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!

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.

UPS AND DOWNS for AUGUST WEEK 2

Welcome to Following Football 2.0 - updated format, updated focus, better prepared to service you, the eclectic football fan! UP FIRST, most appropriately, our Tuesday column stretching across three countries and four versions of the sport... UPS AND DOWNS for the second week of August, 2015!

UP - the OTTAWA REDBLACKS, winners of just two games last year in their inaugural CFL season, are already 4-2 in this young season, tied for the best record in the Eastern Division. They've done it with their retread, 40-year old QB Henry Burris, who's held up while most other teams are on starter number two or three behind center, and a team that's willing to keep fighting when they've been behind, winning in 4Q comebacks a couple of times already.

DOWN - the NEW JERSEY JETS, who just reached a new level of Jet-ness by putting their starting QB Geno Smith (already embattled and getting booed in PRACTICE by those wonderfully supportive New Yack "fans") on the IR for 6-10 weeks...after having his jaw broken in two places from a SUCKER PUNCH from a TEAMMATE, I.K. Enemkpali (rephrase that: FORMER teammate - at least the Jets had that much sense!) over a debt Smith apparently owed the backup linebacker for a plane ticket he never used. All parties seem to be content with the resolution, but...I mean, WTF? The Oakland Raiders called, and said the Jets are stealing their schtik!

UP - the RACIAL SENSITIVITY OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTY FANS, after continued ugly booing incidents over the last few months of indiginous star Adam Goodes, which finally drove him from the sport for a week in July. That was met with outrage from throughout the AFL community, drowning out the few confederate-wannabes who claimed it wasn't about race (hmmm...), after which Goodes returned to the Sydney Swans for their game at Geelong last Saturday, where he was met with (in the opinion of the pollyannish announcers) all positive reactions. (I'm not nearly as convinced, myself...) So, we'll see where this goes from here. Australia, you know, has a much worse race issue history than even the US - aborigines were hunted for sport by the white settlers at first.

DOWN - the PUBLIC OPINION OF TOM BRADY OR ROGER GOODELL, depending on which side you choose to take in the somehow-still-ongoing "DeFlateGate" ridiculousness. We side with Goodell for once - you flipping DESTROYED your phone? What kind of idiot are you? And you would then have us believe you HABITUALLY do that, Tom? First of all, if so, you're on a Tom Cruise level of crazy, but even so, why would you do that NOW, knowing how guilty it makes you look, unless (of course) you ARE guilty, which Occam's Razor now says you are. And do you realize, Mister former Hall Of Fame quarterback, how hard it is to make ROGER FLIPP'N GOODELL look like the voice of REASON? That takes a Lance Armstrong level of paranoia and delusion. Congratulations. You turned what should've been a slap on the hand fine (had you said, Oops, didn't think anyone would notice, my bad, before the Super Bowl) into, literally, a federal case, and a four week suspension, and a black mark on your career that will be paragraph two in your obituary.

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."

This week's prognostications...

For round 14 of the Australian footy season...

- Sydney is favored at home by 9 over Port Adelaide; we have it more like 24 points and are taking them to cover easily.
- Hawthorn is favored by 23 at the MCG over Collingwood in the battle for fourth on the ladder; we think that's about right.
- Richmond at home against the floundering GWS: favored by 25, should end up higher than that.
- North Melbourne goes to the Gold Coast and is favored by 18; even with Gary Ablett due back this week, it's hard to imaging the Kangaroos winning by less than 18.
- Western is favored over Carlton by 11; despite Carlton's improved form, we have it as a 24 point spread and would bet that way.
- West Coast is favored by 24 at Melbourne; our ratings have it at 38, but we're settling for a bet to win for the Eagles.
- Essendon is favored over St. Kilda by ten in a battle of 4-8 teams; we're choosing the 2:30 to 1 upset and taking the Saints to win outright.
- Adelaide at home, favored by 5 over Geelong, with both teams on the fringe of the top eight, trying to make the finals; we see another upset here and are taking Geelong to win outright. Both of these bets, by the way, are against what our rating system says. Trusting our instincts. We have five games that the FF ratings disagree with the odds makers by more than ten points; it'll be interesting to see what happens!
- And finally, Fremantle should dismantle Brisbane - the oddsmakers say by 53; we don't think they'll keep the foot on the gas that long. 

