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Showing posts from May, 2024

Round 12 AFL Preview

  Last Week           7/9           Season Total      64/100   The byes start this week, and we get a curious look at how the inequities of fixturing really affect the season.   We’ll find out because some teams (those that played in Round 0), had a bye sometime between Rounds 1 and 5 and now will get another one.   Those that didn’t play in Round 0 will be getting their one and only bye.   Of course, the AFL will roll out their “to the letter of the” speech as they did with okaying the Freo/Pies decision.   Those that didn’t play in Round 0, “technically” had a bye then.   Most of us would say they started the season a week later, but you could look at it as a bye.   I was wondering on the history of the bye, so I looked it up in the dictionary.   Turns out a bye is a run scored when you don’t connect with the bat.   Naturally the game has changed a lot over the years as early footy matches were quite hazardous when everyone was carrying a bat.   But, as they say whenever referrin

Round 11 AFL Preview

  Last Week           5/9           Season Total      57/91   Another average week last week.   The footy at the moment is troubling for tipping.   It could easily have been worse with Adelaide almost pipping the Pies and Hawthorn losing the unlosable.   The worst thing is that I invented all of these tools which I meticulously maintain to try to help me navigate this world of upsets and inequitable fixtures but then I haven’t really been using them.   I’ve been running this show on “feelings,” and it appears my feelings are seriously hurt.   So, it will be a bit of self-flagellation this week followed by a strict adherence to the code!...unless it just doesn’t feel right. Speaking of codes…decoding Brian Taylor is a part-time hobby of mine.   His commentary can, at times, be inflammatory and unintelligible.   But here are some things I have learned: A Chiseler:                                                 A drop punt A back-spinning chiseler:                   A drop punt A sli

Round 10 AFL Preview

  Last Week           4/9           Season Total      52/82   Please note:  It is, of course Sir Doug Nicholls Round and for the next two weeks you might see your teams name revert to its indigenous form. I just don’t know about this season anymore.  The choices seemed obvious leading into the round, but the only top 4 team to win their game was Sydney, and some extenuating circumstances around Fremantle’s state of mind may have contributed to that.  An appropriate aphorism is that this season is harder to pick than a broken nose.  Or is it that I’m just unlucky, in which case the aphorism would be, I’m so unlucky that if I fell into a barrel full of nipples, I’d come out sucking my thumb.  Ok, so not technically an aphorism but ChatGPT gave me the green light to work it in. Then we had our second draw of the season.  I only got to see the last 3 minutes of the match, which was the important bit, so it was a little exciting.  All this means that the ladder is pretty cramped with

Round 9 AFL Preview

Last Week           6/9           Season Total      48/73   I love stats, as you well know.   And I love the way people interpret them.   I watched with amusement, one of the footy programs during the week and the journalist was pressing this issue in the game that there have been 73 less free kicks for holding the ball to this time than last year.   He posed this head scratcher to Ross Lyon and framed it as “The Game is in Crisis.”   Ross Lyon simply said, “what’s that, 1 free kick per game?   I wouldn’t think that’s statistically significant.”   Loved it!   Unperturbed, the journalist pushed on still remarking the game is in crisis.   Afterall, it’s a better story than statistically insignificant. This weekend is Mother’s Day.   So, make sure you do something special.   The AFL has done something special by arranging for the top four teams to play the next four teams in the top eight to make for an exciting weekend where we can ignore our mother’s and watch a scintillating clash.

Round 8 AFL Preview

  Last Week           7/9           Season Total      42/64   Last week was a much better week than the previous one.  A score of 7 is respectable, but in a week where most got 8 or 9, I am left ruing my decision to trust Carlton, but was ok with the draw.  No one tips a draw and depending on your competition rules, you either got that as a win or a loss.  I was only one point off in my tip there and if Langford had’ve kicked straight, I would have been a classic smiling smug bastard.  But then if Jamie Elliott could take a mark, maybe the Pies would’ve won.  Ok, ok, I agree, Jamie Elliott can take a mark.  It was a good effort and reminded me a lot of myself (yeah, right!)  Of course, this brings up the age old debate about whether the AFL should allow draws or use extra time.  Golden Point was also touted as a solution, as was a good old game of DONKEY.  I found the debate interesting as it seemed to me that everyone (after the dust settled) was ok with having draws in our system a