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...). 

Six games in, and we're finished already...

Not literally finished, but seemingly. The Australian Footy season is barely one-quarter finished, and there's four months to go before finals, but I would wager something significant that the current top 8 will be there at the end as well, barring major injury issues debilitating one of the teams (Western is the most vulnerable at the moment, having already lost three key starters):

1. North Melbourne Kangaroos  (6-0, 125%), beating Western by two goals Friday night.
2. Geelong Cats (5-1, 174%), after a 120 thrashing of Gold Coast Saturday.
3. Sydney Swans (5-1, 144%), challenged this week by an up and coming Brisbane Lions team.
4. Western Bulldogs (4-2, 156%), losers to the Roos and by three to the three-time champs.
5. GWS Giants (4-2, 141%), who stamped their certificate with a 75-pt annihilation of Hawthorn!
6. West Coast Eagles (4-2, 130%), but they have to learn to beat someone in the top 8 to threaten.
7. Adelaide Crows (4-2, 122%), easy winners over pitiful Fremantle this week.
8. Hawthorn Hawks (4-2, 92%), whipped by the newbies this week but still the champ.

The next four teams are the bridesmaids, with potential but not the firepower yet to consistently challenge any of the teams above them. Sometimes they can win...but not often enough to make finals:

9. Melbourne Demons (3-3, 102%), erratic but growing in capability.
10. Gold Coast Suns (3-3, 95%), injury bitten AGAIN, third year in a row.
11. Port Adelaide Power (3-3, 90%), false hope - three wins against whipping boys.
12. St. Kilda Saints (2-4, 89%), erratic but improving quickly!

Finally, there's the bottom six - someone here may leap into the tier above this (Brisbane?), but they have NO shot at finals in 2016:

13. Collingwood Magpies (2-4, 79%), beating Essendon isn't a badge of honor, guys!
14. Carlton Blues (2-4, 74%), see previous comment.
15. Richmond Tigers (1-5, 75%), expected to be 5-1 after being in finals three years in a row...
16. Brisbane Lions (1-5, 71%), the most promising of the six; took Sydney within a goal last night.
17. Essendon Bombers (1-5, 62%), expected NOTHING this year, with half the team banished!
18. Fremantle Dockers (0-6, 69%), an unreal fall from grace for a team that WON the home-and-away season last year! They've already matched their loss total for all of 2015! At season's beginning, the game this coming weekend where GWS comes to Fremantle was about a 26 point Docker favorite; now, it's 26 points to GWS' favor. They've gotten here legitimately, too: they look like a last place team on the field.

Weekend Wapp-up Wezults...

Moral of the story... letting family come in the way of football hurts your prognostication prowess! (On the other hand, letting football come in the way of family is FAR WORSE CRIME.) We did well with the Aussies; no complaints on the CFL or NFL, although they could've been better; but our college predictions, so good last week, were well under five-hundred yesterday - while our Saturday was (more appropriately) spent with the oldest son off at college visiting (and stocking his pantry and gas tank!). Nevertheless: priorities, priorities...

CFL: Hard to complain when we go 1-3, partly because this season is NUTS in the CFL, partly because we still outscored many experts! However, we went 1-2-1 against the spread, getting a win from Hamilton (appropriate, as that's the son's name!) and a push from the Winnipeg/Saskatchewan game, while Ottawa and Edmonton pulled the mild upsets.

AFL: Hit three of the four out of the park - it will indeed be West Coast and Fremantle hosting the preliminary finals in west Australia in two weeks, and Adelaide did manage to beat the Western Bulldogs on the <ahem> "home" grounds of the MCG by seven points; our one miss was Richmond's loss at the hands of the well-rested North Melbourne Kangaroos, who were allowed to rest half their team last week in prep for this game. North plays at Sydney next Saturday, and Adelaide plays at Hawthorn on Friday; the winners return to west Australia the following weekend for the shot at the Grand Final.

NFL: Went 7-7 so far against the spread (NOTE to the uninitiated: the NFL is the HARDEST to make a living at betting on because of the parity of the league. Our model assumes only about a fourteen point gap from team 1 to team 32 on the best of days; certain conditions reduce that even further.) and 8-6 straight up, with two more games to go tomorrow night. Very impressed with Buffalo, Tennessee, and Cincy today!

NCAA: Well, let's see...
--> TOP TIER GAMES: Oddly, we were 3-0 against the spread but only 1-2 straight up. (Check the original post for the specific games and predictions - too many to list!) Oregon and Mississippi St covered, but only the Sooners came through for the win.

--> OTHER GAMES OF INTEREST: We went 12-4 straight up (with some more leaners that I should have been more explicit about claiming) but only 9-13 against the spread. (Particularly proud of picking in Houston's favor!)

-->BLOWOUTS: Of course all thirteen won (ahem - we're looking at YOU, Auburn! Very pleased for Jacksonville St!) but we only picked the right side of the spread explosion on five of the thirteen.

