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.

Friday

Carlton (138) v Geelong (75)

It’s disappointing, but I have to admit, Carlton are a good side, and might even be on the verge of becoming a great one.

If you’re under thirty, this will all seem new and confusing to you. It’s as if suddenly the sun didn’t come up or the AFL admitted it was wrong.

And you are right to be worried. Essendon and Carlton are both in the top four and it’s not March, but late June.

As someone that was alive when these two sides were last good, let me just tell you what it was like; human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... Mass Hysteria!

And this was an absolute belting of Geelong. It was the new prisoner sending a message by beating up the toughest guy on the block.

Like an aging silverback, Geelong’s reign is coming to an end. It’s their sixth loss in seven games and was compounded by Patrick Dangerfield receiving a one-match ban for a dangerous tackle on Sam Walsh and an injury to Tom Hawkins.

Like Geelong, Hawkins have defied age. But like the movie Tangled taught us, you can only do that for so long.

The greatest tagger in life is Father Time. Even better than Will Phillips.

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Saturday

Port Adelaide (73) v Brisbane (152)

Brisbane are back.

It didn’t make sense that they started the season like a stoner riding an e-scooter. Their list is just too good.

Finally, things are starting to click, they have remembered how to play football, and the way they destroyed Port was brutal.

I’m talking Chuck Norris in Lone Wolf McQuade brutal. A movie I saw when I was far too young, but it was the 1980s, and parents didn’t really supervise you beyond checking in every few hours to see if you were still alive.

Port made a few mistakes; one being letting Brisbane kick 12 consecutive goals.

Power fans, never a chilled-out lot to begin with, could be heard booing, as their team looked more confused than an inner-city barista on an oil rig.

The Sack Ken Hinkley Brigade, who I believe are an official supporter group, will have plenty of material.

The problem is, there are a host of teams, from fifth to thirteenth on the ladder, who are all capable of handing out a belting or being belted, 

The difference between them all is paper thin.

Sacking Ken might work, but the problem with sacking coaches is you then have to rely on your board to make a good choice for the next coach.

Boards get this right about 15 per cent of the time.

Greater Western Sydney (75) v Sydney (102)

Once again, Sydney toyed around with their opposition before deciding they’d had enough and kicked ten goals in a row

That was sort of the end of it, although the Swans did then use the last quarter to basically warm down, which made the score look more flattering to the Giants than it should.

Concerning for the Swans was the fact that Joel Amartey kicked nine less goals than he did last week. That’s a massive drop-off in performance.

What’s so annoying about the Swans this season is they have so many players who can step up.

It’s like a teenager fighting acne, just as you see off a few pimples, ten more arise the day you have a date.

That brings back some memories. Not the date, but the acne.

It was a rough time for me in adolescence.

Being called ‘pizza face’ every day was traumatic.

What’s worse is my parents have never apologised.

Luckily, adolescence passes, replaced by adulthood, a more stressful time, but with slightly less acne.  

Melbourne (70) v North Melbourne (67)

Melbourne might be putting together one of the most ham-fisted seasons in history. I’m not talking about just being terrible, they’ve done that before.

I’m talking about making bonehead move after bonehead move.

There’s the preseason from hell, trading away Brodie Grundy for next to nothing, letting James Jordan go, the doctors who thought a grey-faced Petracca should go back out on the ground, an inability to fix forward entries despite years to do so, and now Steven May staging.

Melbourne may not be able to kick goals, but they can kick own goals.

This was certainly evident in the fourth quarter, when Melbourne didn’t score, at all, while North booted five goals.

North fans are well over plucky losses, but at least there’s enthusiasm around the club, a sense that finally things are changing.

It seems each week they turn over a rock and find another talented young player.

They even got stuck into Melbourne, with a rare all-in melee, although it was a very soft melee.

Even the Auskick kids looked on with disdain plainly evident on their faces.

Sunday

Essendon (122) v West Coast (92)

In previous years, with a West Coast team quickly improving, the Bombers would have dropped this one in heartbreaking fashion.

But they did not.

Previous rebuilds at Essendon have tended to fall over with alarming regularity.

The slightest bit of pressure and they went down in exciting and unpredictable ways.

Like the Three Little Pigs, the Bombers seemed to do their rebuilds using straw.

They wanted the rebuild done quickly. Of course, anyone with a kindergarten-level education knows that the minute some wolf comes along with a decent lung capacity, you’re rebuild is going to be in trouble. 

Many Essendon boards have lacked a kindergarten-level education.

This board seems to be a bit more advanced. They are doing things properly.

The question is, are they using sticks or bricks?

It’s a bit early to tell, but it’s a nice change for Essendon supporters, who have had to get used to their club making decisions so bad they’d begun to wonder if they were doing it on purpose.

Fremantle (85) v Gold Coast (65)

Gold Coast may be the most relatable team in the competition. They don’t like going out.

They just want to stay at home where it’s warm.

They haven’t won an away game since May 12^th, 2023, and this was their 14^th away loss in a row.

Look, I get it. Going out is exhausting. There are people. There are more people. You have to put on pants.

It’s a nightmare. Unfortunately, you just have to get on with it.

Fremantle needed this win.

Last week, the Bulldogs treated them with contempt. Luckily for the Dockers, the competition is so close you can stuff up badly and still stay relevant.

It’s like the Australian media in that way.

Sitting in fifth place, every Dockers fan is looking at the rest of the season and thinking ‘Whatever happens next is going to hurt from here.’

BYE: Adelaide, Collingwood, Western Bulldogs, Hawthorn, St Kilda, Richmond

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