May 11, 2017

AFL

A highly unhelpful guide to Round Eight

26 Comments

It’s the only guide to the round that admits it’s completely unhelpful. What it lacks in insight, it makes up for with poor grammar and spellings.

It’s your unhelpful guide to round eight.

Friday

West Coast v Western Bulldogs (DS) 8.10pm

Being a recluse with little to occupy my time, means I get plenty of time to think about the big issues. Like, should I be more worried about my stress or my shame eating?

The other thing I was thinking about this week was the oversupply of ‘western teams’ in the AFL.

West Coast, Western Bulldogs and Greater Western Sydney. The AFL has a problematic lack of diversity when it comes to directions.

There’s a startling lack of Easts, the only South team was purposely moved North to Sydney, and the AFL is trying to move North Melbourne south, to Tasmania.

Perhaps the pro-west position of the AFL is reflective of an imperialistic view of history and simply reflective of the East–West dichotomy that still dominates much of the World’s thinking, no matter how out of date it is. And did it ever really exist? I know, I hear you.

It could also all be coincidence, and I need to turn my mind to more important things, like how did Obi-Wan Kenobi not recognise R2-D2 in A New Hope when he’d spent a lot of those awful prequels with him?

I should add this will be a great game.

After last week’s nightmare round of tipping, I’m hesitant to go again, but I’m tipping the Bulldogs.

When it comes to tipping, may the Footy Gods have mercy on us all.

Saturday

Hawthorn v Brisbane (UTS) 1.45pm

If you’d have told Chris Fagan when he moved to Brisbane that in round eight he’d have the Lions just two spots below the Hawks, he’d have been thrilled.

It seems that Hawthorn misses Fagan so much that they’ve decided to join him on the bottom of the ladder.

Sadly, the Hawks have won a few games recently, and I worry they will pick up another here.

Not that it’s all rosy for Hawthorn, Jaeger O'Meara has ‘indefinite’ next to him on the injury list. ‘Indefinite’ in footy speak means ‘we have no idea, but it could be ages.’

Luckily for the Hawks, Brisbane seem to have significantly dropped off in recent weeks, after a not terrible start to the year.

I think Hawthorn should win, but it shows you how far they’ve fallen when a game against the bottom side is no longer seen as a sure thing for them.

St Kilda v Carlton (ES) 2.10pm

A lot of positivity around Carlton currently, meaning they’re not quite good enough yet for us to all hate them.

There’s nothing worse than opposition fans saying nice things about your team; it means they don’t fear you at all. We’re only nice to the hopeless clubs.

I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I’ve had someone tell me they think the Dees are going to come good. It’s just the polite thing to say, like telling Shannon Noll that his career is certainly going to rebound.

The Blues might find this week a bit tougher after Collingwood. St Kilda have a few things Collingwood doesn’t, namely a forward line.

A lot of people have said the Giants were a scalp St Kilda needed, but if this year has taught us anything, beating a top side means not a lot, teams are just as likely to drop a game to a bottom side.

Never has consistency been so elusive. I’m tipping the Saints here, but like you, I’ve got no idea what’s going on.

GWS v Collingwood (SS) 4.35pm

Whenever it seems like it’s all over for Nathan Buckley, he pulls out a big win. This would have all the signs, except the Giants were embarrassed last week.

With the game on the line against the Saints, GWS revealed a soft underbelly. That means they’ll be all keyed up for a big game.

They’ll be a lot of heat in this match because as we all know, all of Collingwood’s problems are GWS’ fault.

Interestingly, Scott Pendlebury said this week that he would leave at half time if his partner goes into labour.

Now, I never like it when players put their families first. The only time someone in football should say they want to spend more time with their family is when they’ve been sacked.

No one ever asks the family if they want to spend more time with that person. I can imagine a spokesperson for the family saying, ‘We are disappointed that Darren will no longer be working 100 hour weeks and will be hanging around the house getting in the way and making a nuisance of himself.”

In Pendlebury’s case, I guess it’s an easy decision. The birth of a child is a milestone event in a person’s life while playing in a Collingwood loss is an opportunity he gets every week.

My only concern is the whole team might decide to leave with him at half time.

Giants to win.

Essendon v Geelong (MCG) 7.25pm

This is the ‘Country Game’, a themed game that I wholeheartedly support.

After all, the country is better than the city. People in the city are godless criminals, while country folk are the salt of the earth, with a homespun wisdom that is both comforting and insightful.

Whatever way you look at it, the country is just better than the city; it’s why most Australians choose to live in country towns.

Like me after a couple of minutes of brisk walking, the Bombers are out on their feet and just want to go home to bed.

Essendon have been fading faster the Clive Palmers’ ‘alternate A-League’ project did.

Geelong hasn't been setting the world on fire either. Any side that loses to Collingwood and the Gold Coast in consecutive weeks has a few structural flaws.