For Week 2 of the Canadian Football League...

- Hamilton at Winnipeg: we're predicting Hamilton by two, 24-22.
- Calgary at Montreal: Calgary should win easily, 29-7.
- British Columbia at Ottawa: despite last week's fool's gold, BC wins 32-21.
- Toronto at Saskatchewan: this would have been different before last weekend! However, giving the circumstances at each franchise after the first game, we'll go Toronto by six, 29-23.

Our AFL record is immaculate: we've chosen 78 correct winners out of 108 (over 72%), which places us in the top half of the top 1% of AFL "tipsters" this year as certified by the AFL itself.  On the other hand, we went one for four during our first week of picking CFL games, mostly due to fallen quarterbacks. But, a loss is a loss, and we'll simply hope we've done better this week!

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.)

On betting and gambling...

Proud to brag (against my Christian beliefs) that despite Port Adelaide's favored status, my Geelong pick held up, and they won by 23 in the Adelaide Oval Friday night, Aussie time.

The correct pick pushed me up into the top 1/2 of 1% in the various AFL "tipster" contests at afl.com.au - so let that be evidence that you can trust my prediction advice! The CFL site has a similar contest, so I thought I'd try it out this season as well, although my Aussie knowledge is definitely superior to my Canadian! Can't hurt to try, since they're all free to enter.

It's a far cry from risking my own money on someone else's athletic prowess and flukes of injuries and the whims and follies of men in the twenties. If you're going to gamble your hard-earned coinage, do it on your OWN abilities, or at the very worst, on something with some statistical basis for your projection.

And if you must gamble your money, KNOW WHEN TO STOP. Set a limit that you can afford, and stick to it. If you can't stick to it, NEVER GAMBLE. When someone with an addictive personality gets into the "I can win it back" mode, they're doomed. If, on the other hand, you enjoy gambling (whether it's sports betting or slot machines or poker or the lottery) as much as, say, a nice dinner out? Take forty dollars (or whatever the evening is worth to you), go enjoy yourself...but when that money is gone, YOU'RE DONE. If you can't stop then, DON'T START! No "just one more"s, no "but I was just about to get hot!"....

When it comes to sports, there are so many free competitions on line you can compete in - get the thrill of the bet without the painful side effects. You have no excuse to hamper your life and that of your family by throwing money down the toilet with nothing to show for it but regret.

Good on you, Cameron Guthrie!

Thought this was super cool at the time it happened - Cam Guthrie, himself a budding star for the Geelong Cats, stopped former Brownlow medalist Chris Judd of the Carlton Blues after the Cats had wiped them out and did something that happens on occasion on the soccer pitch but almost never in footy. He asked for Judd's jersey.

It was a sign of ultimate respect for the role model Guthrie had as a footy player, and probably the first and last time he'd play Judd in an AFL game. In fact, he probably outplayed his idol that night, but that didn't erase years of admiration. 

Judd's reaction was..."I'm sorry, what?"

As I said, it's not something that footy players do. But Judd couldn't help but be grateful, and he willingly traded jerseys with this young player he may not even really have known.

 
Cameron Guthrie ‏@CamGu3

Privileged to compete against a player I have always had great respect for. Thanks for the jumper @cjayfive

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!)