--> OTHER FBS: Actually, we did better on these than I thought we had... we went 15-11 against the spread, which we'll take; and we were 24-2 straight up (the two upsets being Bowling Green's rout of Big Ten's Maryland, 48-27 IN Maryland, and the worst of the SEC wounds, Arkansas' 16-12 loss to Toledo from the MAC, 16-12).  So, over all in the FBS choices, we went 32-32 against the spread - coin toss - and 50-8 straight up.

--> FCS GAMES: Here is where we fell on our faces... we may have managed 11-6 straight up (not as impressive as it sounds) but we were an abysmal 4-13 against the spread in the FCS only games. We plead ignorance, but we were the ones who picked which games to name, so that's no excuse. We did slightly better overall in the FCS games, and while our overall betting record this week was 61-14 straight up and just 36-45 against the spread; our record including games we didn't share ahead of time was three below 50% on points. (Can't claim it, though, unless we'd said it first.)

....OVERALL, then, here are our 2015 records so far:
AFL - 146 right and 55 wrong overall; 118-83 against the spread.
CFL - 27 right and 21 wrong overall.
NFL - 7 and 7 overall; 8 and 6 against the spread; two games still pending.
NCAA - 131 and 24 overall; 83 right against the spread and 72 wrong. 

THURSDAY THOUGHTS: Responsibility and Integrity of the Game

What is the responsibility of a team to put out its best players for a regular season game, even when it's not otherwise in their best interest to do so?

It seems to happen in a game or two every year, regardless of sport. End of season, one team with something to play for, the other not so much - either because they've got their playoff spot locked up, or they're just biding their time having already been eliminated. (You see it in the NBA mid-year sometimes, when a coach will rest older stars after a tough stretch of games.) Does the second team have an obligation to put a competitive team out there in such a game - either "for the paying customers" or, more usually, "for the integrity of the game"?

As the last round of the AFL season approaches this weekend, there are a couple of games in which this very question arises. Fremantle, having already locked up home field advantage, has no statistical reason to play its stars, and every motivation to rest them for next week's critical opening playoff game. As many as ten of its best players may sit out Saturday's game against ninth place Port Adelaide; fortunately, this game ended up having no bearing on playoff positions, as Port cannot break into the top eight under any circumstances. It did change the betting line from a fairly even game in Adelaide to the current line of almost fifty points in Port's favor, though. Oddly, where it's going to have an impact is in the WAFL, where Fremantle's "minor league feeder team", the Peel Thunder, plays. Peel is in its opening playoff round this weekend...but needs to supply up to ten players to the Dockers to fill out their roster against Port, leaving it undermanned in a playoff game. Business is business, but that seems terribly unfair to the team you've partnered with!

The more punitive scenario this week happens in Melbourne, where Friday's Richmond/North Melbourne match has been sullied (my words) by North's decision to rest up to ten of ITS players this weekend in anticipation of playing the Tigers again next week in an elimination final. By essentially conceding this game (and foregoing, by the way, the potential possibility of moving up as high as sixth if Western were to lose big, and therefore earning a home game themselves!), North has also prevented the Adelaide Crows from the possibility of passing Richmond and thus earning themselves a home game next week, a fact which has the Crows management understandably incensed. The Kangaroos' defense hinges on the fact that they've had two short weeks of preparation in a row (Sunday to Saturday, Saturday to Friday) and the players have been impacted by that: a defensible argument, admittedly. Broadcaster and retired superstar Wayne Carey sported a frightening thought on afl.com.au's "Pick A Winner" broadcast Thursday:

"The Kangaroos now can put in 8-10 players that are not going to play finals footy. They can go out and maim Richmond players," Carey said on AFL.com.au's Pick A Winner.

"They can go hard, they can be told by Brad Scott 'Go out there, hit this side as hard as you can, because it looks like we'll be playing them again next week'.

"I think the AFL really opened up a can of worms here and watch this space."

Carey said the Roos resting players was "a completely different situation" to minor premiers Fremantle sparing up to 11 regular players a final round trip to face Port Adelaide, because the Dockers-Power clash won't affect finals positions.

"Whereas I think this does manipulate where the Kangaroos and obviously the Tigers and Adelaide (finish), so it does have some bearing on the finals," Carey said.

"This rule has to change, because now the one game that had something riding on it all of a sudden has been manipulated by resting players."

(By the way, Carey was a North Melbourne player himself, so this isn't about bias...)

Another situation that happens along these lines is whether or not bottom of the ladder teams need to play their top line players at the end of the season when competing against sides that have "something to play for" or, as is generally accepted, run some youngsters through the mill after their own elimination from contention to see what the potential is for next year and beyond. Very few people question that use of a roster, and in fact if your first team isn't getting the job done, it's often the case that injecting that fresh blood into the lineup will improve the performance of the team anyway!

But what if you're in a system (like virtually every major professional sport is) where your draft order is determined by the reverse order of finish? Doesn't it behoove teams like Brisbane, Carlton, and Gold Coast in the AFL to lose as many games as they can to secure the highest draft position they can? In America, it's the NBA which has suffered under the strongest perception of this tanking prospect (I can think of 76 situations off the top of my head...). and it's what drove the league into the lottery system thirty years ago - a solution which hasn't solved the problem. To their credit, it's hard to make an argument that any of the three AFL teams named has overtly tanked this last month or so - they're just not very good, to be honest. But how do you draw the line?

