in Buffalo, although in his case it's to regain it. MOST exciting, if you really think about it, is the play of Teddy Bridgewater in Minnesota. He went 10-14 this weekend with a TD, and his leadership of that young Viking team is remarkable. Between him and the young coach Mike Zimmer, there are some truly amazing possibilities for a team that suddenly can combine a competent defense and a good passing game with the god-like running abilities of excoriated running back Adrian Peterson, back from suspension for child abuse. (Understand. please: I'm a teacher. I have five children myself. You do not whomp a child the way Mr. Peterson did. Having said that, he has served his punishment. Welcome him back, and let the man do the job he was trained to make a living at.)

Things are looking DOWN if you're a fan of COLLINGWOOD or ESSENDON.

There are so many good stories in the AFL - the one-two western punch of Freo and West Coast; the ascendance of the young GWS and St. Kilda clubs, the strength and stability of the traditionally erratic Richmond and North Melbourne teams, the possibility of a three-peat from the amazingly talented Hawthorn Hawks, and most excitingly, the run-and-gun style of play that's made the Western Bulldogs one of the scariest teams in the league.

But there are downsides, too, and they are mostly based in Melbourne. The Carlton Football club looks destined to have the first draft choice, so pathetic was their season. But they looked like they'd be down the ladder to begin with (Following Football had them forecast for three wins in February, and we're two weeks from being proven right). Melbourne was at the bottom of the ladder for the last several years, save for the newbie teams, and for them five wins is progress.

Collingwood and Essendon, however, should have been playing finals football this year, instead of losing games by one hundred points as a regular occurrence. For Essendon, the causes are straightforward: the drug scandal of 2012-13, where the medical staff injected players with steroids and other WADA-banned substances without the players' consent, continues to haunt the team. 34 players still do not know with certainty if they might face punitive action down the road, even if they had no part in the illegal actions for which the entire Essendon hierarchy has now lost their jobs. The other cause, frankly, is the now-fired (excuse me: "retired") head coach, James Hird, an Essendon legend as a player, who may or may not have been part of the drug plans but certainly threw gasoline on the fire over the last two years with his bizarre and inexplicable actions both on and off the field. The list of problems under his watch are far too numerous to list here, but the combination of apathy, hypocrisy, and arrogance made him a sadly comical figure by the time the end mercifully arrived Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, the Bombers played with more emotion this weekend, losing by just two points to an under manned Gold Coast team that they should've run into the ground, but who under Hird they probably would've lost to in the second quarter.

As for Collingwood, their problems are only beginning. 8-3 at the midpoint for the second season in a row, they hit a rough stretch of the season where they had to play Fremantle, Hawthorn, Port, and West Coast in a row. Not all that surprisingly, they lost all four, but were competitive in all of them...until the end of the Eagles game. Then came a game against Western, and despite being favored, they let the Bulldogs beat them. Finally, they got a break (at 8-8 and no longer in the top 8) and get to play lowly Melbourne...and lost to them by 37 points. Now it's hit the fan. They somehow manage to beat bottomfeeder Carlton, by just 18, and then give top four Sydney a run before losing 87-76 in Sydney. Great, we're back on track... until this weekend, when Richmond not only beats them, but utterly obliterates them, 147-56, and the Magpies looked like they didn't want to play. At all. Geelong is probably licking their chops right now, waiting for the Pies to show up in uniform only this weekend, uninterested in competing against the Cats. 

Both teams should lose this weekend, and then a fascinating game awaits for the last match of the season, on a Sunday afternoon on September 6th: Collingwood v Essendon, with absolutely nothing on the line - probably five or six wins apiece at that moment, so far out of finals that the game was relegated to that last time slot while all the teams who'll still be playing next week are home resting by then.

The Weekend In Haiku

This feature WON'T be
As regular as the rest,
But, ONCE in a while...

Michael Sam retired.
Well, "stepped away from the game,"
But, two plus two is...

Pre-season football
Doesn't have the appeal, but...
Better than nothing!

Up twelve to nothing,
Alouettes' offense did SQUAT:
Edmonton by three.

Magpies SHOULD'VE won,
But Sydney KNOWS how to win.
Swans finish up nine.

Hamilton Ti-Cats
an-NI-hi-late the Lions:
Three complete phases.

Great night of footy!
Stayed up all night listening:
Then slept in past ten...

Hawthorn smashed Geelong;
Essendon has given up;
and Carlton's now last.

