Footy is a passion, not some cold hearted, spread sheet dominated rational exercise.

On a Monday, you want irrational reaction. You want emotion to trump reason.

What you really want is idiotic hysteria.

You’ve come to the right place.

West Coast (52) v Essendon (80)

Seriously.

Footy tipping is the only test where if you get an answer wrong, it proves you know a lot about football.

At least that’s what I tell myself.

West Coast was and still is the right answer to the question who will win this game?

I still believe this in the strongest possible manner, even though I watched this game and saw the Eagles dial in a performance so lukewarm it could have been delivered by the catering at the stadium.

Personally, I don’t need a test to tell me I know nothing, the outcomes in my life provide regular feedback about that.

Essendon beat the Eagles in Perth? It makes no sense.

In fairness, the umpires tried their hardest, giving the Eagles a 33-17 free quick count, but unfortunately, the AFL hasn’t yet allowed the umpires to take the shots at goal and the Eagles return of 6-16 undid all the officials’ hard work.

It was the perfect start to a weekend of truly horrendous umpiring, with the addition of a fourth umpire simply increasing the amount of truly weird interpretations.

Umpires are like ‘wellness experts’ more of them is never a good thing.

Not to take away from the Bombers performance, they smashed the Eagles midfield in the first half so brutally the West Coast crowd forgot to boo.

They looked so miserable I could only assume the Channel Seven commentary was being pumped into the stadium.

Port Adelaide (75) v Melbourne (65)

Friday was a terrible day for me personally. Melbourne lost and Channel Seven announced Michael Slater would be joining their cricket coverage.

Strangely, they trumpeted this like it was a positive thing, not a national tragedy.

Since winning the premiership back in May the Demons have gone on a Western Bulldogs style nosedive.

As a bitter Melbourne supporter, I have to mention the umpiring was horrendous, but it was like that all weekend, so you have to deal with that.

The Power were also cleaner when it mattered. The Demons went into their forward 50 a lot but they kept forgetting to kick goals.

What was great was playing Jesse Hogan up the ground a lot. When you’re struggling to kick goals despite going forward a lot, the last thing you want is a key forward of his quality up forward.

The Power simply got more bang for their buck, defended well and Ollie Wines reminded the Dees why drafting Jimmy Toumpas ahead of him was the worst decision since Adelaide said “yes, hiring ‘mental skills coaches’ is a great idea.”

Port Adelaide look like they’re setting themselves up for a nice little run. The Demons need to find another gear or imagine them missing out on finals by percentage again.

Because that’s all I imagine.

Hawthorn (96) v Gold Coast (43)

Gold Coast visited Tasmania and delivered a performance the AFL is hoping will cool the Tasmanians’ desire for a team of their own.

The Suns didn’t help the cause early though by doing a really good impression of an AFL side.

Then they remembered they aren’t and kicked 0.5 in the second and third quarters.

The AFL will never move the Suns of course. That would mean they were wrong and the AFL is never wrong, the fans are, because we’re just the idiots who fund the entire exercise.

Hawthorn were as shocked as anyone when the Suns came out strong and took a while to get over it.

Both sides began trading shots and seemed to be trying their best to outdo the other in missing.

If not kicking a goal was the aim of the game, this would have been a cracker.

Instead, the Hawks slowly got on top and ground the Suns into submission, with the only negative being Shaun Burgoyne suffering a slight hamstring strain.

The Hawks’ hopes of September remain alive.

Brisbane (82) v Greater Western Sydney (109)

So, the Lions lost again but the real talking point was when Jeremy Cameron’s elbow on Harris Andrews in a marking contest.

Well. Sort of a marking contest, more Cameron leapt in the air and delivered a flying forearm smash that Tito Santana would have been proud of.

It left Andrews with a severe concussion and what the club said was "an associated small bleed on the brain".

That’ never a phrase you want to hear, and the only good news was the club said Harris is expected to make a full recovery.

Cameron said he "definitely didn't mean to hurt him," which is an odd thing to say after an elbow like that.

He also said,"I just saw the ball coming in, I like to go the ball really hard.”

I had never realised Andrew’s head looked like a football. Perhaps Jeremy needs an eye test.

Either way, Cameron will be out for weeks, something the Giants don’t need in this injury plagued season.

Western Bulldogs (75) v North Melbourne (77)

This is why sitting at home alone on a Saturday night is better than anything else.

Sure, you get one good game like this to every fifteen bad ones, but that’s a much better ratio than good-to-terrible nights going out.

My ratio of good nights out to bad nights out is zero-to-four.

Correct, I’ve only been out four nights in my life and they’ve all been awful.

The worst bit about going out is the people. You have to speak to them and pretend to be interested. It’s exhausting.

People say things like “so I worked at finance at one company and then I moved to another company where I do the same job, but I like the people more,” and you’re meant to not just stare at them wondering how to get out of the conversation but pretend you found that interesting.

I’m not a trained actor.

The injury plagued Bulldogs had been ahead for a lot of the game, but the inevitable North push came, and it seemed all over, only for Billy Gowers to snatch the lead for the Doggies with two minutes to go.

Finally, it seemed like the Bulldogs would have some luck in a cursed year, only for Jack Ziebell to put the Kangaroos back in front with 20 seconds to go.

It was Ben Brown who had got the ball forward to him, capping off a five-goal performance.

The Bulldogs fans couldn’t believe it. It seems the only highlight of the season will be their coach surfing down a slide into an ice bath.

Collingwood (79) v Carlton (59)

Who doesn’t love a 3.20pm start? Oh, that’s right, everyone with kids doesn’t.

I guess the AFL, unfortunately, had to schedule this game at that time because of all the other games that weren’t on Sunday.

Perhaps they did it because it was on free to air? Nope, was only on Foxtel, another week of the AFL having nothing on commercial TV on Sunday.

The only conclusion is that the AFL hates families.

I watched this torn between the comedic value of Carlton winning and the idea of Carlton winning.

Perhaps the biggest sign Carlton might one day get back on the right track is that they didn’t trade Charlie Curnow to Adelaide and instead re-signed him.

Re-signing your best players is a new thing the Blues are trying out, and it seems to be paying off.

Curnow rewarded them with two of the best marks you’ll see this season and booted three goals in a performance that would have made Blues fans happy for the first time since Chris Judd signed on to save the environment.

Did Carlton win? No of course not, but they now how two good players, Charlie and Patrick Cripps. That’s two more than they’ve had in a while.

Someone might point out they have some other good players, but that would require me learning their names.

To do that, I’d have to pay close attention when Carlton play and not just drink heavily and hope it will be over soon. I’m not ready to do that.

Collingwood are now in the top four.

Yes, the top four in the AFL. It’s bonkers.

It means atomic war and a Collingwood premiership could both occur this year. I know, the latter is terrifying because we’ll be alive to see the aftermath.

Any luck we’ll get the atomic war first. Fingers crossed.

Bye: Adelaide, Fremantle, Geelong, Richmond, St Kilda, Sydney

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