It brings to mind the high school basketball tournament where both teams tried to lose a game at the same time to avoid playing the top seeded team...and if you click on the link, you'll see just how comical it got. Justifiably, both teams were suspended and removed from the tournament.

But it goes back to sportsmanship, and how you choose to answer the question, "What do we as a team owe the sport, owe the league, and owe our own integrity?"

It seems everyone has a different answer. Many people feel completely justified in the Al Davis / Oakland Raiders approach, "Just Win, Baby!"...which, ironically, doesn't always include the need to try to win; as long as you're doing what's in YOUR best interest, that's all that matters.

I disagree.

There's a risk any time you take the field, yes, but you cannot "turn it on and off" like a switch - ask the Manning Colts in those years when they ran up those 13-1 records and coasted the last couple of games...and proceeded to lose game one of the playoffs to a team who was still in competition mode. If you have legitimately injured players, by all means, rest them. But NEVER tell your players to give less than their best on the field - that's when injuries occur. If you're charging full price for your tickets, your fans deserve a full price game. (Which brings up the travesty of charging full price for pre-season tickets, but that's a subject you can already tell which side of the fence we'll fall on...)

In the end, morals and good sportsmanship MUST win out. If other teams are depending on you to play a fair and competitive game, you need to do so - despite legislative opinion to the contrary, pro sports leagues are ONE entity, working out of a dozen or three franchises, and anything one does that hurts the entirety of the league is a mistake. If that needs to be "legislated" by a commissioner or governing body, you shouldn't be running a sports team: you haven't learned the basics of "sports-man-ship" yet.

Youw Weekend Wesults!

Along the four fronts we call home here at Following Football ACNC, results for the weekend are all in, and they're still sparse enough for us to cover everything in one post...so here we go! 

Australian Footy: As we posted Friday morning, the final eight are set, with still one final home-and-away round to go next weekend. In fact, given the results of the Round 22 games, even the placements are pretty secure, at least for the top four (which, some would argue, are all that matter in the AFL).

Fremantle doubled up Melbourne, 108-54, clinching the top spot and the first "minor premiership" (regular season championship)in their twenty-something year history! They will host a game in Fremantle against the number 4 seed, almost certainly Sydney, who wiped out St. Kilda 135-38 Sunday and needs just a win against injury-riddled Gold Coast to secure the trip west.

Meanwhile, the West Coast Eagles, who had a chance to catch the Dockers, lost that chance and possibly their key defense back to a shoulder injury when Adelaide utterly obliterated them 51-1 in the first quarter, and won the game by 57 in cruise control. West Coast shouldn't have those problems against the above mentioned St. Kilda team, and would then host the #2/#3 game in Perth against the two-time premier defenders, the Hawthorn Hawks, who did beat the Eagles (in PERTH!) a few weeks back but who would finish third assuming WC takes care of business (and Hawthorn beats Carlton, whom our FF Ratings have them favored to beat by almost ninety points!) The winners of these two Qualifying Finals get the next weekend off and host the survivors of the semifinals, which the losers would then have to play against the winners of the other two games...

...which pit seeds eight at five and seven at six next weekend. The four teams are set, but not the order. Western earned a likely home game by beating the Kangaroos 96-73, and will only have to defeat last-place Brisbane to secure that spot. The other likely host is Richmond, 74-47 winners over beleaguered Essendon Saturday, who will host North Melbourne's Roos in what may very well be the first of a two-weekend double header if the Tigers hold serve at home as they're favored to do. Meanwhile, Western will probably host Adelaide, on a steamroll at the moment as described above (although they played recently and the Bulldogs did beat the Crows). 

In other, less meaningful games, GWS beat Carlton 130-51, Collingwood ended the meaning of Geelong's season as mentioned Friday, 110-62, and Port Adelaide continued to irritate Power supporters by showing how good they CAN be and whomping Gold Coast 88-51.

Canadian Football: Labor Day Monday is shaping up to be a doubleheader barnburner up north, as four teams are separating from the pack. Calgary beat Winnipeg on the road handily, 36-8, to go to a league-leading 7 and 2 record at the halfway mark of the season. (Winnipeg is 3-6.) Edmonton sits one game back in the west at 6-3, overpowering Toronto 38-15, knocking the Argos back to 6-3 as well. Finally, Hamilton fell to 6-3 as well, allowing Montreal to climb within one game of .500, upset by the Alouettes 26-23. Those four teams at 6-3 and above play each other on Sept 7 in clashes that will decide the leader of each division: Edmonton at Calgary, and Toronto at Hamilton. Who's the next best team, at 5-4? Why, it's the surprising Ottawa Redblacks, who sent poor Saskatchewan to its ninth straight loss today with a 35-13 walkthrough.