Not a haiku, but an amazing statistic... Friday was the start of the German Bundesliga (major league futbol, one of the European Champions leagues), and the odds of winning the league title for favorite Bayern Munich was 1-12, which means they are SO certain of winning that betting a "dollar" (sorry, I'm American) would only earn you a twelfth of a dollar in winnings (1.08), or that if you bet twelve euros, you'd only get thirteen back if they win. By contrast, every American NFL, NBA, or MLB team had odds of at least 2.5 to 1, so you'd win at least $2.50 plus your original dollar at the very worst.

Would love to say that
The N-F-L inspires me...
But not pre-season.

Okay, now all the votes are in...

...from The Age, Sports Fan Australia, Following Football, and AFL.com.au, and here's your All-AFL 2015 team at mid-season:

Behind the 50:
Alex Rance (Rich) - the outstanding on-ball defender in the game today.
Sam Mitchell (Haw)
Michael Hurley (Ess)
Jarred McVeigh (Syd)
Tom McDonald (Mel)
Matt Boyd (Western)

Between the 50s: 
Nat Fyfe (Fre) - Polled 6+ points voting EVERY round Freo's played (no one else has polled in more than 10 of their games)
Matt Priddis (WCE)
David Armitage (StK)
Todd Goldstein (NMK)
Dan Hannebury (Syd)
Dylan Shiel (GWS)

Forward of 50:
Lance Franklin (Syd) - it's rare that the highest paid player's also the best, but Buddy is...
Scott Pendelbury (Col)
Luke Parker (Syd)
Jamie Elliot (Col)
Josh Kennedy (WCE)
Eddie Betts (Ade)

Interchange:
Aaron Sandilands (Fre) - the premier ruckman in the game today. 
Andrew Gaff (WCE)
Corey Enright (Geel)
Patrick Dangerfield (Ade)

And, on my personal wish list to watch play any day of the week:
Cyril Rioli (Haw) - Along with Betts, the most exciting player in the game!
Jeremy Cameron (GWS) - the top goal scorer of 2017 and beyond...
Adam Goodes (Syd) - enjoying a fantastic resurgence since May!
Nic Natainui (WCE) - the most athletic player in footy
Rob Murphy (WB) - always on the ball, literally
Marcus Bontempelli (WB) - 2019 Brownlow medalist
Chad Wingard (PA) - a down year for him and Port; still a phenomenal player
Jack Riewoldt (Rich) - Jack would have been player 23 on the All-Aussie list
Jesse Hogan (Melb) - rookie of the year, possibly
Gary Ablett, Jr. (GC) - it took just one game to remind us why he's the greatest player of his generation and the Brownlow favorite any year he's healthy (and some he's not, like 2014!).

(And, by the way, here are our top 22 point getters in voting for Player of the Year so far:)
NAME                           TEAM               POINTS

Fyfe, Nat	F	221
Hannebury, Dan	SY	124
Armitage, David	SK	112
Pendlebury, Scott	CO	106
Cotchin, Trent	R	101
Shiel, Dylan	GW	100
Mitchell, Sam	H	92
Priddis, Matt	WC	91
Goldstein, Todd	NM	88
Steven, Jack	SK	83
Gray, Robbie	PA	81
Murphy, Marc	CA	80
Beams, Dayne	B	80
Franklin, Lance	SY	79
Kennedy, Josh	SY	75
Martin, Dustin	R	74
Dangerfield, Patrick	A	73
Gaff, Andrew	WC	73
Hurley, Michael	E	70
Parker, Luke	SY	70
Murphy, Robert	WB	69
Neale, Lachie	F	68

 

AFL Round 14 in review

The biggest rout of the year took place on Sunday afternoon (which was Saturday night here in the US), when St Kilda upset free-falling Essendon by the astronomical score of 162-52, a 110-point victory!

Throughout the game, the Saints played against a defense that resembled cones in a practice drill (or "witches' hats", if you prefer the down under term). To score 25 goals in a game is hard to do in a game of footy, but the lack of energy in the Bomber personnel was, to be kind, disheartening.

The commemoration of murdered Adelaide head coach Phil Walsh, begun Friday night at the Collingwood/Hawthorn game, continued at every game throughout the weekend - a stirring tribute to a fellow "lifer" from the footy community. The idea that teams can go tooth-and-nail for two hours and then come together and live out the Adelaide 2015 campaign motto, #weflyasone, was superb. We posted Rohan Connelly's plea to continue the camaraderie beyond this weekend, and we join him in those pleas.