This will be the 300th game for a favourite son of Geelong, James Kelly. Unfortunately, he will be playing for Essendon. If the Cats were so desperate to build a side that could lose to Collingwood, it makes you wonder why they ever let him go.

I'm tipping Geelong.

Adelaide v Melbourne (AO) 7.40pm

Last week, the Crows turned in one of the all-time awful quarters. It was a work of art. Not only did they let their opponents score freely, but they also managed not to score at all. Not scoring at all in a game of footy is very hard to do.

What was very worrying for Crows fans was watching Brad Scott outcoach them. That sort of wipes away all the goodwill Don Pyke had built up.

The prevailing logic is the Crows got a wake-up call they needed and will bounce back this week.

Demons fans look at this and think ‘we’ll that’s just great. Of course, we’d get them after that.”

While the Crows had the worst quarter of the season, Melbourne might be having one of the most frustrating seasons ever.

It’s not that hard to argue they could have won all their games this year. Which is kind of surprising considering they have lost all their ruckmen.

Weirdly, I don’t feel negative at all about Melbourne. The opposite in fact.

In the past, I’ve been incredibly negative about the Dees and for a good reason. They have been an awful team with no upside for a long time. There have been single cell amoeba who have had more clue of what they are doing than the Dees had in the past.

This season, as frustrating as it has been, has shown this very young side are so close to clicking. They have genuine talent in the side and are doing things I haven’t seen a Melbourne side do in ten years, like chase and pick up a ball cleanly.

Figuring out how to stop quarter long fades outs is a much smaller problem to solve than the previous problem of working out how to win games with a VAFA standard side.

Now that I’ve said that of course, they’ll probably rattle off ten losses in a row.

This could be the first of those ten, but Adelaide were so terrible last week, so who knows?

I think the Crows will win here, but it could be closer than many think.

Sunday

Richmond v Fremantle (MCG) 1.10pm

Richmond players were barred from a primary school this week due to not having the proper working with children checks.

They were due to run a footy clinic and not to attend classes, as I had originally assumed.

It is a shame they couldn’t attend the clinic. Those kids were looking forward to teaching the players how to correct basic skill errors and deal with pressure.

The Tigers would like to get their season back on track this week after finding playing hard teams, hard.

Fremantle may or may not be a good team. They seem, to sum up the weird nature of this season. Written off early on and with good reason, they now sit in ninth.

They also like the MCG, having won four of their past five games there, proving it’s just the Eagles that have a problem, not Western Australian sides.

I’m going to tip the Dockers here.

Gold Coast v Port Adelaide (It’s weirdly in China) 3.20pm

Currently, my favourite sport is watching the AFL pretend going to China is a good idea and not a nightmare.

I’m sure this won’t be the disaster some predict, with sandstorms and food poisoning, I just don’t think it will have any impact on the Chinese market, the point of the whole exercise.

It raises the question, if a game of footy is played at the Jiangwan Sports Centre and no Chinese people are there, did it really get played?

The worry for both coaches is that neither side has ever won a game in China. The other concern is when you strip away the China element, this is still just the Power playing the Suns.

The only reason most people would watch this is to see if a dust storm wipes everyone out, something I’m told won’t happen.

People are going to be disappointed when they tune in expecting a scene from Mad Max: Fury Road, and instead, they just get the Power and the Suns playing at a ground that looks like it should be in the JLT Series.

I’m tipping a Suns victory, but only because I’m partial to a red and yellow jumper.

North Melbourne v Sydney (ES) 4.40pm

Logic would suggest that if the Kangaroos can do what they did to the Crows last week, they should easily account for the Swans, but logic has no place in season 2017.

North’s blitzkrieg against the Crows was so good it almost certainly can’t be replicated, but it must have shown the players what they can do.

Maybe North have decided to front-load their losses this year, a sort of reverse 2016?

They could be looking at another win here, as Sydney have turned in some performances so awful, they’ve become the Adam Sandler of the competition.

The Swans would at least be glad they got one win under the belt, even if it was against Brisbane.

Despite the win, the jury’s still out on the Swans. That’s right, the jury because the way they’ve played this year is criminal.

Strangely, I still can’t write them completely off. I keep thinking they are good.

The mind takes a while to adjust to new realities, like how I still think Vanessa loves me, despite the fact her lawyer says she never did and that her name is not Vanessa.

All I’m saying is change is hard.

Which is why tipping North here is hard, but that’s the weird reality we now live in.

You can help support me in producing this ridiculous nonsense I churn out on a regular basis. My aim is to keep as much of my stuff on this site and available to everyone and not behind paywalls. Find out more here: https://titusoreily.com/support-titus

COMMENTS

Matt

May 11, 2017

"What it lacks in insight, it makes up for with poor grammar and spellings."

I'll take that as a 'no' on the proofreading offer.

