This Round was unofficially deemed the round of the milestones since several players were either breaking records having to do with the number of games played or were playing in a game number that is easily divisible by 50.

Details on that, the updated finals picture, my flirtation with perfection, and much more on

Welcome to Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat!

I woke up early on Friday morning to watch the Friday Night Footy game between the Geelong Cats and the Western Bulldogs.  It was a momentous occasion for two Geelong stars as Jimmy Bartel played in his 300th game while Corey “Boris” Enright played in his 327th, which broke the Geelong record for a player at the club.  No player has ever played more games for Geelong.  I initially thought they nicknamed him Boris because he may have a passing resemblance to a certain Moose and Squirrel villain,

but I just don’t see it

In reality, his nickname goes all the way back to his childhood.  At the same time, Jimmy Bartel will soon be unrecognizable to the general public as the beard he has grown all season to create awareness about domestic violence is about as out of control as a Southern California wildfire.  The Herald Sun has a great Round-by-Round pictorial on the size of the beard in the link in the previous sentence.  I’ll give you what he looks like this week when they did a photoshoot with Corey ahead of the game:

Oh, the game you say?  Fine, I’ll get to that!  It was a great game if you are a Cats fan and an even greater game if you are Balls of Steel as I NAILED the exact margin of the Cats winning by 25 points in our footy contest!  Unfortunately for the Doggies, their injury woes got worse as star Tom Liberatore (no, not the creator of Liberator) went down with an ankle injury before half and did not return.  This was a crucial win as the Western Bulldogs are the last good team the Cats face before finals.  If they can take care of business against the likes of Essendon, Richmond, Brisbane, and Melbourne and by that I mean blow these teams out of the water, I think a top two finish is possible.

Here are the two milestone men going through the banner with their kids:

There is something cute and slightly Texas High School Football about the fact that all AFL teams have these banners and go through them before the game.  Even the road teams have them!  At least they don’t do stupid shit like we do:

or this:

I love how everyone just keeps going.  “Shit, I guess something happened back there.  Fuck it!”

Rhys Stanley had himself a good game, scoring 5 goals:

and here is Jimmy scoring a late goal to grab himself a little late-game glory and me a perfect margin prediction:

On proper Friday night, we had five games on tap.  The first two seemed like blowouts on paper and one indeed was, but probably not the one you were expecting.  The other thing those two games had in common is that they were both “hosted” in a city other than where the teams normally play.  The GWS Giants “hosted” the Richmond Lions in Canberra, Australia’s capital and the Giants’ second home, while the Hawthorn Hawks “hosted” the Carlton Blues in Launceston, Tasmania. Both teams won, of course, but the way the Giants did it was truly awesome.  I switched to the Hawthorn-Carlton game as soon as the score hit GWS 45-Richmond 0 in the FIRST.  The Giants led 51-1 at Quarter Time and ended up winning 111-23, Richmond’s lowest score in decades.  I’m including this video just for the title alone:

There must be a Richmond fan in the AFL Social Media team because, for some reason, the highlight of Richmond’s first goal, WHILE DOWN 57-1, made it onto YouTube:

Ok, here is a real highlight:

The Hawks-Blues game was actually a LOT closer than anyone anticipated. I mean the score was 20-14 AT THE HALF!   The Hawks remembered who they were (RIP, Dennis Greene) in the second and ended up with a 74-55 victory. Here is a beauty goal from Hawthorn’s Luke Breust:

This is probably the best thing that happened to a Blues fan all day:

It will be interesting when their eventual child decides to become a Collingwood fan.

Speaking of, the Pies surprised everyone in our footy tipping contest but me by beating the West Coast Eagles 91-72 at the MCG later on Friday night.  My thought process in picking the Pies was that the Eagles are notorious for being horrible on the road and they had been playing pretty shit lately while the Pies, while not necessarily winning, were playing pretty well.  Also, the Eagles had not beaten the Pies on the road since 1995.  Well, the Pies had, arguably, one of their best games of the season despite losing players to injury.

You’ve got to admit, this is pretty friggen cool:

This too:

Is it me or does it sound like Pies are a team of porn stars that happen to play footy?  Look at some of these names:

Tyson Goldsack

Levi Greenwood

Steele Sidebottom

Mason Cox

Matthew Goodyear

Tim Broomhead

Also, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there are some good-looking fellas in that group. BTW, this porn star thing is not a recent phenomenon by any stretch of the imagination:

Late late night brought about another blowout, this one pretty sizable.  For some reason, the Port Adelaide Power, once they are effectively eliminated from contention, start to play better.  This has happened the last two years.  They handily beat the Brisbane Lions in Queensland by a score of 173-79.  It was, as usual for the Lions, a close game in the first until the Lions remembered they were the Lions and succumbed meekly. If I was WhyEaglesWhy, this would frustrate me to no end and would only be useful for gambling purposes.  I hope you put some money on the line!

