AKA, So I wanna pick a team, which one should I pick?

Welcome to Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat!

The AFL season starts this week and some of you haven’t picked a team yet. I can easily understand the difficulties involved in picking a team in a sport you barely understand in a country on the other side of the globe. That’s why we have today’s post.

There are several reasons to pick a team. Here are some of them:

Peer Pressure

Do you like to go with the crowd? Do you like to watch others make horrible mistakes and learn from them so that you don’t repeat them? Then this chart is for you! Here are the teams that various DFOers have picked as their own:

AFL Team	DFO Commentist
Adelaide Crows
Brisbane Lions
Carlton Blues	King Hippo
Collingwood Magpies	JJ Fozz, Moose
Essendon Bombers	Rikki Tikki Deadly
Fremantle Dockers	Yeah Right
Geelong Cats	tWBS, Balls
Gold Coast Suns
GWS Giants	BFC, Lemonjello
Hawthorn Hawks
Melbourne Demons
North Melbourne Kangaroos	Sunrisesunrise
Port Adelaide Power	WhyEaglesWhy, entropy
Richmond Tigers
St. Kilda Saints	Litre_cola, Dok Zymm
Sydney Swans	Spanky Datass
West Coast Eagles
Western Bulldogs	SonofSpam

Alternatively, you may want to pick a team that no one has picked already.

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Recent Results

The West Coast Eagles won last year’s Grand Final over the Collingwood Magpies. Here is how all teams finished in the 2019 Home and Away season:

And here is how last year’s finals turned out:

Also, here is last year’s final Balls Graph:

[gview file=”https://www.doorfliesopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/AFL-Ladder-2018R23.pdf”]

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History

Maybe you like a team that has been around for awhile? Take a look at this:

In that chart, you can clearly see the history of each current AFL club. One thing that is not readily apparent is that the Footscray Football Club is now the Western Bulldogs. However, their history is still shown on their guernseys as you can see the initials F.F.C. on the back:

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Historical Success

Maybe you prefer a team that’s actually won premierships over the years? Check this out:

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Songs

Do you like a jaunty tune with lyrics made to support your favourite team? As with everything, some are better than others. Please click on the link below to access the post I made that has every single team’s Team Song:

Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat – First week of Preseason!

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Mascots

Within that same link above, I have links to previous previews where I provided pictures of each team’s mascot. To make life easy for you, I’m putting them all here:

I also suggest going back through my season previews from the previous year as I put in some other fun reasons why you might want to support each club such as famous celebrity fans and some historical data/fun facts.  Those previews for the teams are found in these links:

Carlton Blues, Brisbane Lions, Gold Coast Suns

Essendon Bombers, St. Kilda Saints, Melbourne Demons

Collingwood Magpies, GWS Giants, Geelong Cats, Port Adelaide Power

North Melbourne Kangaroos, Adelaide Crows, Western Bulldogs, Richmond Tigers

Sydney Swans, Hawthorn Hawks, West Coast Eagles, Fremantle Dockers

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Price

I’ve been talking quite a bit about how a membership to a club is an easy way to support the team and watch all the games. Here is an easy table to show you what you get for the cost of your membership, in Australian dollars, on top of watching all AFL games through the Watch AFL app:

