Your AFL Beat and Thursday Night Open Thread

I know what you’re thinking, but no, the AFL coverage will not end until you all are bought in on Aussie Footy or I die.  Or I get lazy. Whichever comes first.

This past week my GWS Giants showed they’ve still got fight left in this rebuilding season, Port throttled Western, West Coast is terrible, and Brody Grundy made Collingwood regret showing him the door while virtually all of Melbourne donned blue beanies to fight Motor Neuron(e) Disease…ON THE KING’S BIRTHDAY NO LESS  (I don’t actually care, but it came up a lot during the broadcast).

Oh, and former President Trump got arrested.  That was almost as good as the GWS game.

Short story long, we’re 13 weeks into this AFL season, and the playoffs (or “Finals”) picture is starting to take shape. The Giants came into this past week sitting at 4-8, 15th on the ladder, and widely to be considered the longest of longshots to make the top 8. In fact, the commentators literally said it was almost like an elimination game this week to keep their postseason hopes alive against North Melbourne, who entered the contest on a 10 game losing streak.  So I have no idea why it was such a big surprise that the Giants played like the better team that they are, but it was more than signs of life, they were legit good, save some sporadic kick efficiency problems.  103-75 your final, Adam Kingsley looks like a damn genius, and here are your highlights:

I watched a little of a lot of games this week, but I’m freaking tired and getting up super early tomorrow, so let’s just share the highlights from the week:

The mark of the year contenders from this round:

And the ladder after 13 weeks:

This week’s matchup against Freo is another biggie, but win or lose, this team is exciting to watch. The proverbial orange tsunami is back, baby!

Oh, and despite Rev’s ramblings, it is NOT that hard to follow this sport!  Pick a team, pay a nominal membership fee, and watch as many or as few games as you want on the WatchAFL app.  Or just go to the AFL’s youtube channel and get the highlights.

What’s On Tonight?

As Balls reminded us the other night TEMPTATION ISLAND IS BACK, WOOOOOOOOOOOO!  I for one welcome our sex idiot overlords. More importantly I hope Balls is still going to do Temptation Island recaps, because I can’t watch that shit but I sure can read about it!

Otherwise, um, I guess a little bit of baseball? For you canucks, the Redblacks take on the Stampeders at 6:30PM DFO time on TSN1. And for basketball, the Seattle Storm and Las Vegas Aces go head to head at 9PM DFO time on Fox Sports. CONCACAF and US Open Golf are happening, too, but you’ll have to talk to someone else about those matters.

So I guess read a book?  Or at least tell us what you’ve been reading down below. TO THE COMMENTS!