NCAA Football: Sure, it's "only" FCS, but the D1 season got off to a BANG of a start Saturday with the five-time defending champion North Dakota St Bison traveling to the hardest place to play in the FCS - Missoula - to play the #12 ranked Montana Grizzlies. The game was everything it should have been and more: legendary lower division coach Bob Stitt made his FCS debut at UM with his unique flying offense, and was rewarded with a last second touchdown to upset the Bison, 38-35. As Brent Musberger said on air, if that's what we have to look forward to in 2015, bring it on! Several D3 and NAIA games took place on the 27th as well, including one of local interest for us - the College of Idaho upset the #13 (NAIA) Southern Oregon visitors 40-21 to open their season: particularly exciting for a team in its second year of existence. In fact, this blog was born the same day the Yotes played their first game! So, congratulations, birthmates! Here's hoping we BOTH have that kind of success all season long!

NFL Football: Of course, everyone is zero-and-zero right now! The games this weekend weren't particularly newsworthy in a specific sense, but there were teams that looked better than others - Oakland impressed tonight (at least, their first teams did), and so did Buffalo's and Cleveland's. Tom Brady finallly one good drive, his last before the DeflateGate case is settled and any punishment is served. Michael Vick had a good outing with the Bills; Sam Bradford has looked good for the Eagles; Nick Foles for the Rams, and Alex Smith for the Chiefs. Later this week, maybe on Thursday or Friday, we'll put together our Opening Tiers for the pro and college FBS levels of American football - very broad categories, no more than three or four tiers in total, which will serve as our starting points for the Following Football predictions to come this season. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT POINT: we may have gone out on a limb and made some bold predictions as to the overall seasons the teams will have, but for GAME by GAME predictions? We will base our projections SOLELY on the work the teams are doing THIS YEAR, as much as possible, and the same goes for our "rankings". The FBS "rankings" will have something like a 32-way tie for first before we get underway, and THOSE only because there are certain things that are immutable from season to season. (Oklahoma will NOT be worse than Georgia State. I guarantee it.)

WEEKEND WESULTS - a day late!

Sometimes the first day of the school year slaps you in the face... and you don't get your Monday blog post out on time! (And sometimes you don't get it out on time and there's no good excuse at all!)

SO, here's your very-late-Monday recap of the weekend's action!

IN THE AFL this weekend, Friday night saw some unexpected clarity come to the top of the ladder when Hawthorn was upset by Port Adelaide 108-86, in Adelaide, in a game that's GOT to make the Power supporters wonder where THAT effort had been all season! Along with West Coast's fourth quarter annihilation of the gallant Western Bulldogs, which ended 162-85 but which was much closer until the last nine goals went the Eagles' way, the two top positions were solidified and Domain Stadium in Perth is going to get a LOT of use in September, hosting BOTH Fremantle and West Coast's games. The road to the first Saturday in October runs through Australia's southwest coast.

Of the other results, Fremantle's loss to the Kangaroos may be the most significant - combined with Adelaide's 131-44 rout of Brisbane, the final eight are fairly close to set. Sydney overran GWS 133-44 to re-take fourth spot, and with fairly easy games to finish the season should be able to maintain that lead over Western, Richmond (147-56 over pathetic Collingwood), and North Melbourne. Only Adelaide is still not quite secure, as a loss to West Coast next week could set up a winner take all game in the final round with Geelong, whose surprising draw with St. Kilda left them a game and a half out but in a position to climb past the Crows with two final wins.

To the Canadian Footballers, Toronto came back from the brink again to beat Ottawa 30-24; Calgary held off winless Saskatchewan 34-31; Montreal won over BC 23-13, and once again, Hamilton overwhelmed Edmonton 49-20. All nine teams have their first bye behind them now, so with eight games each across the board, the three teams who've managed six wins are Hamilton and Toronto in the East, and the defenders Calgary in the West, with Edmonton at 5-3 right behind them. Second-year Ottawa manages a 4-4 record, already doubling last year's win total even with two come-from ahead losses, while Montreal, Winnipeg, and the BC Lions sit in striking distance at 3-5. Saskatchewan, one of the favorites coming into the season, somehow is left still seeking win number one, at 0-8, six games back with ten to play.With two-thirds of the teams making the playoffs, they're only three games out of a playoff position, but still...there's a lot to do.

As for the NFL, there were some very educational games this weekend! We learned that the Redskins are in more trouble than we thought, if they keep getting RG3 hurt like they have. We learned that both Johnny Manziel and EJ Manuel have quarterbacking futures in Cleveland and Buffalo, respectively. We learned Ryan Tannehill may actually deserve the money Miami gave him. We learned Peyton Manning may have nerve issues in his fingertips that are going to continue to cause him cold/wet weather issues like (apparently) they did last winter in the playoffs for Denver. We learned that the Jets aren't as bad off as we'd feared, that the Chiefs have some hope, that the Seahawks are NOT going to show their cards any time soon, We learned that thanks to the Philadelphia Eagles, both Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow have second life in the NFL. We learned that the QB future of the league is bright, thanks to strong showings from youngsters like Jamies Winston in Tampa, Marcus Mariota in Tennessee, and most especially Teddy Bridgewater in Minnesota, who has erased the word "future" from his title. But most of all, we learned that what we love about football is watching when 303-pound Mike Purcell intercepts a pass for the 49ers and runs a third of the length of the field back for a fat guy touchdown! FAT GUY TD's ARE OUR RAISON d'EXISTENCE!