Footy news - 5/22/2015

Geelong whomped Carlton from the opening bounce Friday night (again, that's already happened in Australia) 140-63, increasing the pressure on the Blues to do something dramatic when, truthfully, no quick fix is going to change the fact that they simply don't have enough AFL talent on their roster. Firing legendary coach Mick Malthouse, now the winningest coach in history, in mid-season is cruel and would do no good; the calls from the sensible folks to announce that Malthouse will coach out the season and a new coach (and lots of new players!) would join the Blues for 2016 makes more sense at this point. (A story on afl.com.au's "Pick A Winner" show listed only SEVEN players who should by consensus in the Carlton ranks, and another half-dozen who might; the others aren't really qualified to play at the highest level yet. Legendary player Garry Lyon said Monday that only THREE players "deserved to wear their jumpers" (which are uniform jerseys, statesiders). THAT makes it tough to win when you have a 22-man roster of grown men AFL players on the other side of the pitch!)

Meanwhile, the AFL has revised the system for two draft day peculiarities that Americans aren't familiar with: the father-son connection and the academy priority pick. This year, for example, Isaac Heeney, easily one of the two or three best players in the draft, went to Sydney at choice number 18 because he had been "raised" and trained in the Sydney Swan Training Academy. There should certainly be some credit given to a club for doing the work which made the player great, but Melbourne was willing to draft him at 2 and never had the chance. Similarly, Joe Daniher went to Essendon a few years ago at pick 10, even though he was arguably the best player in the draft and would have gone #1 in the open market - however, since his dad played for Essendon, he had the right to declare himself a Bomber, and being highly rated that required the Dons to spend whatever their highest draft choice was on him. The new system is extremely complicated, but computer apps can handle those details and level out the playing field without depriving clubs of those advantages. (Wonder how long it'll be for a Giant or Sun to be drafted as a father-son!)

One of the funny occurrences in the Geelong game, especially for an AFL regular season game, was the request on the field after the game from winning team member Cam Guthrie, 23 years of age, to veteran two-time Brownlow Medal winner Chris Judd of Carlton for his jumper, ideally signed! The speculation, well-founded, is that Guthrie had grown up as a footy player idolizing Judd (a good choice, as footy role models go), and although Guthrie frankly had a better performance than Judd Friday night, he's simply "that kind of dude", as they called him in the radio booth! Judd obliged, but hesitated about taking Guthrie's Geelong jersey in return...

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.

Wild Week 4 down under!

What a wild ANZAC holiday weekend in the Aussie Footy league!  I spent thirteen straight hours listening to the quadruple-header on line from Friday evening at seven through eight a.m. Saturday morning (ok, I heard all of the first two games, and dozed on and off through the other two!), with another five or six hours last night for the three overlapping Sunday games! Heaven!

Friday night, the opener for ANZAC week set the tone as the harder working team won; the fact that they were twenty point underdogs is immaterial.  Melbourne dominated Richmond 83-51 in the second half, holding the Tigers to one goal in the entire second half. Jack Riewoldt, the lead forward for Richmond, hit four behinds and zero goals in the game, for example, as the team went 6.15 (meaning six goals, fifteen behinds). And it was a PHYSICAL game, too, with each team racking up almost a hundred tackles.

Saturday started in Wellington, NZ, with St. Kilda 'hosting' Carlton, two bottom feeder teams. They played like it, too, and in the fourth quarter the younger Saints simply wore out, as Carlton pulled away and won by 40.

The traditional ANZAC day game over the last twenty years has been Essendon/Collingwood, at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Grounds, "the home of footy"). This year's version did not disappoint, as Collingwood looked far better than expected and won comfortably in the rain with 90,000 close friends, 69-49. It wasn't pretty (twice as many behinds as goals), but the Magpies are suddenly 3-1 and in the top 8 at the moment!

Next came the continuing degradation of the previous flavor of the month, the Gold Coast Suns, at the hands of their 'little brother', fellow expansion team GWS Giants, who set team records as they ripped the Suns apart 119-53. Frankly, the score flattered GC, as they were NEVER competitive; GWS had 157 more disposals than the Suns. Giants star Jeremy Cameron was spectacular with ten scoring shots, just missing a goal with a ridiculous backwards bicycle kick. 