As for the actual games that were played this weekend... 

Sydney over Port Adelaide by 10; Hawthorn by 10 over Collingwood; Richmond struggled past a toughened GWS with a nine-point win, and Western had the same difficulty with Carlton before they managed an eleven-point victory. Gold Coast welcomed both David Swallow and dual-Brownlow winner Gary Ablett Jr. back Saturday, and apparently that was all they needed, as they annihilated the North Melbourne Kangaroos 125-70 (and it wasn't that close). We talked about St Kilda's 110-point whipping of Essendon, but the West Coast Eagles beat up on Melbourne as well, winning 114-60. Brisbane held up against league-leader Fremantle for three quarters, tied throughout in wet, messy conditions that made it a tackler's paradise (more tackles were made in this game than every game ever except one (a game (there was a Richmond/Port game in 2010 with an unimaginable 258 tackles, or one every 25 seconds or so. Ridiculous.) Unfortunately, there are four quarters, and Freo scored seven goals to one in the last to win, 84-48.  

The Adelaide / Geelong game was cancelled, but the stadium was opened for fans to come onto the field and pay their respects, kick the football around parts of the field, and share their grief with other mourners. Adelaide is presumed to be back to work next week, with a game at West Coast on Saturday evening.

The stabbing death of Coach Phil Walsh

At 2 a.m. Friday, Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh, 55, was stabbed to death by his 26-year old son, Cy Jacob Walsh, in a domestic dispute that also injured Mrs. Walsh with non-threatening injuries.

The entire footy world has united in grief over the loss of AFL lifer Walsh, who also spent time coaching in Port Adelaide and West Coast, as well as playing in Brisbane, Collingwood, and Richmond.

His Crows team were scheduled to play Geelong this weekend at home in the Adelaide Oval; the game was cancelled but the remainder of the weekend's slate of games will go on as scheduled. Friday night, in a classic matchup between heavyweights Hawthorn and Collingwood (which the premiers won 101-91 in a tight competitive game), the two teams came together after the game in an unscheduled moment of prayer which saw the two teams interspersed between each other - Hawthorn, Collingwood, Hawthorn, Collingwood,... - in a beautiful moment of salute.

Of course, tributes from players and the entire AFL community have poured out on Twitter and Instagram, but the best words came from detective commissioner Des Bray, investigating the murder: 

"For any family, regardless of who it is, is one of the worst things that you could imagine that could happen to you," he said.
"The only thing that is different with this is that he has a high profile. The pain and suffering of the family is no different."

Midseason eval of each footy team in the AFL

These two articles together (splitting the eighteen AFL teams into articles each looking at nine teams) will give veteran footy followers a keen sense of where their teams are lacking and where they're running with power, but it'll also help the novice AFL fan get a feel for what each team is right now and what they're capable of.

Adelaide-Brisbane-Carlton-Collingwood-Essendon-Fremantle-Geelong-Gold Coast-GWS

Hawthorn-Melbourne-North-Port Adelaide-Richmond-St.Kilda-Sydney-West Coast-Western

And by the way, if you're still looking to get a handle on who each of these teams really is, here's a link to a great set of descriptions, one for each Australian club, matching them to an American sports team which they most closely resemble. (For example, Fremantle, who won last night 80-73 in a thrilling game, most closely resembles hockey's New Jersey Devils, while their opponent Collingwood fills the niche of baseball's royalty, the New York Yankees.)

Australian update...

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.)

The longest career in coaching is over!

Mick Malthouse, three time premiership coach at West Coast (1992, 1994) and Collingwood (2010), has finally had his time at Carlton come to an unceremonious ending, fired today after bringing the issue to a head himself the previous morning.

Malthouse coached 718 games in the AFL, passing "Jock" McHale earlier this season. But with Carlton mired at the bottom of the ladder with minimal talent, and the hopelessness and in-fighting between coach and board and media reducing the players to a shell of their former selves (effort was marginal the last few weeks, with tackle counts unbelievably in the 30s the last two games), a change had to be made. Originally, it was "we'll evaluate at the end of the season", but as things got worse it became, "well, we'll look at it during the bye week in Round 11", to which Malthouse angrily asked, "What are you going to learn about me in the next two weeks you don't already know?" Essentially, once Malthouse understood the writing was on the wall, he engineered his own early firing so as to let everyone "get on with it" (in my opinion). 