PROPHECIES in PHOOTBALL - August Week 3

(I dunno...y'like the alliterative misspelling in the title or not? Let us know...)

Welcome home to Following Football 2.0, and our regular Wednesday feature where we share the outcomes of games this weekend without the benefit of having actually experienced those games yet!

We'll start with the AFL this week, and there are at least a pair of games that are very difficult to call - the Aussie oddsmakers have Fremantle @ North Melbourne as a dead heat - no spread at all, very unusual for them. Even more unusual - bettors haven't moved that line either direction! We're going with the Freo Dockers from pedigree (they've played these big games and won them; the Kangaroos are as up and down a team as you'll ever find), but North prob needs the game more than Freo does...

The other difficult pick involves the Gold Coast Suns, as talented a team as you'll ever see but with more injuries than the Spartan army in 300, hosting the Essendon Bombers, who just strongly suggested to their coach that his presence would be better off done without for the foreseeable future. The Dons are another talented team, finalists last year, suffering from the shadow of the drug scandal that's haunted them for three years now. That's as may be, says I, but it doesn't defend the lack of professionalism when you show that you simply don't want to play, that you allow middling teams like Adelaide and Saint Kilda to run over you like tackling dummies. THAT part was coaching. I don't know the interim coach from my butcher, but I'll bet that changing to ANYONE else is going to restore enough pride into that team to defeat a squad of second teamers, which is all Gold Coast can muster at this point in the season, three weeks from vacation. Taking Essendon at 2.80, sixteen point spread be hanged.

The other games are all over the board - Hawthorn's favored by 46 over Port, but I suspect the Power will show up enough to keep it respectable... Richmond, on the other hand, should have no trouble whomping Collingwood...Hard to call the Opera House Haggle (not its name, but I like it) - Sydney's fighting for a top four spot; Greater Western Sydney's fighting to make the top eight and keep playing, and it's at GWS. Oddsmakers have it fifteen points Sydney's way; AFL.com's predictor is going with GWS, and so's my heart. Unfortunately, my brain says the same thing it did for the first game - pedigree picks the Swans to beat the Giants once more, though it'll be tight. If either team solves its ruckman issues by Saturday, they'll win...Geelong should walk all over St. Kilda and Adelaide won't have any trouble with Brisbane...If Melbourne doesn't have "one of those games", they should defeat Carlton and keep the Blues at the bottom with two games left...Finally, the most exciting game of the round (maybe the season) is the one in Perth between the surprising high speed West Coast Eagles and the surprising high speed Western Bulldogs - this could be 150 apiece, or the defenses could annihilate each other and it'd be 50 apiece! Home field to the Eagles, and that's how I'm betting, too.

Our current record is 126-44, and we went 7-2 last week (missed on GWS losing to Port Adelaide and West Coast beating Fremantle). Against the spreads, we're 99-71.

Time to look at the CFL, where a very strange thing happened last weekend: all four games went according to predictions. That's right, even though Following Football, the CFL.ca prognosticator Jamie Nye, and the professional oddsmakers all picked Edmonton, Toronto, Hamilton, and Calgary to win...they somehow all DID win! Edmonton had to come from 12-0 behind to kick a field goal as time expired (so to speak - in the CFL, there's one play AFTER 0:00 every half), but Toronto handled Winnipeg more easily than a 27-20 score indicates, while Hamilton and Calgary each annihilated their oppositions (combined score of 100-25). So those four teams now have a little separation from the pack: each sits at 5-2 and looking strong, with Ottawa at 4-3 and the other four below .500 at this moment.

Well, this week, Calgary and Toronto should be heavy favorites against Saskatchewan and Ottawa respectively - a touchdown or so - but Hamilton has to play at Edmonton, which should be a dogfight! The TigerCats have the highest rating in the Following Football elo system at 40.4, but with the home field advantage, Edmonton actually balances that out to a net draw. We're still going with Hamilton, impressed with the full-team supremacy they've exhibited the last three weeks. Finally, while Winnipeg gets the week off, Montreal has the unenviable task of flying to Vancouver to play the BC Lions, who should be able to hold off the Alouettes with their home field advantage, although the FF ratings have this match as a draw as well! Nevertheless, we're going with BC.

We are now at 17-15 for the year with our Canadian picks, good for the top 20% in the CFL pick-em, and on a streak of seven in a row correct. Against the spread, we're 16-15-1.

Finally, we look and laugh at the NFL oddsmakers, not because they don't know what they're doing, but they probably don't know why they're doing it! As we often discuss here, football coaches have many, MANY higher priorities that WINNING, or even the scoreboard, in a preseason game. What is you're betting on when you bet a pre-season game, especially in the NFL? How serious a coach is about winning? Whose third teamers are better? Which team leaves their starters in slightly longer?
Sigh.

Any way, the odds that caught my attention are listed below, and here's why I picked these: imagine Vegas setting ANY of these lines in a "REAL" game between the teams listed!

