This week,

Welcome to Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat!

Round 11 Recaps and Highlights

It’s too bad our normal schedule of one Australian Friday Night game (North American Thursday night), five Australian Saturday games (North American Friday night/Saturday morning), and three Australian Sunday games (North American Saturday night/Sunday morning) will be disrupted next week with the byes. I really hate the byes.

But that’s next week. This week, the first game had the recently coach-less (though they do have an interim coach) North Melbourne Kangaroos playing host to the Richmond Tigers in a game that didn’t bode well given the crazy week the team had.

Well, the Roos surprised everyone in the footy world as well as every single one of our Footy Tippers by beating the Tigers and beating them well. It was amazing to watch how they rallied together and played extremely well.

Here are the full game highlights:

The proper Friday Night game had the second-place Collingwood Magpies hosting the Fremantle Dockers in Melbourne, a place where West Coast teams don’t usually play well in.

The Dockers decided that old narrative was bunk and played the Pies even through the first quarter. While Collingwood took a second quarter lead on three consecutive goals, the Dockers came back in the third with four unanswered to take the lead right back. It all came down to the last two minutes:

Here are the full-game highlights:

Later, the GWS Giants took on the Gold Coast Suns in Sydney in a game that I expected to be a rout. It wasn’t, at least in the first quarter. As I drifted off to sleep, the Giants held a modest 5 point lead.

That was as close as it got the rest of the way. The Giants started dominating in the second quarter and then turned everything up in the second half. The final margin was as I had expected.

Here are the full-game highlights:

Even later on Friday night, my Geelong Cats hosted the Sydney Swans, who not only play better on the road, but actually really enjoy playing at Geelong. The Swans had won the previous 3 games at Geelong while the Cats had only lost one other time (this year to the Giants) in the last 24 tries.

The Swans started the game well and, if not for poor kicking, would have been well ahead. However, they missed and Geelong came back to lead at Quarter Time. This would be the theme of the day. Sydney would take control for bits but not convert while the Cats converted their chances when it was their turn to control the game.

In the end, the margin probably flattered the Cats, which has also been a theme recently. Hey, a win is still a win. Here are the highlights:

The first of the two late late Friday night games had the Hawthorn Hawks visiting the Brisbane Lions up in Queensland.

The Hawks started the game really well and held the Lions to six behinds for the entire first quarter in building a 25 point lead. The Lions regrouped though, and started chipping away at the deficit. At one point in the second, they managed to tie the score, but the Hawks scored a quick two goals to grab the Half Time lead.

The young Lions continued to chip away in the second half and were finally rewarded in the fourth as they took the lead and never looked back.

Here are the full-game highlights:

The last game of the night was probably the craziest. First off, it was held in Darwin and the Melbourne Demons were the “host” team even though the “visitors”, the Adelaide Crows are located closer to Darwin.

Second, the Demons were ahead for the entire game until the last two minutes:

That’s GOTTA hurt! Here are the full-game highlights:

I was able to watch the first quarter of the first game of North American Saturday night again before I succumbed to sleep. It was cool because it was the now-yearly game from Shanghai. The stadium is cool in an old-school retro-communism kind of way and the city is cool in a modern Blade Runner-esque kind of way.

Unfortunately for the Saints, the trip was full of headaches. They experienced delays in arriving. They rushed injured players back that got reinjured. Oh, and they lost the game. Big time.

Here are the full-game highlights:

The second of the Saturday night games had the Essendon Bombers hoping to get their season going with a morale-boosting win over the lowly Carlton Blues.

They got exactly that, holding the Blues to only 33 points for the entire game!

Here are the full-game highlights:

The last game of the Round had the West Coast Eagles hosting the Western Bulldogs in what I like to call the “West” Derby. I hereby claim all merchandising rights.

The game itself turned in the middle of the second quarter. Up until then, it had been a fairly even affair. The light switch was then turned on for the Eagles as they romped to an easy win from that point forward.

