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...). 

UPS and DOWNS for Tuesday, Sept 29th, 2015

UPS to the AFL for an amazing season under some difficult conditions - dealing with the specter of racism against the aboriginal superstar Adam Goodes, who chose to retire quietly, after his final game, so as not to go through the traditional plaudits at the end of his last game that he so richly deserved and therefore avoid the possibility of negative reaction to deal with. The league can't be expected to solve a centuries-old problem singlehandedly in a few weeks, but the footy community did everything they could reasonably do for Adam and against racism. More than that, the murder of Adelaide Crows head coach Phil Walsh was handled with more aplomb and grace than could have ever been asked for - some of the most touching and beautiful moments ever seen on a sporting field took place in the aftermath. The league dealt with the after-effects of the Essendon doping scandal, the possibility of "tanking" for draft choices, and the seemingly everpresent shadow of injuries to its star players, such as Gary Ablett Jr and Nat Fyfe, the 2015 Brownlow Medal winner last night as best player in the league. Finally, as its highest paid player, Lance Franklin, admitted as the playoffs began that his injury issues were more of a mental health case than physical, the AFL and its community made great efforts to both shield him from the prying eyes of the media and to put those mental health issues in the light of day, exposing them as serious and no more or less debilitating OR worthy of embarrassment than a broken arm or an ACL. (Now, if they can get their free agency set-up to work more reasonably...)

DOWNS to the TEAMS WHO WERE EXPECTED TO DO SO WELL THIS SEASON! And yet, here we are, not even out of September, and some teams are so deep in a hole they probably can't dig themselves out of it before the season ends...

> Baltimore Ravens, 0-3, looking up at a hot Bengals team three games up and a tiebreaker, with improved wild card possibilities throughout the AFC... Is another Harbaugh going to the colleges next year?
> Saskatchewan RoughRiders, 2-11 and presumably out of the playoff picture completely, despite the ridiculously generous CFL playoff system which invites 2/3 of the league into the post-season. In theory, they are still just 3 1/2 games behind 5-7 Montreal for that last spot, but with six games remaining, the Mean Green has correctly started playing for next year already. The Riders, Grey Cup winners just three years ago, were expected to contend for the West division title this year with Edmonton and Calgary...instead, they're on coach number 2, quarterback number 3, and on to 2016...
> Oregon Ducks, 2-2 and 0-1 in conference. Still a very viable possibility of a Pac-12 North title, but that's not the OU goal - the college football playoffs are their goal, and while the 31-28 loss at Michigan State would have been survivable, the spanking they got at home last Saturday night from Utah, 62-20 (including a late gift TD by the third-teamers) was so comprehensive and so vivid that no voter will forget it. Ever.
> Many other teams who shot themselves in the foot, like Louisville (1-3), Nebraska (2-2), Texas (1-3), Texas' kicking game (0-2), Tennessee, Auburn, and South Carolina (all 2-2) and Arkansas (1-3...but hey, someone's got to lose in the SEC!); Marshall (3 bad wins and one BAD loss); the entire Mountain West (15-24 outside of conference, 11 of the wins coming against FCS schools); U Mass (1-3 and expected to contend for a MAC East title); Cal Poly SLO, Idaho State, and Montana of the Big Sky, 3-8 between them; Eastern Illinois (0-3); Stephen F Austin (0-4); the entire SWAC (3-12 outside of conference); and our #1 Bottom Team, Davidson of the Pioneer League, who plays almost equally-fruitless Valparaiso at home Saturday, in a meeting of the two last place teams in the Sagarin Ratings for the 253 Division 1 schools. Valpo is down to an amazing 6.67 rating, and yet is favored on the road at Davidson, who has set a record with their current rating of 3.08! It's conceivable that a bad Davidson loss this weekend could create a situation Sagarin's never had in D1: a negative rating.