The two nightcap games were the headliners, and played out virtually identically! The Grand Finalist (Hawthorn, Sydney) travels to the Up-n-Comers (Port Adelaide and Fremantle, respectively), and the home teams spend the first halves absolutely dismantling the champs (Port led Hawthorn 69-11 towards the end of the 2nd; Fremantle held Sydney to NINE points in the entire half). But the Champs are champs for a reason, and they found a gear at halftime that overwhelmed the younger team for a time (the Hawks scored 34 straight in the fourth to cut the lead to seven; the Swans outscored the Dockers 41-1 from the third into the fourth to cut that lead to three), before the opponent stabilized and won - Port Adelaide beat Hawthorn 99-91, and Fremantle became the only 4-0 team, winning 74-60 over Sydney. Great games!

On Sunday, West Coast outplayed Brisbane 118-65. WC had seventy inside 50s over the less experienced Lions, and played to their usual pattern: whomp the little guys; get whomped by the big guys. The Kangaroos held to form for a change, overcoming a virtual shutout in the first quarter to defeat aging Geelong 83-67 in a defensive battle where neither team played great defense. (Both teams moved an extra man into defense, which meant the offense couldn't just kick it in - the Roos figured out they needed to RUN the ball into the forward region, ending with just 10 marks inside 50 of their fifty-three inside 50s.)

And the upset of the round, unless you really believe in the hardest working team in the league: the Western Bulldogs, who amazed the unbeaten Adelaide Crows 125-68! Despite having more than fifty more possessions than the Crows, the Bulldogs still out-tackled them by eighteen! Already leading 69-35 at the half, the Doggies ran off thirty-four more points in a row to close out the third quarter. Suddenly, Western's got a 3-1 record, sitting comfortably inside the top eight, and looking like they may STAY there for awhile!

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.

AFL Week 2 in Review/Preview Week 3

What a wild week of footy! Here are the game results from this weekend just concluded...

West Coast 131, Carlton 62.
> The Eagles (1-1 record, 60.0 rating) have a reputation as "flat-track bullies", meaning that when they play lower-level teams, they win in this fashion...but when they play a game like they will next week, against neighbor-rival Fremantle, they can't keep that level of play up. The Blues (0-2, 32.0) are proving they don't have the horses they need to compete this year, and their season will be a battle to stay out of last place. They play Essendon next week.

Western Bulldogs 85, Richmond 66.
> The Doggies (2-0, 39.4) pulled off their second straight upset, outplaying a finals contender again and doing it with ferocity and speed. New head coach Luke Beveridge has brought a toughness to the team that will be tested when they play the two-time champion Hawthorn Hawks next week...but I'm not betting against them. We don't yet know what kind of team the Tigers (1-1, 50.9) are yet, having beaten failing Carlton and now lost to an upsurging Western - next week's game at Brisbane may not tell us much more, unless they lose.

GWS 101, Melbourne 56.
> One of the weirdest games I've ever heard. The Demons (1-1, 22.6) were demolishing the Giants (2-0, 34.4) in the first half, leading 45-12 just before the siren. Something then woke up within the orange and black, and they scored the next fourteen goals to run away with the game - literally. They switched to a speedy lineup, even taking their star goal kicker Jeremy Cameron out of the lineup for the most part, and simply outran the Demons. GWS actually went on an 86-4 scoring run - absolutely insane. Both teams look much better than last year, but they'll have to be: Melbourne plays at Adelaide, and GWS at cross-town rival Sydney.

Adelaide 90, Collingwood 63.
> The first game that went exactly to prediction - a 27 point victory for the team that looks like the presumptive challenger to Hawthorn and Sydney this year. Adelaide (2-0, 70.7) under new coach Phil Walsh has a toughness to them that they haven't had in recent years, and it's ironic that the rumors all off-season was that their superstar Patrick Dangerfield wanted to leave at year's end for Geelong. Right now, that looks foolhardy! Collingwood (1-1, 37.3) put up a good fight, and appears not to be quite the disaster that I thought they'd be this season. The Crows host Melbourne next week, and the Magpies host St. Kilda; both will be prohibitive favorites.

