You know, I really like how Jeremy Clarkson does the intros each week for The Grand Tour.  In that vein, this week:

And

In reality, lots of things happened this week and will happen in the week coming up. It was another week and another loss for the defending champions, the AFLX debuts this week, and we have 11 tippers in our Lady Footy pool, which means I am guaranteeing a fabulous prize!  More on that later, but first:

Welcome to Balls Of Steel’s AFL Beat!

Round Two

We begin with the North American Thursday Late Night Game That I Can’t Watch Because I Work On Fridays matchup between the Carlton Blues and the GWS Giants at a place called Drummoyne Oval which is located in Sydney’s inner west side and served as the Giants’ home ground.  The ground itself was good, but a couple of things conspired against the Giants: 1) The Carlton Blues started playing like the Premiership favorites that they are, and 2) there was a crazy electrical storm that halted play for 20 minutes at Quarter Time.

It probably would have been best for the Giants if the game had been called after one quarter as they were leading on a goal from Phoebe McWilliams compared to just 4 behinds from the Blues.  After the long break, however, it seemed the Blues got their accuracy back as they kicked some goals and ran away with the game.  Here are the highlights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no86aQ1snKY

As you may have noted, this YouTuber is a Carlton fan and only uploaded the highlights from the Carlton side.  It doesn’t matter though, as really there was nothing to show from the home side.  One downside to the win is that star Blue Brianna Davey is out for the season with a torn ACL.  Tayla Harris also got a knock on the shoulder, but she seems to be ok going forward.

The second game of the Round had the struggling defending champions visiting the strong contenders, the Melbourne Demons.  As those of you that got an A in Reading Comprehension already know, the Crows lost again and this time by a healthy margin. Here are the highlights from the Adelaide Crows YouTube channel:

That first goal by Melbourne’s Karen Paxman was pretty sweet. Adelaide coach Bec Goddard is not blaming the absence of Erin Phillips on the team’s 0-2 start, but you can tell they’re not the same team.  The other girls need to step up and improve their effort.

The third game featured the debut of Perth’s Optus Stadium as a Footy ground.  The pressure was on the Fremantle Dockers to take care of business and deliver a win. Which, despite a hot start from the Collingwood Magpies, they did. 41,975 fans made their way into the stadium and were left happy after the Dockers and Pies played a free-flowing game with plenty of tackles, big hits, and good plays.  Here are the highlights:

That’s pretty impressive.  Congrats to the Dockers on the big win.

The last game of the Round had the two co-leaders of the competition meeting up in Queensland. After last week’s sweet revenge win against Adelaide, it seemed the Brisbane Lions came out flat against the Western Bulldogs. The Doggies took advantage, particularly in a hot second quarter. After a fiery halftime “talk” from the coach, the Lions played much better in the second half and held the Bulldogs scoreless in the third while getting back in the game.

The Doggies, however, reacted in the fourth and it ended up being a fairly even contest in the end.  Unfortunately for the Lions, the damage had been done and the Doggies took home the road win. On the negative side, the Doggies lost #1 pick Isabel Huntington when she reinjured the knee in which she had torn her ACL in 2016.  As of press time (I’ve always wanted to say that), it is not clear what the extent of the injury is.  I couldn’t find an uploaded video on YouTube with highlights, so here are the lovely and talented Brisbane Lions doing their fun social media videos:

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

Talk about going from the Penthouse to the Outhouse!  It’s been a rough year for the Crows and will get rougher if the rest of the team doesn’t pick up Erin Phillips’ slack.  Since the season is only 7 games long, they need to pick it up quick!

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Round Three

Here is this week’s schedule (all times Pacific):

Friday,  February 16, 2018

7:05 PM  – Adelaide Crows v Western Bulldogs at Norwood Oval

Saturday,  February 17, 2018

12:40 AM (Late Friday Night) – Carlton Blues v Brisbane Lions at Ikon Park

9:35 PM – Collingwood Magpies v GWS Giants at Olympic Park

11:35 PM – Fremantle Dockers v Melbourne Demons at Fremantle Oval

This is the Bulldogs’ chance to kill off the defending champions for the rest of the competition.  A win in Adelaide would be HUGE for the Doggies’ premiership hopes. Meanwhile, the Lions have a MUST WIN in Melbourne against the Blues if they want any chance to contend again this year.  The Magpies and Giants will try to claim their first win while the Dockers are in the same boat as the Lions in their game against the Demons.

