I don’t know why I do this. Seriously. Six games to open the round and they’re all upsets except one that just falls short, and which one is that? RICHMOND. This is like going home to visit your family for the holidays and you decide to go on a long walk by yourself and then come back to find that everyone has burned to death except that one cousin you hate. And then you have to graph it.
So, I dunno, a bunch of bullshit happened and some teams won and some lost. See for yourself:
I missed the first quarter of the Richmond game, by the way. I only caught the last three, where the Bulldogs slowly but relentlessly mowed us down. That was great.
Speaking of unbelievable bullshit, North Melbourne, the 15th most likely team to make the Final Eight according to the bookies, outscored flag favourite Adelaide 64 to 0 in the first quarter. After the scientists at CERN get done analysing the god particle thing I would like them to take a look at that, because I need a rational explanation.
In light of that game, St Kilda beating GWS doesn’t even seem that weird. I mean, of course they did. Why not? Why not win by a THOUSAND points and make it really interesting. But the Saints did it in style, and shifted into that pack of teams that look like genuine finals challengers.
Collingwood again failed to decide if they’re a bad team or an okay one and stick to it for more than one week in a row. That was a fine win for Carlton, though, making it a great fortnight for the Blues after dispatching Sydney last week.
The Swans were no surprise this week, which was a surprise. Also sticking to the script were Melbourne and Hawthorn, who were expected to be evenly matched. Although of course Squiggle tipped Melbourne by 3pts when it should have known that that’s Hawthorn’s favourite margin to win by.
Gold Coast are suggesting a pattern, too, with a distinctive upward trend this year as they’ve improved their attack. Of course, there are no patterns, because football is really random noise designed to break your heart. But that’s what it looks like.
Carlton have shifted out of the bottom 2, with Squiggle marking down Essendon pretty harshly for the final quarter against Fremantle.
It’s all pretty even, though, which as I’ve mentioned before, isn’t really that shocking, as it’s at least halfway explained by the fact that Gold Coast and GWS no longer have under-16s teams. There were plenty of seasons like this pre-2011. It’s also still the first part of the year, when everyone’s optimistic and trying hard, as opposed to later, when they’ve sacked the coach and are playing kids with an eye on the next five year plan and losing every week.
Speaking of Richmond, they remain an excellent chance of losing an Elimination Final, or possibly falling short in the final rounds and finishing 9th. So that’s really promising. You know, it’s not even the fact that we lost to the Bulldogs, because we were closer than I expected, it’s just the way it went down. Like a horror movie where the serial killer is shambling along the corridor behind the girl and she’s trying all the door handles and you’re just like RUN YOU GORMLESS MORON and it seems like forever before the killer reaches her and raises his arm and says, “Deliberate out of bounds.”
Flagpole! North gets a rise out of smacking Adelaide, as does Gold Coast for punishing the Cats.