AaronDavey'sChinDimple

May 11, 2017

The school may have been trying to avoid the likelihood of Tigers players bringing down their overall NAPLAN scores.

Ed will be spitting chips if Pendle's missus has a girl.

I can easily imagine Port supporters travelling all the way from the City of Churches and Old White People, then complaining about all the foreign food and no-one speaking English.

That is all.

max

May 11, 2017

haha titus. more and more excuses for dees, 'could win all their games but they are young and have no ruckmen'. boohoo. delusional, off to the snow cabin titus. the afl drip still amounts to zip.

RhombusHatesYou

May 11, 2017

You're only tipping the Suns because you want to see David Koch try to disembowel himself with a chopstick.

Mouse Croghan

May 11, 2017

I think Hawthorn should win, but it shows you how far they’ve fallen when a game against the bottom side is no longer seen as a sure thing for them. - Gold Titus!

Margaret

May 11, 2017

Following you tipping last week brought me quite undone.a glaring row off zeros. Such Shame! But still like you and still sort of trust your insight. I'm just going to follow my own guesses this week!,

Pieman.

May 11, 2017

Collingwood players stopped turning up for games, years ago.

RhombusHatesYou

May 11, 2017

The aim of the China game isn't to expand the market it's to con Chinese businesses into believing sponsoring an AFL team will make doing business in Australia easier... and considering Port are saying they've already nabbed enough Chinese sponsorship to pay the $4m for their part of this sideshow there's probably something to it.

There is actual grassroots aimed stuff going on but that's being done by Port and not the AFL so naturally the AFL only mention it when someone prods them with a fork.

Vic Parkes

May 11, 2017

'Indefinite' means ‘we have no idea, but it could be ages' in English too. What a coincidence!

Martin

May 11, 2017

They should have let the tiger players in, the school might have received extra funding

John Nicholls

May 11, 2017

What just happened to Footscray? The Western Bulldogs took their dog and their jumper. Greater Western Sydney and West Coast are nowhere in my atlas. I hate change, except when I had a few quarters down in the forward pocket, to give Percy a run in the middle, but that didn't last long. Change doesn't work, there's the proof.

Tamra (Go Swans)

May 11, 2017

To add to your pearler: 'It raises the question, if a game of footy is played at the Jiangwan Sports Centre and no Chinese people are there, did it really get played?' What is the sound of one billion confused Chinese supporters (crowd estimate surely) clapping?

Bloke from the outer

May 11, 2017

'A lot of positivity around Carlton currently, meaning they’re not quite good enough yet for us to all hate them. '

Never a truer sentence typed in the history of humanity (or at least this week's article)

Mr B

May 11, 2017

It always intrigues me that teams from the eastern side of the country feel entitled to put the word "Western" in their names. Surely they should be renamed the "A Little Bit Western Bulldogs" and the "Pretty Far Eastern Giants".

Arky

May 11, 2017

That one was a head scratcher. Of all the footy jargon that means something completely different to normal English, that... isn't.

Now I kind of what to know what Titus thinks it means in English.

Arky

May 11, 2017

Tell that to East Perth

suse

May 11, 2017

And what would be wrong with a girl? We have womens teams now......remember

2muchbeer

May 11, 2017

Perhaps the pro-west position of the AFL is reflective of an imperialistic view of history and simply reflective of the East–West dichotomy that still dominates much of the World’s thinking, no matter how out of date it is. And did it ever really exist? I know, I hear you.

It could also all be coincidence, and I need to turn my mind to more important things, like how did Obi-Wan Kenobi not recognise R2-D2 in A New Hope when he’d spent a lot of those awful prequels with him?

Comedy gold - I mean, thanks for the insightful insights Titus

2muchbeer

May 11, 2017

Ahem, we were called "Footscray" when being a Westie was horrendously unfashionable. We were then taken out the back like Old Shep and if not for young Irene, would have met the same fate. Proud to be associated with the west, as it is where people are even more real than on reality TV - though that may come as a shock to some.
On a far more important note - should I capitalise the word "West?" - it is a cardinal point on the compass and we all know that Cardinals like to capitalise on any opportunity...

2muchbeer

May 11, 2017

Brilliant

2muchbeer

May 11, 2017

"Essendon v Geelong (MCG) 7.25pm" - who's your pick Titus? How can I put my tips in without knowing?

Jarrod

May 11, 2017

woosh...

Dave

May 11, 2017

Agree, Titus is a funny man with a funny name!

Kelly Exeter

May 11, 2017

Omg you tipped Freo. Thanks for that golden chalice Titus #bloodyhell

Michelle

May 11, 2017

Who doesn't want to see David Koch disembowel himself with a chopstick. I bet if Port lose he finds a way to blame the jumper thing.

AARONDAVEY'SCHINDIMPLE

May 12, 2017

Nothing at all wrong with a girl, Suse, but I don't think Eddie will share our view, if a (men's) premiership is on offer in 2036.