Apologies for the AFL Beat being late, but there was the slight thing about Sunday being my birthday and all

so that got in the way.  A shocking loss, a flirtation with perfection, and a tightening anal sphincter are all up for your perusal on

Welcome to Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat!

Ok, let’s get this out of the way:

I’m pretty sure no one will be reading the next few paragraphs.  At the very least, no Hawthorn Hawks will want to.  On Friday Night Footy (Friday morning for us in North America), the Hawks visited the West Coast Eagles in a game that figured to be difficult for the Hawks given how well the Eagles play at home.  Well, both teams basically fucked themselves as 1) Hawthorn lost the game and 1st place in the standings, 2) West Coast lost star ruckman and the winner of the previous round’s game, Nic Naitanui, to a leg injury that will end his season, and 3) Hawthorn also lost their starting ruckman to injury.

Delicious wordplay with a highlight?  Sure, why not!

Here is some good defense from the Eagles that turns into points:

The closest and most exciting game of the Round was North Melbourne-Sydney on North American Friday night.  Every time the Swans ran out to a lead, the Roos would come back.  They even had it tied in the fourth.  However, the Swans were too much to handle.  Here is a great play to run onto the ball and score a goal:

Have I mentioned how much I love the AFL Social Media team’s love of alliteration?

At roughly the same time, the Richmond Tigers and St. Kilda Saints were playing a bizzaro version of the Roos-Swans game except this one was enveloped in a thick layer of suck.  The Saints ended up winning, but no one is sorry that they are likely to be tied with North on points after the regular season but will lose out on finals due to percentage.  Let’s see if I can find any non-sucky highlights…  Here is one!

The next two games turned out to be blowouts.  One was expected (Fremantle losing to GWS in Sydney) while the other was somewhat unexpected (Collingwood destroying the Gold Coast Suns at the Etihad).  The Suns had decided to stay in Melbourne after last week’s embarrassing loss to Essendon.  The thought was that they would be rested from not traveling and would also be extra motivated by reading all the Melbourne papers making fun of them.

Even though he is now with the Giants, I do love me some Stevie J:

and awesome goals from crazy angles:

I also love the Australian obsession with numbers that are divisible by 50:

The last game of the night was the Showdown (aka the Adelaide Derby) between the Adelaide Crows and the Port Adelaide Power.  The old American football cliche is that you can throw out the records when these two get together and usually it’s a bunch of bullshit, but it rang true for this game.   Port played tough and hung in there, but ultimately succumbed to the better Crows. Of course, here is the obligatory Eddie Betts highlight:

Also of course, there was a lot of emotion in this game:

Dude got a cold cock to the face!  What, that’s not the phrase?  I choose to agree to disagree.

One sad and unfortunate side to this is that some idiot Port fan decided to imitate those racist Europeans and threw a banana at Eddie Betts.  On the bright side, reaction was swift and strong.  She is banned indefinitely by the Power.  In addition, the AFL CEO strongly condemned her actions and the club has offered to provide the fan, who has since apologized, cultural awareness training.  Does anyone see Goodell reacting in a similar way?  Reason #92048 the AFL is run better than the NFL.

On North American Saturday night, there was a tremendous bed-shitting, but no, it wasn’t me even though I had Taco Bell for lunch AND dinner!  The Melbourne Demons knew that, due to the Roos’ loss, they could tie them and possibly pass them in the standings if they could win that night and next week against Geelong.  Well, they couldn’t even beat the Carlton Blues and thus said goodbye to the season in what had to be the most frustrating way for Demon fans.

I love it when AFL teams play in the rain:

Later, my beloved Geelong Cats ripped a dangerous fart in the second quarter of their game against the Lions and almost let them back into the game.  The sheets stayed clean and the Cats cruised in the second half to win by a score of 129-69 to vault back into the top four.   Funny that this happened against the Cats:

In the last game of the Round, the Western Bulldogs shook off their injury woes just enough to beat the lowly Essendon Bombers. Surprisingly, there are a lot of highlights from this game:

Wood drills one… he he he….

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

Here is the schedule for the LAST Round of the Home and Away season (All times Pacific):

Friday August 26

Adelaide Crows v West Coast Eagles at Adelaide Oval (3.10 AM)  LIVE on Fox Sports 1 and TSN5!!

Geelong Cats v Melbourne Demons at Simonds Stadium (8.45pm)  LIVE on Fox Sports 2!

Essendon Bombers v Carlton Blues at MCG (9.10pm)

Sydney Swans v Richmond Tigers at Sydney Oval (11.35pm)

Saturday August 27

Gold Coast Suns v Port Adelaide Power at Metricon Stadium (2.25 AM)

North Melbourne Kangaroos v GWS Giants at Etihad Stadium (2.40 AM)  LIVE on Fox Soccer Plus

St. Kilda Saints v Brisbane Lions at Etihad Stadium (8.10pm)

Hawthorn Hawks v Collingwood Magpies at MCG (10.20pm)

Fremantle Dockers v Western Bulldogs at Domain Stadium (11.40pm)  LIVE on Fox Soccer Plus

The final eight is now set.  The only possible changes now are in seeding.  Since everything is extremely packed, there is still a lot to play for.  The best games seem to be North Melbourne-Giants which will most likely be re-played as one of the Elimination Finals, and Adelaide-West Coast as we find out exactly how much that injury to Nic Naitanui will hurt the Eagles.

The fact that Melbourne lost to the Blues has made the Geelong-Demons clash much less compelling.  Geelong, of course, still wants to win to maintain the top four spot, but the Demons are out so they will probably not be too motivated.  It’s really a shame that St. Kilda is so far behind in percentage because the Roos will most likely lose and will end up even with the Saints on points.

So, this is where the tightening anal sphincter comes into play:

The gap for the lead in our Footy Tipping Contest is now down to only 1 game with one Round remaining.  It is important to note that Blax’ luck ran out as he forgot to put the tip in AGAIN this week and only got 5.  BFC is within 1 point!  The Blax sphincter might be tightening but I know for sure mine is as Litre_cola is within one of me for the overall lead!  I need to get my head out of my ass this week.  DON’T FORGET TO PUT THE TIP IN!

This was also where SonofSpam flirted with perfection but, much like our collective experience in high school, got left with a case of Carlton Blue balls as the Demons failed to deliver the perfect nine for nine predictions.  There is a moral/biblical lesson in there somewhere, I think.

Next week we wrap up the regular season, look forward to the finals, and speculate wildly about who will win the whole enchilada.  Or, since this is Australia, the whole meat pie.  Before I leave, I want to give you Reason #878706723 the AFL is run better than the NFL.  Do you ever in a million years see something like that happening in the NFL?  No. Fucking. Way.  See you next week!

BTW, in lieu of cake or well wishes, I will happily accept cheesecake photos in the comments!