Now, the situation is more clear cut, if still dire for the Carlton Blues...
- The press conference and firing by the Carlton board.
- Mick Malthouse's statement - my coaching career is over.
- Where do they go from here? Who do they get to coach? (The back-line coach takes over interim duties immediately, btw.)
- How did it get THIS bad in the first place?

Week 8 down under...

Results of Round 8...
Geelong def. Carlton 140-63
West Coast def. St. Kilda 131-78
GWS def. Adelaide 108-84
Collingwood def. Gold Coast 132-63
Sydney def. Hawthorn 73-69
Fremantle def. No. Melbourne 115-42
Essendon def. Brisbane 136-78
Melbourne def. Western 103-64
Richmond def. Port Adelaide 76-43 

The AFL ladder right now...
Fremantle is still two games clear, and with Sydney's revenge win over the Hawks (possibly the game of the year so far!), Freo has four games clear of Hawthorn with 14 to go! 

Two games back at 6-2 are Sydney and two surprises: West Coast (who will find out in the next four weeks if they're real or not, playing three finalists) and Greater Western, who won three in a row for the first time ever. To put the Giants' success in perspective: the best season in GWS' history, 2014, was 6-16. They're already 6-2 this season.

At 5-3 comes two teams who (while firmly in the top 8 right now) have questionable credentials given the quality of teams they've beaten: Collingwood and Adelaide. Right behind them are six teams fighting for the last finals spots - Hawthorn (very likely), Richmond (see Collingwood), Essendon (who knows?), Geelong (looking more and more probable), Western (depends which game you watch!), and North Melbourne (who may be as talented as anybody, but...). If you give the top four credit for likely making the playoffs, the next four most likely to last the season might be Adelaide, Hawthorn, Geelong, and maybe Western. But it's a long season...

...and Port Adelaide is still lurking there at 3-5, if they can return to earlier form. Their partner at 3-5 is Melbourne, but those were three upsets. Below them are St. Kilda and Brisbane, with two upsets in eight attempts, and 1-7 disasters Gold Coast and Carlton.

In the FF Rating system,
Hawthorn still leads with an 85.3 rating (it doesn't hurt that they lose by four and win by a hundred), but Fremantle has crept within a few points to 81.8 (a jump of thirteen points since round 1). Right behind them are Sydney (no surprise, 76.5) and West Coast (yes surprise, 74.1).

Then there's a huge clump sitting in spots #5-13, all close to the average score of 50: Geelong (58.3), Adelaide (56.5), Port Adelaide (55.0, despite recent losses), North Melbourne (54.3), Collingwood (53.6), Richmond (53.1), Essendon and GWS (51.7), and if we stretch the definition, Western (40.6, but until their last two big losses they were also around 50). You see why it should be hard to predict these games!

Below that, you have Melbourne (29.8), Gold Coast (who's dropped all the way to 23.3), Brisbane (21.6), St. Kilda (actually increased to 16.0) and lowly Carlton, who's lost 23 points this year and sits at a 14.3 rating. (Gold Coast has also dropped 23 points, and Port has lost 17. On the other side, GWS is up 20, Collingwood up 17, West Coast 15 and Fremantle 13 since March!)

Bipolar Footy Weekend: Saturday was as predicted, but SUNDAY?

Great game on Friday night, for once, as North Melbourne defeated Essendon 93-82 in an exciting game that flip-flopped several times. But Saturday...yawn...five games that all played to form, and the closest one was 43 points in the end:
- Adelaide over St. Kilda 119-73 (although the Saints started with a three-goal lead!)
- Hawthorn over Melbourne 155-50, and it wasn't that close.
- Sydney pulled away from Geelong 120-77 after a close first three quarters.
- GWS proved its credentials by annihilating poor Carlton 135-57, following their "famous victory" over the Hawks last week.
- And poor Gold Coast fielded whoever they could in a 135-43 rout by the West Coast Eagles that was well over 100 points shortly after three quarters, before they called off the slaughter.

So, expectations for Sunday were NOT high. And then...
- The Western Bulldogs (having fought to use Etihad Stadium this week, rather than give it up to a soccer tourney) fought back from 32-0 to tie the game at 88 with less than 4 minutes to go, only to see 7-0 Fremantle win by 13 (101-88) in the end. What a incredible game from both teams!
-As the legendary Rex Hunt (my favorite footy voice of all time!) broadcast his 2000th game of AFL/VFL footy (and the stories he can share!...), his ole team Richmond upset Collingwood 105-100 in a game that had 12 lead changes!
-And finally, amazingly rising from the dead, the Brisbane Lions pulled away from the much more talented Port Adelaide Power and won 102-65!