Here are the full-game highlights:

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

P	TEAM	W	L	T	PTS	%
1	Geelong Cats	10	1	0	40	144.9
2	GWS Giants	8	3	0	32	139.0
3	Collingwood Magpies	8	3	0	32	124.4
4	West Coast Eagles	8	3	0	32	108.8
5	Brisbane Lions	7	4	0	28	104.9
6	Richmond Tigers	7	4	0	28	101.3
7	Port Adelaide Power	6	5	0	24	110.9
8	Adelaide Crows	6	5	0	24	110.7
9	Fremantle Dockers	6	5	0	24	109.0
10	Essendon Bombers	5	6	0	20	102.9
11	Hawthorn Hawks	5	6	0	20	101.2
12	St. Kilda Saints	5	6	0	20	85.6
13	North Melbourne Kangaroos	4	7	0	16	91.0
14	Western Bulldogs	4	7	0	16	88.7
15	Sydney Swans	3	8	0	12	84.5
16	Melbourne Demons	3	8	0	12	77.8
17	Gold Coast Suns	3	8	0	12	69.8
18	Carlton Blues	1	10	0	4	74.3

Here is the Balls Graph:

[gview file=”https://www.doorfliesopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AFL-Ladder-2019R11.pdf”]

Thanks to Collingwood’s shock loss and the Cats holding off the feisty Swans, the Cats now have a two-game lead in the standings over the competition.

On the opposite side of the ladder, poor Carlton may be is the second team to fire its coach mid-season. They are looking worse each week.

***

Footy Tipping Contest

Here is where we are after Round Eleven:

P	TIPPER	Round Tips	Round Margin	Total Tips	Total Margin
1	Litre_cola	6	47	66	272
2	Son Of Spam	7	55	64	307
3	BFC	7	61	63	361
4	BC Dick	7	71	61	391
5	BALLS	7	87	58	352
6	Why Eagles Why	6	37	57	279
7	Dolph Ucker	7	61	57	339
8	Yeah Right	6	64	57	443
9	Game Time Decision	6	53	53	369
10		6	70	52	394
11	Sharkbait	3	37	49	600
12	Blax	5	55	44	300

Not much movement this week as everyone seemed to be pretty in tune with the results. I did vault ahead of Why Eagles Why and Dolph Ucker skipped over Yeah Right in the standings. In the meantime, Litre_cola’s lead is slowly shrinking.

We did have one tipper that forgot to put the footy tips in and got punished for it as road teams only managed to win three games. You know who you are. Nicely done to everyone else!

DONT FORGET TO PUT THE FOOTY TIPS IN!

***

AFL Round 12

This week the byes start, so there will only be six games. Here is the schedule for this week (all times Pacific):

Friday, June 7, 2019

2:50 AM (Late Thursday Night!) – Richmond Tigers v Geelong Cats at the MCG

The Tigers beat the Cats in the finals last year when they were #1. The Cats are now #1…

8:45 PM – Carlton Blues v Brisbane Lions at Marvel Stadium

The Lions have a very good chance to boost their finals hopes with a big win at Melbourne. However, will the Blues get the new coach bump like the Roos?

11:35 PM – Gold Coast Suns v North Melbourne Kangaroos at Metricon Stadium

The Suns are doing their Suns thing of fading while the Roos are surprisingly playing well after getting rid of their coach.

Saturday, June 8, 2019

2:40 AM – Adelaide Crows v GWS Giants at Adelaide Oval

This is the Match of the Round. It will be a very good game to watch. Too bad it’s on in the middle of the night.

10:20 PM – Sydney Swans v West Coast Eagles at the SCG

The Eagles do a complete cross-country trip to take on the Swans. Fatigue will be the only hope the Swans have for a win.

10:20 PM – Collingwood Magpies v Melbourne Demons at the MCG

I’m sure the Pies will take out their frustrations on the hapless Demons after last week’s loss to the Dockers.

***

That’s all for this week! Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I have surpassed the magic number of 69 posts this calendar year for DFO! One New Year’s Resolution down, four more to go!

Also, I want to remind everyone that the Metro Pub Crawl will be this coming Saturday! See you all there!

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