Washington -3 over Detroit?
Cleveland -3 over Buffalo?
KC -2 over Seattle?
New Orleans -1 over New England?
Houston -3 over Denver?
Pittsburgh -3 over Green Bay?
San Francisco -3 1/2 over Dallas?

Somehow, that last one really floors me! (And yes, our record is still 0-0 this year...)

Tomorrow, in Thursday Thoughts, we'll discuss the forecast for the winners of the American football scene in 2015-16 - both the NFL and the division 1A NCAA.

Welcome to the WILD WORLD OF WEEKEND WESULTS!

Welcome back to Following Football 2.0! Here are football results that span the globe, giving you the constant variety of footy...thanks Jim McKay, may you rest in peace!

For the NFL pre-season games, you have to sort of ignore the FINAL scores and look at how the guys who'll actually BE on the team did. 

PHI def IND, 36-10 (Tebow scored a td as quarterback, got a standing ovation when he came on),
HOU def SF, 23-10
MIN def TB, 26-16 (Jamies Winston was outplayed by Teddy Bridgewater)
KC def ARZ 34-16 (but Arizona led 10-0 when the first string came out at the end of the first quarter)
DEN def SEA 22-20 (no Manning, but Brock Osweiler scored on first five drives)
OAK def STL 18-3 (welcome to the big time, Amari Cooper!)
CIN def NYG 23-10 (listened to the game on radio - good signs on both sidelines)
JAX def PIT 23-21 (like last week, first string Steelers played well and led.)
CAR def BUF 25-24 (Bills' Matt Cassell 7 for 8 w a touchdown)
ATL def TEN 31-24 (Marcus Mariota went INT, fumble, TD drive)
SD def DAL 17-7 (rough for Cowboys, talk of LA for Chargers)
WSH def CLV 20-17 (Josh McCown has the best quote after theowing a TD to a WIDE open receiver: "He looked lonely, so I threw him the ball.")
CHI def MIA 27-10 (but Miami's first string won 10-3; Ryan Tannehill went 6-7 with a TD pass)
DET def NYJ 23-3 (Nebraska's Ammer Abdullah had a good first outing!)
BAL def NO 30-27 (Joe Flacco led his first atring to a "victory" early)
And finally, GB def NE 22-11 - Tom Brady did play two short series, going 1 for 4.

 (Of course, we have no record of predicting this season...we are officially 0-0!)

In the CFL, we actually went four for four, raising our record above 50% to 17-15 and up into the top 20% in competition with the Canada Crew:

Edmonton over Montreal 15-12 (after the Alouettes held a 12-0 lead)
Toronto over Winnipeg 27-20 (not as close as it looks)
Hamilton over BC 52-22 (the Cats absolutely dominated all phases of the game)
Calgary over Ottawa 48-3 (looks more like last year's champ over last year's 2-16)

So, right now Hamilton and Toronto in the East, and Calgary and Edmonton in the west, are all 5-2, with poor Saskatchewan still at 0-7 on their bye.

Finally, in the AFL, round 20, Fremantle got their fondest wish by losing to their fiercest rival, West Coast, by a score of 104-80, going down early by six goals and struggling back in the fourth to make it respectable.

Let me explain.

With the win, West Coast stays ahead of the defending champion Hawthorn Hawks for second, which if it held up for three more games would most likely mean that the Hawks will probably have to travel across country TWICE: once at West Coast, and again to play at Fremantle in the prelim finals. That's a tough challenge, even for Hawthorn. Fremantle is still going to end in first place, even with the loss, and if the Eagles can get past the Western Bulldogs next week, they should be able to stay ahead of Hawthorn for second, and both would host qualifying finals in the same stadium!

By the way, we're up to 126-45 this season, positioning us in the top 2% in every comptitive category of punters predicting Aussie footy outcomes (there are 180,000 in the afl.com.au contest!).

The rest of the games this weekend...

Western led Melbourne 76-2 before slowing down a bit to win by a 'mere' 98 points, 153-55, to solidify fourth place (and as discussed in Thursday thoughts this week, fourth is WAY better than fifth!)...Richmond similarly disposed of Gold Coast, although instead of it being the Bulldogs' brilliance, it was the Suns' attrition as even more players went down to injury in a 138-55 loss...Brisbane climbed out of the basement with a dominant win over new wooden spoon favorite Carlton, 131-67...Hawthorn and Geelong had another classic Kenneth Curse battle, this time with the Hawks winning handily, 121-85...Port Adelaide probably ended GWS' finals hopes with a 111-90 win in Adelaide over a team with no healthy midfielders...North Melbourne survived St. Kilda's first half onslaught and came back in the second to win in Tasmania, 120-83... Sydney showed what a champion team is made up, overcoming a great effort that should've given Collingwood a win, instead resulting in a Swans 87-76 victory...and finally, Adelaide utterly annihilated what was left of Essendon's self-esteem, winning 171-59 after Essendon actually WON the first quarter. Pity the poor Bombers' fans, who watch their team literally give up each and every game now.