So, the ladder as it sits right now...
1. Fremantle. 7-0 and unbeaten - but happy to have been challenged this week! Still two games clear of all competition and rolling on all cylinders.

2-5. West Coast, Sydney, Adelaide and GWS, all 5-2. All four look like realistic finalists, although I'd take Freo over any of them at the MCG or anywhere else right now.

6-9. Hawthorn, Collingwood, Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne, all 4-3. No reason any of the four couldn't be finalists, but certainly not all nine teams will make finals. Oddly, the difference between 8th and 9th places right now - between Western and North - is exactly ONE point in the percentage: Western has exactly as many points scored as allowed (616/616, or 100.0%), while the Kangaroos have one less point than scored (656/657, or 99.9%).

10-13. Richmond, Essendon, Port Adelaide and Geelong, all at a desperate 3-4 and trying to stay close to finals contention. With fifteen games (2/3 of the season) still to go, there's still plenty of time to make the top eight - after all, Richmond made it from a 3-10 start last year - but the teams ahead of them are going to make it difficult!

14-16. St. Kilda, Melbourne, and Brisbane, all happy to be 2-5 because most folks have them pegged for the bottom of the ladder and maybe not having won any games by now!

17-18. Gold Coast and Carlton, 1-6, desperate for anything positive to happen this season. GC literally had too few players to practice last week, and Carlton "simply doesn't have the talent" to keep up with the rest of the league this year. Gold Coast in particular is a huge disappointment, having expected to make finals this year.

First, two quick notes from the AFL Friday night game...

Friday night in Australia is early morning here in the States, so the Friday Footy package comes on at 4 a.m. here in Idaho...it's not that we're psychic and can predict the outcomes a day in advance! Needless to say, though, we had predicted Collingwood to move to 5-1, but instead it's Geelong defeating the Crows 100-59 with a blitzkrieg of a first half: five goals in the first ten minutes to lead 30-1, leading 70 to 10 just before halftime. Collingwood crept back into the match in the second half, closing within 23 before three goals in two minutes for the Cats put the game out of reach.

Two points of note: One is in this article the game score is linked to, and that's the curious and inexplicable fact that since round 14 of last year (a span of fifteen straight games), whatever team played Carlton has LOST their game the next week. Collingwood won by 75 over the Blues last week and were five point favorites last night...but the Blues jinx got them! In fact, looking at the schedule, it seems very likely to continue for another few games, at least until round 10, when Sydney follows up a game against Carlton with a visit to the Gold Coast, where they'll undoubtedly be massive favorites against the currently 1-4 Suns...

The second note is one of the best examples of coachspeak you'll ever hear, in the main article on afl.com.au. After the game, Collingwood head coach Nathan Buckley was asked about the game - the game, you understand, where his team had a five goal deficit before the fans had sat down from the concession stand, and where they scored one goal to eleven for Geelong with a few minutes to go in the half...

"At the 10-minute mark of the game we're five goals down, so that's not the way that we wanted to begin," Buckley said.
"We spoke about starting well but we didn't get there. All credit to the Cats..."  
SO, coach..."That's not the way you wanted to begin"? Down five goals right away? No, we wouldn't THINK so... "We spoke about starting well but we didn't get there"... No? Down 70-10 isn't starting well? Huh... Glad you told us! Never would have guessed it.

(To his infinite credit, however, as almost every AFL coach and player does, he owned up to the failures of the team, and undoubtedly began addressing the issues immediately. After all, what else are you going to say after a defeat like that? So, did we win? No? Well, we're planning to appeal...)

AFL Week 6 predictions

The best game of the weekend may be the first game for once - the Friday night clash between two surprise teams in the MCG. Collingwood is a surprising 4-1, losing only to a blazing Adelaide team in round 2, and meanwhile Geelong started the year 0-3, winning against a terrible Gold Coast team and a slumping Richmond team the last two weeks. Yet for some reason the Cats were originally the betting favorites until the smart money took over and agreed with me that Collingwood should win the game with ease.

Saturday sees six games, a huge fixture for one day in the AFL:
Richmond @ North Melbourne (should be a North victory)...
St. Kilda @ Western (the first game the Bulldogs will be favored in!)...
Hawthorn @ GWS (the Giants are good, but not THIS good yet!)...
Adelaide @ Gold Coast (the Crows need this win, and should get it)...
Sydney @ Melbourne (Swans have lost two in a row; they won't lose this one)...
and Essendon @ Fremantle (the Dons are good, but not "go into Fremantle and win" good).