St. Kilda 104, Gold Coast 76.
> What the H#$% is wrong with Gold Coast? The Suns (0-2, 35.7) have not only been barn-whupped by two of the weakest teams in Melbourne and the Saints (1-1, 17.9), but they were never competitive. (One of the sportswriters pointed out that they're proving that former coach Guy McKenna must've been really good. They're doing nothing under Rodney Eade, supposedly a successful coach brought in to "take them to the next level".) They ironically go to play equally-struggling Geelong next week, while St. Kilda tries to build on this against Collingwood on Friday night.

Sydney 92, Port Adelaide 44.
> Any doubts about the Swans (2-0, 79.7) was removed Saturday night with a defensive slaughter of a potent Port team, holding them to just six goals. The "Bloods" were back in hard-tackling form, and the Power (0-2, 66.9) have to fight another top opponent next week in North Melbourne, also prelim finalists last year. (Game 4 is Hawthorn, so when it rains, it pours...) Sydney takes on similarly undefeated Greater Western Sydney in a cross-town rivalry made serious last year when the Giants beat them decisively in round 1.

Fremantle 104, Geelong 60.
> Like Port, Geelong (0-2, 54.1) has a rough schedule to start the year - Hawthorn and Fremantle, both of whom exposed the veteran Cats as slowing down in their old age. (Can they run on Gold Coast next week? It'll be a very interesting game.) Fremantle (2-0, 73.3) showed the last two weeks that they have the goods this year, especially with Brownlow favorite Nat Fyfe running rampant, beating finalists Port and Geelong back to back. Now they get West Coast and Sydney, so it won't slow down much for them. Hard to imagine seeing Geelong in last place on the ladder - my late wife is turning over in her grave! She LOVED the Cats!

Essendon 78, Hawthorn 76.
> If you only watch one set of highlights, this is the match to watch! Essendon (1-1, 55.9) led by 35 at half, the Hawks (1-1, 83.7) stormed back to lead by sixteen points with five minutes to play, and somehow the Bombers scored the last three goals, including two in the last 90 seconds, to pull out a "famous victory" (love that phrase!). After everything the Dons have been through the last year or two, especially the players who weren't involved in 2012's scandal, this was a great reward for patience. They play low-level Carlton next week, while the Hawks try to regroup against up-and-coming Western.

North Melbourne 133, Brisbane Lions 51.
> A rout from the word go...well, alright. Brisbane (0-2, 24.9) kicked three of the first four goals. After that it was all Kangaroos (1-1, 60.6), who bounced back from a rout of their own at the hands of the Crows last week. Jarred Waite kicked seven goals for the 'Roos, who host surprisingly winless Port Adelaide; Brisbane hosts Richmond. 

THIS WEEK'S ROUND THREE GAME PREDICTIONS - 
St. Kilda @ Collingwood (the line is 18-22 points Collingwood's way) - St. Kilda will cover!
Essendon @ Carlton (line is 20-34 points Essendon's way) - take Essendon with ease.
Melbourne @ Adelaide (line is 44-54 points for Adelaide) - and they'll clear even that.
GWS @ Sydney (Swans favored by 39-48) - GWS will cover the spread but lose.
Port Adelaide @ N. Melbourne (Port slightly favored) - take North to win outright.
Richmond @ Brisbane (Richmond by 12-20 points) - The Tigers will win by more than 20.
Western @ Hawthorn (Hawks favored by 40-48) - Western will make it close.
Gold Coast @ Geelong (line reads 24-32 for Geelong) - The Cats will win...
Fremantle @ West Coast (line is Freo by 10-22) - Fremantle's too good. Big win.