No, you CANNOT hassle the Hoff!

This mark and goal are way too easy:

In the last Late Late game, the biggest milestone of all fell as North Melbourne’s Brent “Boomer” (fuck you, Berman, Brent deserves the nickname more!) Harvey played in his 427th game as the Kangaroos played the St. Kilda Saints at the Etihad.  This is the most games played by a single player in the VFL/AFL ever!  This game was also important because, if the Saints won, they would only be one game behind the Roos in the chase for a finals spot.  Alas, the Saints could not overcome Boomer and the Roos and North were left to celebrate in style after not-so-narrowly squeezing out a 85-62 win.  And yes, he scored:

Others did too:

This was a good week for great marks:

That loss effectively ends the Saints’ hopes for a finals berth, but they have improved greatly since last year, so they should be fairly proud of their year.  They can achieve double digit wins with a win over Carlton next week.

On North American Saturday night, the only competitive game on paper started the night off with the Gold Coast Suns visiting the Melbourne Demons at the MCG.  It not only proved to be highly competitive, it was actually a thrilling game to watch.  Granted, both of these teams were horrible and played horribly, so the real question was who was going to fuck up the most and give the other team the victory.  Let’s watch the last two minutes and see what happens:

That was brutal.  The Demons had to feel like they escaped with the win and the Suns had to feel that they let one go.  If a tie is like kissing your sister, then this game was going full hillbilly.  They need to burn the tape of this game to make sure no one knows it happened.

Moving on, the last two games of the Round were enormous blowouts, as expected.  The Swans took care of business in Perth against the Dockers while the Crows beat up on the hapless Bombers at home.  Final scores were Sydney 137- Fremantle 47 and Adelaide 143 – Essendon 61.   To continue with the milestone theme for this week, Fremantle’s Matthew Pavlich scored a goal in his 350th game:

If he stays healthy, he may have an outside shot at catching Boomer.  That is, of course, if Boomer doesn’t keep playing, which he just might.  Too bad his milestone game came up in a year that the Dockers are really bad. And, of course, it wouldn’t be an Adelaide recap without an Eddie Betts highlight.  He scored 5, btw.

Let’s take a look at the ladder, shall we?

The Crows must be kicking themselves for allowing Essendon to score some garbage time goals. They are just barely below the Cats on percentage.  Both teams have a chance to boost their percentages with easy games next week. Here is the schedule for Round 20 (All times Pacific):

Friday August 5

Richmond v Collingwood at MCG (2.50 AM) LIVE on Fox Sports 2!

Sydney Swans v Port Adelaide at SCG (8.45pm) LIVE on Fox Soccer Plus

Melbourne v Hawthorn at MCG (9.10pm)

Gold Coast Suns v GWS Giants at Metricon Stadium (11.35pm)

Saturday August 6

Western Bulldogs v North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium (2.25 AM) LIVE on Fox Sports 1!

Adelaide v Brisbane Lions at Adelaide Oval (2.40 AM)

Carlton v St Kilda at MCG (8.10pm) LIVE on Fox Soccer Plus

Geelong v Essendon at Etihad Stadium (10.20pm)

Fremantle v West Coast Eagles at Subiaco Oval (11.40pm) LIVE on Fox Soccer Plus

The standout game to me is Kangaroos-Bulldogs.  That’s a battle for eighth place and not to get any more players hurt. The Perth Derby also looks interesting while I will be very curious as to how Port plays Sydney on the road.  Also, it will be interesting to see the battle between Adelaide and Geelong to see who blows out bad teams by a bigger margin.

Let’s see how we are doing with our Footy Tipping Contest:

Only the Saints’ loss against the Roos prevented me from having the ultimate perfect week.  I guess that’s what happens when you make a choice rooting for chaos instead of reason.  There is a political statement there to be made, but this is the AFL Beat and no one in the US cares about Australian politics.

There are only four games left.   You can see a good article on the Run Home for each of the mathematically alive teams here, but in all reality, we are now playing for playoff seedings. FWIW, I disagree with their predictions, but I’m a Geelong homer, so…  The biggest drama in the next four weeks will be which team in the Eight fucks up against lesser opposition and how big will blowouts be. There are still some intriguing matchups between top eight teams, so all is not lost.  As always, DON’T FORGET TO PUT THE TIP IN!

See you next week!