Finally, on Sunday, we round out the slate with two interesting games: Brisbane @ Carlton, at the bottom of the ladder (Carlton's had more pressure on them, oddly, because Brisbane was always going to be a work in progress - go with the Blues to win at home); and West Coast @ Port Adelaide, which has a pair of middle of the pack teams who might each be SO much more than that! Port's much closer to reaching its potential, however, and that's going to push them to the victory over the Eagles.

AFL's Week 3 results...

Collingwood 140, St. Kilda 66... The Saints started strong, but they just don't have the horses to keep up with almost anyone in the AFL.

Essendon 105, Carlton 84...Similarly, Carlton's fourth quarter was good but they don't have the players to stay up to speed with even a low-finals club like the Dons.

Adelaide 80, Melbourne 55...Similarly, the Demons are improving and were able to stay with the 3-0 Crows for most of the game, but after four quarters Adelaide was going to outrun Melbourne.

Sydney 111, Greater Western Sydney 90...and the Giants are in the same boat, able to stay with the Swans for three quarters but not four.

Port Adelaide 113, North Melbourne 105...This was the one competitive game of the round (which went completely to form) - two very good teams in a very close and well-played game, which the home team Power won by about a goal.

Richmond 137, Brisbane 58...Another game between a team fighting for finals and one that certainly won't be.

Hawthorn 127, Western Bulldogs 57...See previous comments. Western is improving quickly, but they're not ready to beat the two-time defenders.

Geelong 105, Gold Coast 96...Two teams starting the game 0-2, both with severe problems that the other exploited at different times in the game. Geelong's too slow for most teams, and in the 2nd and 4th quarters the Suns ran past them, but Gold Coast has major defensive woes, which the Cats exploited in spades the rest of the game.

Fremantle 111, West Coast 81...The score is far too close for the actual game. At one point, the Dockers led 69 to 4! The Eagles scored nine of the last ten goals in the Western Derby to make the score look vaguely respectable, but there's no comparison between the two teams right now.

Records after round three...
3-0: Adelaide, Fremantle, Sydney
2-1: Hawthorn, Richmond, Essendon, Collingwood, GWS, Western
1-2: West Coast, Geelong, Port Adelaide, No. Melbourne, St. Kilda
0-3: Gold Coast, Carlton, Brisbane.

..and AFL Week Two In Preview!

...and here are the match-ups for Week Two!

Fri) Carlton at West Coast 
    West Coast is a 12.5 point favorite, and 20+ by the ratings, but with the injuries it's hard to picture the Eagles beating many teams besides the Carlton Blues, who will be sinking towards the basement.

Sat) Western Bulldogs at Richmond
   Richmond should be able to win this one as easily as last week's game over Carlton, but it still doesn't mean an 18-23 win (the betting line) would imply the Tigers are top 8 material.

Melbourne at Greater Western Sydney
   Given where the two teams were last August, the spread of 11-15 points in GWS' favor is reasonable...given how the Demons played last week, though, a Melbourne victory is possible!

Adelaide at Collingwood 
   On the other hand, the 11.5 point spread flatters Collingwood immensely - Adelaide is a 27 point rating favorite, which is more likely.

Sydney at Port Adelaide
   This should be a GREAT game! Port is a five point favorite due to home pitch advantage only, and each team had a challenge to get warmed up last week!

St. Kilda at Gold Coast
   On paper, the GC Suns should be easy winners here...but then, they should have been easy winners LAST week, when Melbourne dominated them for four quarters and won by 26. Here, the Suns are 30-37 point favorites.

Sun) Fremantle at Geelong
   Until very recently, this would be a no-brainer for Geelong - they've won 27 of the last 29 at home. But while the oddsmakers still have them as a 2.5 point favorite, we're taking and rating the Dockers as a six point fave.

Hawthorn at Essendon
    Good luck, Essendon. The Dons ran out of gas last week, failing to score in the fourth quarter while Sydney scored nine goals for the victory. Hawthorn won't let them get out in front in the first place Sunday. The spread is 27-36 points.

Brisbane at North Melbourne
   Here's an example of past performance outweighing last week's debacle at Adelaide: the Kangaroos, who were AWOL last week but one game short of the Grand Final last September, are 32 point favorites against a Brisbane Lions team which has looked much better in 2015. We like the Lions to beat the spread.

