Welcome to Balls of Steel's AFL Beat! We came tantalizingly close to history on Friday night. The last place Gold Coast Suns (previously 1-10) hosted the league-leading Fremantle Dockers (previously 10-1) just a week after Fremantle had lost their first game of the season. It was reasonable to expect that they would
Tag: NFL
Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat – Round 10
Welcome To Balls of Steel's AFL Beat! So, remember how Fremantle were undefeated and were not scheduled to meet a threatening opponent for about a month? Yeah, um, about that... Richmond pulled off the upset of the season on late Thursday/early Friday by beating Fremantle in Perth by 27. The Tigers took a
Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat – Round 9 (Indigenous Round)
Welcome to Balls of Steel's AFL Beat! As I wrote earlier in the week, one of the ways the AFL honored and celebrated Australia's Indigenous culture was by having all 18 teams wear special jerseys. I did not notice until later that the referee uniforms were also specially designed. Here is
Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat – Round 8
Welcome to Balls of Steel's AFL Beat! This week, the AFL played the first of two exhibition games featuring the 50 best female players. Each women's game precedes the regularly-scheduled men's match between the Melbourne Demons and the Western Bulldogs and is streamed live and free from the AFL website. For marketing
How to Improve our Country – Part 1
I was reading Old School Zero's komment on the AFL Beat post about sports holidays and that gave me an idea. Consider this the first of an occasional series on how we can improve our country. Today, I present to you two revolutionary concepts: Concept the First: Stop naming schools after
Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat – Round 7
Welcome to Balls of Steel's AFL Beat! Last week, there were many upsets and we wondered if this week would bring the teams together or provide some separation. As it turned out, we got a bit of both. Let's dive in, shall we? The round started late Thursday night/Friday morning with the
Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat – Round 6
Welcome to Balls of Steel's AFL Beat! I am making it a habit now to wake up extra early on Friday mornings, start my workout, and have the AFL game in the background before I go to work. This week, I was specially looking forward to it since Geelong were playing
Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat – Round 5
Welcome To Balls of Steel's AFL Beat! Indeed this was/is/will be a good day as Geelong won again! It really wasn't easy as, just as in the only other win this season against Gold Coast, Geelong were barely able to survive a mad comeback in the fourth by Richmond to hang on
Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat – Round 4 (ANZAC Day)
This historic week started off with Melbourne pulling off a mild upset in beating Richmond. The game was back and forth for the first half, but Melbourne pulled away in the second to even their record at 2-2 while Richmond falls to 2-2. The game featured this great mark from
The case against a NFL team in L.A.
Sam Farmer of the L.A. Times has produced another of his many many columns about the possibility of a new stadium in the greater Los Angeles area and therefore the possibility of one or more NFL teams moving into this stadium. It features a pretty slide show and, if you
Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat – Round 3
I had a pretty good week! I'm healthy again, no ex-gf drama, and I even won some money playing poker! Welcome to Balls of Steel's AFL Beat! The week started off late Thursday with a bit of a return to expected form in Collingwood's thrashing of St. Kilda. Not much was expected
Balls of Steel’s AFL Beat – Round 1
Steele Sidebottom is out with a broken thumb for at least a few weeks. The good news: There is a player in the AFL who is named Steele Sidebottom. Welcome to Balls of Steel's AFL Beat! Even though he plays for Collingwood, who were destroying the Brisbane Lions (up at one point