As for standings, here they are, with three rounds to go: Fremantle (16-3), West Coast (14-4-1), Hawthorn (14-5), Western (13-6), Sydney (13-6), Richmond (12-7), N. Melbourne (12-7), and Adelaide (11-7-1) fill out the top eight for the moment who would make finals. Ninth is Geelong (10-8-1), GWS (10-8), Collingwood (9-10), Port Adelaide (9-10); then a gap down to St. Kilda (6-13), Melbourne (6-13), Essendon (5-14), Gold Coast (3-15-1), Brisbane (3-16), and Carlton (3-16).

Tomorrow, our regular Monday report features updated ratings and rankings, deeper observations from the weekend's action, and FREE TURNIPS FOR EVERYONE! Yes, that's right, we... Oh. Never mind; I've just been told that we can't do the turnip over the internet thing. Yet. 

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.

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.)

Week 10 in footy - Freo goes DOWN!

Yes, Fremantle suffered its first defeat, oddly enough at the hands of middling Richmond and in dominating fashion, much worse than the 97-70 score indicates. Richmond scored the first five goals and never looked back, dominating the game from the opening horn. Strangely, ruckman Aaron Sandilands set another record, for positive clearances, and Richmond managed a mere 36 entries into the forward 50...yet Fremantle suffered a 27-point loss! 

Saturday's scores included a narrow Carlton loss to Adelaide, 99-90, that saw the dramatic and traumatic end to a legend's career - Chris Judd, twice a Brownlow medalist as best in the league, already in an "extra" season extending his career into 2015, blew out an ACL in the first quarter that put him on a 10-12 month rehab track that made immediate retirement a no-brainer. (Recall this post to understand what a revered player Judd is.) Other games included Sydney coasting over Gold Coast 93-41 (they never bothered getting out of first gear), Geelong holding Essendon goal-less in the first half en route to winning 122-53, and Port Adelaide surprising Western 100-62.

GWS eased over Brisbane by 30, 97-67, and Hawthorn glided past St. Kilda by a score of 132-69 on Sunday, but the big game was the Kangaroo smackdown of West Coast, pulling away to win 85-75 at the end in a wind-blown game in Tasmania. The announcers referred to it as a "four or five goal wind", meaning they expected the team playing towards the wind to score that much more - and in the first half, they weren't disappointed. But to the surprise of all in the last, North Melbourne managed to score just as many as the Eagles did to hold on for a victory.

The very Commonwealth holiday Monday matchup between Collingwood and Melbourne on the Queen's (official) Birthday went the way of the Magpies (as it seemingly always does) by 25 points, 110-85, although the Demons were tied close to three-quarter time!

This coming week is the first of three "bye" weeks, with just six games each week while a third of the teams take a hiatus to lick their wounds (and if you're Gold Coast, find enough healthy players to field a team next week). Here's the line-up:

Geelong/Port Adelaide Friday night (great game potentially! I'll take Geelong...)
Fremantle/Gold Coast Saturday afternoon (on the other hand...)
Essendon/West Coast Saturday twilight (hard to imagine the Dons winning in Perth)
Sydney/North Melbourne Saturday night (should be the Swans despite NMK's last game)
GWS/Collingwood Sunday afternoon (best game of the round - flip a coin! I'll take the Pies)
Melbourne/St. Kilda Sunday twilight (should be close - I'm thinking the Saints...)

Talk about bad injury luck - here's a young man I admire

Through five or six years of hard knocks, recurrent injuries, strenuous rehabs and more bad luck, Anthony Morabito has had more than his fair share of occasions to demonstrate his resilience, his positive morale, and his character. 

And he's continuing to do it in spades.

Morabito, who apparently has lost yet another season to injury now as bone bruising and other knee issues continue to plague the Fremantle recruit, showed how he's overcoming more injuries than any one player should ever have to deal with. 

Head coach Ross Lyon talked about him earlier this week, and this quote stood out for me:

"He puts it into context that this is just a football injury and says, 'I look around me and I see real tragedy'. So he's in pretty good shape."

The idea that he can realize that spending six years chasing your dream to get three games total out of it (so far) is nothing compared to the real human tragedies all around us all is remarkable maturity for a twenty-three year old who's seen more than enough already.

Watching the game against Melbourne up in Alice Springs last season, when his name was called at the last minute - the team rushed his parents up the desert to see him play! - and to see that crowd of people cheer his every move was one of the most heart-warming things I heard all year. 

Morabito was a very high draft pick in 2010 - he has talent! 

And someday...he'll get to show it off again....

Coming up on AFL week 10!

After nine weeks, with Fremantle still poised on top of the ladder, clear by two, we used the AFL Ladder Predictor to play the "what if" game...you know: What if things go the way we predict they will game by game? Who finishes where? 

Well, here's what we got:
> Fremantle and Sydney should easily claim the coveted top two spots in finals, four games clear of everyone else (the only teams with fewer than seven losses, we think). Freo first, Swans second, but no undefeated season (they're not beating Hawthorn in Tasmania). 

> Slots 3 through 6 are tight. We have Hawthorn 3rd, GWS 4th, Adelaide 5th, West Coast 6th, but wouldn't be surprised by any shuffling within that group. Remember, #3 and #4 get the "double chance", where they can lose game one to Freo or Sydney and still live to host next week...and if they beat them, they get a week off and host the preliminary final! Also remember that the Hawks and Eagles have (and are likely to hold onto) a huge percentage advantage.

