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.

Thursday

Port Adelaide (71) v Carlton (107)

The AFL’s new interpretation of holding the ball delivered what we all hoped for, greater confusion.

The new interpretation of holding the ball issued by the AFL reads:

An umpire will rule ‘holding the ball’ after considering the following factors: 

·      How the umpire is feeling at that exact moment

·      The phase of the moon on the day

·      Are we in an El Niño or La Niña? 

·      Is it an odd or even day?

·      Has the Soviet submarine captain you are following done any ‘Crazy Ivans’ and were they to the port or starboard?

·      Is the umpire hangry?

·      The star sign of the player being tackled

To me, these all seem sensible tweaks and further proof the AFL is not just making the rules up as they go along.

A few weeks ago, I was cautiously optimistic that Carlton’s resurgence had faded somewhat.

Alas, thanks to Port Adelaide hating scoring, that hope has at least been put on the back burner.

The Power keep wanting to be taken seriously, but like Simon in procurement, they then turn in this performance in front of everyone on a Thursday night.

Port wasn’t helped by Patrick Cripps deciding he wanted to win the game in the final quarter, so they did.

Imagine being that good at something. Imagine just being good at something.   

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Friday

Collingwood (82) v Western Bulldogs (100)

The Bulldogs continued to be the most perplexing side in the league.

One minute the coach is about to be sacked and half the players are in rebellion, the next they are beating the premiers.

This game had a fair bit of heat in it, with Sam Darcy taking out Brayden Maynard in a completely unnecessary moment of madness.

Darcy was rightly suspended, and Pies fans were outraged given Maynard’s record as a cleanskin who always plays the ball.

The Pies looked good at many points, with Nick Daicos amassing 16 clearances.

Really, the kid is just showing off now.

Not to be outdone, Marcus Bontempelli responded with 38 disposals, 10 clearances and two goals.

Sam Darcy also starred up forward with three goals as the Bulldogs pulled away late despite Harmes and Vandermeer both being off injured.

Saturday

Hawthorn (107) v Adelaide (80)

In a year of depressing events, the rise of the Hawthorn Football Club is right up there.

If they’d held on against Port, they’d have won their last five games and five of their last seven.

For the billions of people around the globe who were hoping for an Essendon/Carlton-like decades in the wilderness for the Hawks, this has been a crushing few weeks 

The Hawks were full of energy in this, while the Crows made multiple simple errors throughout the game.

They just didn’t look well drilled. Simple things like manning the goal square in defence seemed not to occur to them.

But really, I mean, Hawthorn are good again? We have to mentally prepare for that?

It’s just relentless.

West Coast (68) v St Kilda (82)

Harley Reid has been suspended!

Without winning the Rising Star, how will Reid be able to grow his profile or get media coverage?

Will he even get offered another contract without the Rising Star award on his mantlepiece?

Does this raise questions about whether we should change the rules of the Rising Star to fit the narrative that he was going to win it?

Sam Darcy is also going to be out of the running which means some absolute loser will probably now win it. Boooo!

Really, we should just scrap the Rising Star and replace it with a new award for the best first-year player, the Harley Reid Medal 

I can see The West Australian getting right behind this idea.

To give some comfort to Harley, no one good has won the Rising Star anyway.

Oh, St Kilda won this game.

Geelong (99) v Richmond (69)

The Tigers were plucky, which no fan wants to hear said about their team.

The Cats first half was messier than a billionaire’s divorce. It was so bad that Richmond were actually winning at halftime.

Geelong fans were shocked and the Tigers fans were surprised.

Richmond fans also knew it couldn’t last. We fans can sense these things.

And it didn’t last.

Even worse, Mykelti Lefau ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament, in a further sign that the Tigers are cursed this year.

They are getting into ‘just name the players who aren’t injured’ territory.

Finally, the Cats got moving in the second half, but it wasn’t what you’d call a convincing result.

Sunday

Melbourne (40) v Fremantle (141)

The Melbourne Football Club gifted the Dockers a surprise bye on Sunday, turning in a performance so bad even Simon Goodwin couldn’t defend it.

To be clear up front, Fremantle were fantastic and are a team that is only going to get better, but the Dees performance had 2009 levels of effort.

Melbourne have been trying to convince everyone they are not very good for weeks now, and Fremantle was only too happy to help.

For a midfield so vaunted, the Melbourne midfield can sure lose a lot of clearances, and in this one, they just waved the white flag.

Given the skills of the team, it’s amazing they didn’t poke someone’s eye out with that white flag.

Fremantle realised early on that if they waited 0.00000453 seconds, the Dees would turn the ball over.

As the Dockers got away in the second half, the Melbourne players, with less than a handful of exceptions, got down on the ground and assumed the foetal position and waited for the game to be over.

Not to overcook it, but not since the French Army in 1940 have a group of people so shambolically surrendered so quickly.

It’s probably the reckoning the team had to have (if the West Coast loss wasn’t that).

For the past few years, they’ve been cruising off the 2021 premiership, while the improvement across the team has been minimal, and the entry into, and the forward line problems, have never been fixed.

It’s hard to admit that whatever you’ve been doing hasn’t worked.

Melbourne’s problem is they have kept thinking they were close when everyone else could see they weren’t.

Every Melbourne supporter has known this for a while.

The only silver lining is you can’t go out of the finals in straight sets three years in a row, if you don’t play finals.

I’ve got a show in Melbourne this Friday June 7. There are a few tickets left and I’ve added another show on Friday 21 June. You can get tickets here.

Shows in other states to be announced soon.

Gold Coast (91) v Essendon (80)

It’s June, and Gold Coast are in the eight, and so is Essendon.

And neither team should give up on staying there after this display.

Essendon, still SECOND ON THE LADDER, may not have got the win, but this was a close game and both sides not only played good footy, but they were also entertaining.

As every footy fan knows, the reason we go to the footy is to see umpires award free kicks for player’s returning the ball to the wrong person.

The footy media keep trying to convince us the mark is the most exciting play in the game, but it pales in comparison with the pure majesty of the moment when Touk Miller was awarded a fifty-meter penalty after Jayden Laverde failed to return the ball correctly.

I just hope I live long enough to be able to tell my grandkids about it.

Essendon will also wish they had kicked a little straighter but given many thought they would soon fall off a cliff (OK hoping), the Bombers showed they are made of solid stuff this year.

As for the Suns, they need to solidify their spot in the top eight, but it’s exciting to think that soon, their fans may learn about a little thing called finals.

BYE: Brisbane, North Melbourne, Sydney, Fremantle, Greater Western Sydney

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