AFL Week One In Review...

Welcome! Here are the game results from last weekend's Australian Football League games - Week One of the AFL "home-and-away" season:

Richmond 105, Carlton 78 (Season opener in the MCG!)
Melbourne 115, Gold Coast 89 (a big upset but a deserved win!)
Sydney 72, Essendon 60 (in a heavy downpour - Essendon was up 41 in the third)
Collingwood 86, Brisbane 74
Western Bulldogs 97, West Coast Eagles 87 (another upset, but the Eagles' injuries are going to knock 'em down several pegs this season)
GWS 87, St. Kilda 78  (but the Saints played well!)
Adelaide Crows 140, N. Melbourne 63 (the surprise of the round - not that the Crows won, but that they ANNIHILATED the Kangaroos, who never really showed up)
Fremantle 75, Port Adelaide 68 (the GAME of the round - both teams were superb)
Hawthorn 123, Geelong 61 (the showcase of the round: the Hawks are set for a three-peat!)

Here are the records, ladder positions, and ratings following Round One:

Hawthorn Hawks (1-0) #2	87.1
Sydney Swans (1-0) #5	74.5
Port Adelaide Power (0-1) #10	72.1
Adelaide Crows (1-0) #1	70.7
Fremantle Dockers (1-0) #9	69.5
Geelong Cats (0-1) #17	57.9
N Melbourne Kangas (0-1) #18	55.6
West Coast Eagles (0-1) #12	55.6
Richmond Tigers (1-0) #3	55.1
Essendon Bombers (0-1) #13	52.5
Gold Coast Suns (0-1) #15	42.2
Collingwood Magpies (1-0) #6	37.3
Carlton Blues (0-1) #16	36.4
Western Bulldogs (1-0) #7	35.2
GWS Giants (1-0) #8	31.0
Brisbane Lions (0-1) #14	29.9
Melbourne Demons (1-0) #4	26.0
St. Kilda Saints (0-1) #11	11.4

Tonight's the Night! (Gonna be aw-right!)

Here we go! The 2015 Australian Football League kicks off in less than five hours with Carlton v Richmond, two of the oldest teams and a traditional season opener (albeit not always on a Thursday night, which it already is Down Under!). Go to afl.com.au for all your news, scores, video highlights, and whatever else you want on all things footy! 

Here's the round-up of games for Round 1 of the twenty-two game season...

Carlton v Richmond (Richmond favored by 16.5 on line, 12 by our rating system), Thurs Apr 2

Gold Coast @ Melbourne (GC Suns favored big on all fronts), Sat Apr 4
Essendon @ Sydney (Sydney favored by 30-ish over the Bombers), Sat Apr 4
Collingwood @ Brisbane (despite recent records, Brisbane is rightfully favored by a few points here!), Sat Apr 4
West Coast @ Western (in Melbourne, which tells you how old "Western" is! - pundits are split here. West Coast should be better, but have some injuries...), Sat Apr 4

GWS @ St. Kilda (if ever GWS will be favorites on the road, this is it, by about 15), Sun Apr 5
Kangaroos @ Adelaide (great game, potentially. We like North Melbourne to finish higher, but the Adelaide Crows to win here by a goal), Sun Apr 5
Port Adelaide @ Fremantle (met thrice last year, all classic games! Flip a coin, but Freo is favored by 4-5), Sun Apr 5

Geelong @ Hawthorn (the best matchup there is, because of the six-year long "Kennett Curse" that was broken in the prelim finals in 2013 - now, it's safe to pick Hawthorn by 20+!), Mon Apr 6

We'll update on Mondays, both standings and rating systems, but again, follow for yourself on afl.com.au!

So, following the 'NAB Preseason', here are our 2015 AFL predictions!

As the last nine games of the pre-season conclude this weekend with some of the traditional crosstown rivalries, we've done a simulation of the upcoming season from what we've seen so far. Here are the results, with checkpoints throughout the projected 2015 season:

After April (4 games in) -

4-0) ADELAIDE
3-1) HAWTHORN, NORTH, PORT, RICHMOND, GWS, BRISBANE
2-2) SYDNEY, GEELONG, GOLD COAST, ESSENDON, FREMANTLE
1-3) WEST COAST, COLLINGWOOD, CARLTON, WESTERN
0-4) MELBOURNE, ST KILDA

Odd to see the Crows alone on top, but they've got an easy April to start the season.