It’s going to be a very interesting weekend of footy!

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Lady Footy Tipping Challenge!

I’m very happy to announce that we have 11 tippers!  Yes, this means that the winner will get a fabulous prize donated by yours truly.  I am not sure quite yet what it will be, but be assured that the value will be over $50 USD.  I’m leaning towards a fabulous bottle of alcohol, but shipping it is a bit of a pain (and possibly illegal), so we’ll see.  Any suggestions as to prizes are welcome in the comments.

How did we do this week?  Well, here is the table with our new tippers:

Congratulations to the three tippers that joined the pool last week and are STILL ahead of BFC.  To be fair, something quirky was going on with the tipping site and Dolph Ucker’s (and possibly others’) picks were not reflected last week.  We should be good going forward.

Everyone was good again this week and only Litre forgot to put the tip in for the first game, so I won’t subject you to foot fetish pics.  Actually, Litre lucked out as any excluded pick defaults to the road team and the Blues won, so he got a freebie point.  Don’t make go incognito mode to find foot fetish pics!

DON’T FORGET TO PUT THE FOOTY TIPS IN!

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AFLX

So, the big experiment that is AFLX will finally debut this week.  I have researched and found articles saying that AFLX WILL be shown on the Watch AFL app.  HOWEVAH, I do not see the games listed on the “Upcoming Matches” section of the Watch AFL app.  HOWEVAH AGAIN, I know that Fox Footy will be televising the games live, which means you should be able to tune in to the Fox Footy channel on the Watch AFL app and watch the games that way.

Alternatively, I see on my TV listings that Fox Sports Plus will be showing AFLX live.  Unfortunately, I don’t have Fox Sports Plus and I don’t know many who do.  It’s really ridiculous that they charge so much for that one channel!  It’s far cheaper and better to become a member of an AFL club and get the Watch AFL full season package.

Here is the schedule (again, all times Pacific):

Adelaide Games

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

11:40 PM – Port Adelaide Power v Geelong Cats (Pool A game)

Thursday, February 15, 2018

12:08 AM – Adelaide Crows v Collingwood Magpies (Pool B game)

12:36 AM – Geelong Cats v Fremantle Dockers (Pool A game)

1:04 AM – West Coast Eagles v Adelaide Crows (Pool B game)

1:32 AM – Fremantle Dockers v Port Adelaide Power (Pool A game)

2:00 AM – Collingwood Magpies v West Coast Eagles (Pool B game)

2:33 AM – Winner of Pool A v Winner of Pool B

Melbourne Games

Thursday, February 15, 2018

11:40 PM – Carlton Blues v Melbourne Demons (Pool A game)

Friday, February 16, 2018

12:08 AM – Hawthorn Hawks v Essendon Bombers (Pool B game)

12:36 AM – North Melbourne Kangaroos v Carlton Blues (Pool A game)

1:04 AM – Essendon Bombers v St. Kilda Saints (Pool B game)

1:32 AM – Melbourne Demons v North Melbourne Kangaroos (Pool A game)

2:00 AM – St. Kilda Saints v Hawthorn Hawks (Pool B game)

2:33 AM – Winner of Pool A v Winner of Pool B

Sydney Games

Friday, February 16, 2018

9:10 PM – GWS Giants v Richmond Tigers (Pool A game)

9:08 PM – Sydney Swans v Western Bulldogs (Pool B game)

10:06 PM – Richmond Tigers v Brisbane Lions (Pool A game)

10:34 PM – Western Bulldogs v Gold Coast Suns (Pool B game)

11:02 PM – Brisbane Lions v GWS Giants (Pool A game)

11:30 PM – Gold Coast Suns v Sydney Swans (Pool B game)

Saturday, February 17, 2018

12:03 AM – Winner of Pool A v Winner of Pool B

Remember that these games will have 10 minute halves and are played on a field closer to the size of a soccer or American football field.   The action should be interesting to watch.  I’ll be interested to check it out and see if the concept will work here in North America.

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That’s all for this week. There is A LOT of action coming up next week, so make sure you catch at least some of it.  See you next week!