This week,
Seriously though, the AFL did continue playing through the World Cup. And stuff happened! Let’s get to it!
Welcome to Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat!
Round 13
The Round started, awkwardly for those that didn’t read the AFL Beats on Monday and Tuesday, on Australian Thursday Night which meant Wednesday night/ Thursday morning here in North America.
The Port Adelaide Power were hosting the Western Bulldogs and let’s just say the only thing anyone missed was putting the Footy Tips in.
The Power ran away with this one 132-75. And it wasn’t that close. Here are the highlights:
The normal Thursday night/ Friday morning match was a good one between the Sydney Swans and the league-leading West Coast Eagles. Sharp readers will remember that the Swans are the only team to beat the Eagles this season.
Make it two in a row for the Swans as they beat the Eagles relatively comfortably at home. Final score was 72-57. Highlights:
The Friday Night games were, fortunately, not too appealing as I had woken up early to watch Sydney-West Coast and Russia-Saudi Arabia. Thus, I completely skipped watching the Fremantle Dockers win impressively away from home.
The final score was 46-103 and the Blues are looking more and more like a lock to win the Wooden Spoon. Highlights:
The next game provided a surprising result for me when I woke up on Saturday. Granted, the Gold Coast Suns and the St. Kilda Saints are… not good, but I was pleasantly surprised to see, well, let’s watch the last two minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXEvmfXQN2s
Saints come through with a big win away from home. Full game highlights:
Thanks to the World Cup organizing committee, I was able to watch Hawthorn take on Adelaide at the same time the Australian national soccer team, the Socceroos, took on France.
The Socceroos acquitted themselves well and really deserved at least a draw. One thing I noticed is that the soccer team plays very similar to how AFL teams play. It was very cool to watch side by side.
As for the AFL game, the Hawks turned a close game into a rout with a tremendous third quarter. The final score was 88-32 and the Crows may be calling it a season with games against West Coast, Richmond, and Geelong in the next three matches. Here are the highlights:
The last game of the Round was also the best: Geelong v Richmond at the MCG. Despite waking up at 3 AM to watch France v Australia and Hawthorn v Adelaide, I managed to stay up until 1 AM to finish this out. It was a close game throughout with small mistakes at critical times costing Geelong the win. At least it’s something to learn from. Here are the highlights.
Let’s take a look at the ladder, shall we?
| P | TEAM | W | L | T | POINTS | % |
| 1 | Richmond Tigers | 10 | 3 | 0 | 40 | 135.0 |
| 2 | West Coast Eagles | 10 | 2 | 0 | 40 | 129.2 |
| 3 | Sydney Swans | 10 | 3 | 0 | 40 | 125.7 |
| 4 | Melbourne Demons | 8 | 4 | 0 | 32 | 130.4 |
| 5 | Geelong Cats | 8 | 5 | 0 | 32 | 126.2 |
| 6 | Collingwood Magpies | 8 | 4 | 0 | 32 | 118.6 |
| 7 | Port Adelaide Power | 8 | 4 | 0 | 32 | 113.8 |
| 8 | North Melbourne Kangaroos | 7 | 5 | 0 | 28 | 118.2 |
| 9 | Hawthorn Hawks | 7 | 5 | 0 | 28 | 110.7 |
| 10 | GWS Giants | 6 | 5 | 1 | 26 | 112.0 |
| 11 | Adelaide Crows | 6 | 7 | 0 | 24 | 100.4 |
| 12 | Fremantle Dockers | 6 | 7 | 0 | 24 | 88.7 |
| 13 | Essendon Bombers | 5 | 7 | 0 | 20 | 90.2 |
| 14 | Western Bulldogs | 4 | 8 | 0 | 16 | 73.1 |
| 15 | Gold Coast Suns | 3 | 9 | 0 | 12 | 64.5 |
| 16 | St. Kilda Saints | 2 | 10 | 1 | 10 | 70.8 |
| 17 | Brisbane Lions | 1 | 11 | 0 | 4 | 78.7 |
| 18 | Carlton Blues | 1 | 11 | 0 | 4 | 61.9 |
The byes are over after next week so we’ll have a pretty clear indication then who is in contention and who isn’t. I do expect Geelong to tumble down the ladder a bit since they don’t play next week.