AFL Team	Cost	Membership Perks/Link
Adelaide Crows	155	Member lanyard, pin, sticker and fixture magnet
Brisbane Lions	185	Card, lanyard, pin, sticker, fixture magnet and $15 Lions Shop voucher
Carlton Blues	175	Card, pin, lanyard, bumper sticker, fixture magnet, plus a choice of: scarf, cap, or beanie
Collingwood Magpies	155	Personalised scarf, bumper stickers, membership card and lanyard.
Essendon Bombers	175	Personalised member card, scarf, lanyard, lapel pin, bumper sticker
Fremantle Dockers	150	Club member entitlements
Geelong Cats	190	Membership card, keychain, scarf, bumper sticker
Gold Coast Suns	168	Card, bumper sticker, lanyard, fixture magnet, pen
GWS Giants	205	GIANTS Member cap, member card and lanyard and bumper sticker
Hawthorn Hawks	190	Loyalty Scarf or Loyalty Cap plus lanyard, sticker sheet, and fixture magnet
Melbourne Demons	170	Personalised membership card | bumper sticker | lanyard | fixture magnet
North Melbourne Kangaroos	199	Membership cap or scarf plus 10% off at Roos Shop
Port Adelaide Power	165	10% off online store plus member pack
Richmond Tigers	185	Lanyard, bumper sticker, fixture magnet, and scarf
St. Kilda Saints	180	Bag, lanyard, bumper stickers, fridge magnet, card, and choice of scarf or cap
Sydney Swans	210	Choice of cap or beanie plus tablet case and pen
West Coast Eagles	180	Nothing?
Western Bulldogs	195	Choice of scarf, beanie, or cap plus lanyard, card, and bumper sticker

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2019 Outlook

Finally, you probably want to know how the teams will do this year. Who will end up Premiers? Who will end up with the Wooden Spoon?

Here is my team-by-team outlook for each team in reverse order from last year’s finish:

Team	Last Year Finish	Preseson Record	This Year Predicted Finish
Carlton Blues	18	1-1	16
Gold Coast Suns	17	1-1	18
St. Kilda Saints	16	2-0	13
Brisbane Lions	15	2-0	15
Fremantle Dockers	14	0-2	14
Western Bulldogs	13	0-2	17
Adelaide Crows	12	1-1	7
Essendon Bombers	11	0-2	12
Port Adelaide Power	10	1-1	9
North Melbourne Kangaroos	9	0-2	10
Geelong Cats	8	1-1	6
GWS Giants	7	1-1	8
Sydney Swans	6	1-1	5
Melbourne Demons	5	0-2	11
Hawthorn Hawks	4	0-2	4
Collingwood Magpies	3	2-0	2
West Coast Eagles	2	2-0	1
Richmond Tigers	1	2-0	3

I expect some movement with the race for the last two finals spots coming down to the wire. I don’t think the Demons can maintain their form, so I see them dropping out of the Eight with the Adelaide Crows taking their place.

I also anticipate the 9 through 14 spots to be hotly contested and those teams to be separated by percentage and one win at the most. The Gold Coast Suns will take the Wooden Spoon from the Carlton Blues.

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There you have it! Now there is no reason for you not to pick a team. Please pick one and tell us about it in the comments. Also, I apologize if I missed anyone that already has picked a team and didn’t write it in the table above. Please let me know in the comments so I can add you.

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AFL Footy Tipping Contest!

Part of the fun each year is to pick the winners each week. You can compete with your fellow commentists by following this link:

https://mobile.footytips.com.au/competitions/?competitionId=401652

and signing up. I will award a prize to the winner as long as there are more than 10 tippers. Sign up today as games start this week!

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AFL Round 1

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

Thursday, March 21, 2019

1:20 AM (Late Wednesday Night) – Carlton Blues v Richmond Tigers at the MCG

Friday, March 22, 2019

1:50 AM (Late Thursday Night) – Collingwood Magpies v Geelong Cats at the MCG

7:45 PM – Melbourne Demons v Port Adelaide Power at the MCG

10:35 PM – Adelaide Crows v Hawthorn Hawks at Adelaide Oval

Saturday, March 23, 2019

1:25 AM (Late Friday Night) – Western Bulldogs v Sydney Swans at Marvel Stadium

2:20 AM (Late Friday Night) – Brisbane Lions v West Coast Eagles at The Gabba

7:10 PM – St. Kilda Saints v Gold Coast Suns at Marvel Stadium

9:20 PM – GWS Giants v Essendon Bombers at Spotless Stadium

Sunday, March 24, 2019

12:20 AM (Late Saturday Night) – Fremantle Dockers v North Melbourne Kangaroos at Optus Stadium

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See you next week for Week One of the AFL Beat!

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