Halfway through (after round 10, right before the byes) -

9-1) HAWTHORN, PORT ADELAIDE
7-2-1) ADELAIDE
7-3) SYDNEY,  NORTH MELBOURNE
6-4) GOLD COAST, FREMANTLE, RICHMOND
5-4-1) GWS
5-5) ESSENDON, GEELONG
4-6) WESTERN, BRISBANE
3-7) WEST COAST
2-8) COLLINGWOOD, CARLTON, MELBOURNE
0-10) ST KILDA

Now the cream will start to rise...Port and the Hawks occupy the top two spots, and six of last year's top eight are there again, joined by the Crows and Suns. Note Geelong 5-5, West Coast at 3-7, the Magpies with just 2 wins, and the Saints on a ten game losing streak.

After sixteen rounds, with just seven games to go...

14-1) HAWTHORN
12-3) PORT, NORTH
11-4) SYDNEY
10-4-1) ADELAIDE
9-6) FREMANTLE, RICHMOND, GOLD COAST
So, the top eight are unchanged from the last list...and a gap to...
7-7-1) GWS
7-8) GEELONG, ESSENDON, WESTERN
5-10) WEST COAST
4-11) BRISBANE, COLLINGWOOD
3-12) CARLTON, MELBOURNE
2-13) ST KILDA

And finally, our forecast for the final records for the 2015 season:
1. Hawthorn Hawks (19-3)
2. Sydney Swans (18-4)
3. North Melbourne Kangaroos (18-4)
4. Port Adelaide Power (15-7)
5. Fremantle Dockers (15-7)
6. Adelaide Crows (14-7-1)
7. Geelong Cats (13-9)
8/9. Richmond/Gold Coast (12-10)!!!
10. Essendon Bombers (11-11)
11. GWS Giants (10-11-1)
12. Western Bulldogs (9-12-1)
13. West Coast Eagles (8-14)
14. Collingwood Magpies (7-15)
15. Brisbane Lions (6-15-1)
16. Melbourne Demons (5-17)
17. Carlton Blues (3-19)
18. St. Kilda Saints (2-20)

Reviewing these, a few points...the top two are unchanged from last year, and we expect a repeat of last year's Grand Final participants...Port will fade, Freo will charge, but the percentage will keep the Power in the top four for the double chance during finals...Geelong and Sydney will both end the season well, our prediction suggesting that the Cats will end on a 7 of 8 run, and the Swans will win their last ten... We see Richmond and Gold Coast as a flat footed tie, which means ,argins of victory (and defeat!) will be critical all year for them!... Hard to fault the Dons if they don't make finals after the distractions...GWS should make another four win jump, and don't be shocked if it's more... Continuing to fall, West Coast and Collingwood and Carlton and St. Kilda, while Melbourne and Brisbane and Western will improve. Again, we see another Hawthorn/Sydney GF, and just as we won't stick our neck out for 8th, we also won't for first! Right now, we'd take the defenders...

Starting with some Aussie Footy first...

There was another weekend of warm-up games down under, and the big news was the suspension and possible ending of the career of Fremantle star Ryan Crowley, who copped to using a banned substance in a pain-killer last September. The article has some interesting things to say about how and why narcotic and codeine based pain killers work the way they do, and the reasons for banning them when (unlike PEDs) they don't strictly speaking improve performance. Definitely worth a read, whether you follow the Australian brand of football or not.

As for the games themselves, both Essendon and Port Adelaide put out teams that were barely shells of their actual rosters - Essendon because of the 2012 supplement scandal we've addressed many times, and Port for less excusable reasons (in my humble opinion), resulting in games won very easily by GWS and Richmond, respectively. Carlton had a good win against Collingwood, and the game between Melbourne Demons and the Western Bulldogs was interesting, as the Dees went out to a huge lead (60-8!) just after halftime and hardly scored again, as the Doggies came back to close the gap to just seven by the final horn. Sydney and Fremantle played what was designated as the Pride Game, ostensibly recognizing sexual orientation choice but somehow never coming out and saying as much... nevertheless, it was disappointing for the stars it didn't include in the pre-season outing. (Sorry - "outing" is a bad choice of words for a gay pride game.) The best game of the weekend was probably Thursday night between Geelong and Adelaide, as both teams put their best players out on the field for a good game won by the Cats of Geelong, a town north of Melbourne with a long footy history. Both teams are favorites to make the final 8 this year.