Here is the Balls Graph (TM, but may be leasing it out to Brick soon):
[gview file=”https://www.doorfliesopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/AFL-Ladder-2018R13.pdf”]
***
Footy Tipping Contest
Here is where we are after Round 13:
| P | TIPPER | Round Tips | Round Margin | TOTAL Tips | TOTAL Margin |
| 1 | SonOfSpam | 6 | 39 | 82 | 317 |
| 2 | Sunrisesunrise | 6 | 2 | 81 | 329 |
| 3 | Spanky Datass | 5 | 57 | 81 | 382 |
| 4 | Litre_cola | 4 | 40 | 76 | 319 |
| 5 | WhyEaglesWhy | 4 | 31 | 75 | 373 |
| 6 | BALLS | 4 | 34 | 74 | 369 |
| 7 | 2 | 57 | 70 | 389 | |
| 8 | Dolph Ucker | 3 | 57 | 69 (NICE!) | 519 |
| 9 | BFC | 5 | 31 | 68 | 347 |
| 10 | JPF | 4 | 43 | 64 | 401 |
| 11 | nomonkeyfun | 3 | 57 | 61 | 368 |
| 12 | Game Time Decision | 5 | 25 | 58 | 427 |
| 13 | blaxabbath | 3 | 57 | 51 | 414 |
| 14 | Sharkbait | 3 | 57 | 49 | 457 |
It is still a wide-open race with the leaders changing positions yet again! Congratulations to SonOfSpam and Sunrisesunrise for perfect weeks and a hearty well-done to Game Time Decision who continues to rocket up the standings and has another tipper in his sights.
On the not-so-bright side, we had a few tippers that did not realize games started early this week. For that, you get this:
DON’T FORGET TO PUT THE FOOTY TIPS IN!!!
***
AFL Round 14
Here is the schedule for this week (all times Pacific):
Thursday, June 21, 2018
3:10 AM (Late Wednesday Night) – West Coast Eagles v Essendon Bombers at Optus Stadium
West Coast will want to make up for this week’s loss to Sydney. That’s not good news for the Bombers.
Friday, June 22, 2018
2:50 AM (Late Thursday Night) – Port Adelaide Power v Melbourne Demons at Adelaide Oval
Port again gets a game early in the week at home. The first one against the Doggies was easy, this one not so much.
8:45 PM – Hawthorn Hawks v Gold Coast Suns at University of Tasmania Stadium
It was nice that the Suns got the win this week because they’re not getting it next week.
11:35 PM – Brisbane Lions v GWS Giants at the Gabba
The Giants are trying to revive their Eight hopes. They cannot afford to underestimate the Lions and lose this one.
Saturday, June 23, 2018
2:25 AM (Late Friday Night) – Western Bulldogs v North Melbourne Kangaroos at Marvel Stadium
The Doggies looked horrible and the Roos are coming off a rest.
10:20 PM – Collingwood Magpies v Carlton Blues at the MCG
This is a classic matchup and it will most likely result in a classic beatdown.
BYES: Adelaide Crows, Fremantle Dockers, Geelong Cats, Richmond Tigers, St. Kilda Saints, Sydney Swans
***
As we found out last week, the early Wednesday night/Thursday morning caught a few tippers off guard. Don’t let that happen to you! This is your second reminder.
You’re welcome.
Enjoy the week!
I forgot to pick the margin in the first match, like a dumbass. But it’s not like I would have picked PORT to win by 57. More like 12 or 15.
/over reacts and picks West Coast to win by a stupidly bloated margin for this week’s match
I really want to go back to a world where Collingwood sucks.
Your friend is just talking all kinds of shit, isn’t he?
Can the Saints be good too?
They were for one quarter this week. That’s… progress.
This was not my favorite week of results. Dammit.
Also, this…
Cool. I’ll take the blonde and the Mexican chick.
Buying in bulk is best.
Two of each, then.