> It's the race for the last two spots that will really be interesting! Our predictor came up with Collingwood and the Western Bulldogs hanging on for 7th and 8th places, barely ahead of Port Adelaide, North Melbourne, and Geelong, with another game back to Richmond and a big gap to Essendon, whom we don't see holding up as the season progresses.

> Can Melbourne win seven? Can the Saints win five? And who takes the Wooden Spoon: Carlton or Gold Coast? We have them both with two wins, and mere percentage points apart, but the Blues to be slightly behind the Suns with a thrashing in round 23 by the Hawks the difference.

> Will any of that come true? Remember, we're the folks who said North was going 18-4 this season: Don't trust our prognostication skills! (On the other hand, we're in the top 1-2% in the AFL Tipping Competition - picking winners - so maybe we know SOMETHING!)

Here are our picks for Round 10:
Fremantle beats Richmond by 20-30 points at home. No one beats Freo in Freo.
Adelaide over Carlton with ease; well over the 30 point spread.
The only thing keeping Sydney from beating Gold Coast by more than the 44 point spread will be pity...
I'm picking Essendon over Geelong, against the oddsmakers (not a huge risk - it's a 4 point spread).
Western would like to win in Adelaide, but Port Adelaide needs to win this game...
GWS by a ton over Brisbane, once they get into third gear...
Despite the close (3 point) spread, I'm taking West Coast over the Kangaroos by a LOT!
They've gone WLWLWLWLW so far this season; how badly do you think Hawthorn wants to break that pattern against St. Kilda? "A hundred point margin" badly?
Despite the chinks in Collingwood's armor, I'm still taking them over Melbourne this time.

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.

The AFL ladder looks very strange...

Week Six down under was almost as wild as week Two was - five legitimate upsets out of the nine games, including the youngest team beating the reigning double premiers, and the fifth largest comeback in footy history by St. Kilda, of all teams!

Let's start at the end, though: the standings (or "ladder") after 27% of the season -

1. Fremantle Dockers (6-0) - alone on top, two games clear of everyone, and even more amazing, they're also 6-0 against the spread! At some point, they'll come back to the pack.

I think.

2-7. At 4-2, it's the Sydney Swans and five pretenders to the crown, none of whom were really expected to be here: Collingwood, the Western Bulldogs, Adelaide, West Coast, and Greater Western Sydney. They've all played well, with one or two weak games scattered, and all deserve to be here. 

The question: how many of them will be able to stay up here? I say: Sydney, Western, and Adelaide for sure, but the other three all have a shot to hold on and make the top 8 for finals.

8-12. At 3-3 we find the five teams who expected to be up at or around the top of the ladder: Hawthorn (WAY ahead on percentage over the others), Port Adelaide, Essendon, Geelong, and North Melbourne. Presumably, even this early in the season, not all of these teams are going to turn it around and make finals - the question, though, is which ones WILL do it, and which ones won't? I say: Hawthorn, Port, and (if you force a choice on me) North Melbourne, by a hair over Essendon.

13-18. Right now, there are three 2-4 teams and three 1-5 teams which will be separated for draft order after September. I know, there's plenty of season left, but none of the two-win teams (Richmond, St. Kilda, and Melbourne) and certainly none of the one-win teams (Carlton, Brisbane, and the surprisingly bad Gold Coast Suns) have shown any potential of making any significant charge on the top eight. Keep in mind, however, that last year Richmond left round 14 at 3-10 and won their next nine games (including at Sydney) to sneak in as the eighth seed! After what the Saints did this weekend, anything is possible!

The games this weekend included the expected:
- North Melbourne over Richmond 109-74
- Fremantle over Essendon
- Adelaide beats Gold Coast
- Sydney over Melbourne

...the unexpected:
----Geelong found legs and ran down Collingwood 100-59, an outcome which was only predicted by about 25% of betters.
---- West Coast pulled away in the third and held on on the fourth quarters against Port - IN Adelaide!
---- A very similar situation gave Brisbane its first win, sending Carlton coach Mick Malthouse and his teams into another week of intense media scrutiny.
---- Despite the false claims that it was their best win ever (defeating the supposed "superteam", your crosstown rival Sydney Swans, to start last season is still #1!), coming from behind twice to overwhelm the two-time premiers Hawthorn by ten points.

...and the ludicrous: Western was up by 55 points after scoring the first goal of the second half. They had completely overwhelmed the Saints on all fronts, and led 70-15; the only two goals the Saints had in the first half were flukes, or it would have been 70-3. Suddenly, the Saints came to life - scoring a couple of what looked like token goals - then a couple more - continued to stop the Bulldogs from scoring - stayed aggressive,  and got within two goals (12 points) at three quarter time - even after a pair of quick Western goals increased the lead to 23, St. Kilda held their composure like a champ and kept scoring, catching and passing the Doggies later on to win by seven points. It was the largest second-half comeback ever, the fifth  largest ever, and kept Western from being alone in second at 5-1.