Micro Noises 107: It's hotting up!
Warm weather winners
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The heat will be on at the MCG on Saturday - and that's even before a ball has been kicked in anger. The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting a maximum of 28 degrees for Grand Final day this year, which would make it one of the warmest on record. The warmest of them all was in 1987. On that afternoon the mercury peaked at 30.7 as the Hawks and Blues sweated it out at the 'G. Hawthorn captain Michael Tuck famously chose to do away with his traditional long-sleeved guernsey that day and it didn't pan out well, with the Blues running out winners by 33 points. Unsurprisingly, Tuck never wore short sleeves again.
The second-warmest Grand Final of all was Fitzroy's last. Played at the Junction Oval because the MCG was being used by US and Australian military departments in World War II, it saw the Roy Boys eke out a 15-point win over Richmond in front of 43,000 fans. If we reach the forecast maximum of 28 this Saturday, the 2015 Grand Final will go down as the third-warmest so far but, for now, that title belongs to the 1919 decider between Collingwood and Richmond. That match was played on October 11th, one of the latest Grand Finals to have been played in a year. The Pies won by 25 points on that sunny day, denying the Tigers an inaugural flag, but Richmond exacted revenge a year later on a much cooler day that saw 17.7 as the maximum temperature.
Hawks by a whisker
West Coast is no stranger to one-point Grand Finals. The Eagles won by that margin against Sydney the last time they were there, in 2006. And if history is a guide, they'll be in another one-point decider this Saturday, although this time as a loser. The rationale for that prediction comes from Hawthorn's win over Fremantle at Subiaco last Friday night. The Hawks won with a score of 15.4.94, a score recorded in a Preliminary Final only once before (and only 10 times in VFL/AFL history, for that matter). That was in 1966 when St Kilda defeated Essendon 15.4 to 7.10. The Saints went on to famously defeat Collingwood by a single point in the following week's Grand Final.
So there you have it folks, get on the Hawks to win by a point on Saturday, before they proceed to suffer a premiership drought spanning at least five decades, a prospect that wouldn't necessarily be unpalatable to a lot of non-Hawthorn supporters out there!
On the other hand...
If the Grand Final is decided by a point, it would be the first game in 2015 decided by that margin. To find the last season where no matches were decided by a point, we need to go all the way back to 1984, which could in fact be a bad omen for Hawthorn. In that year's Grand Final the Hawks were ahead by 23 points at the last change but were overrun by Essendon, the Bombers kicking nine goals to two in the final quarter to win by 24 points.
The lowdown on the Brownlow
Nat Fyfe isn't the first player in history with a four-letter surname to win the Brownlow Medal. And he isn't the first player with a first name beginning with N to win a Brownlow. In fact he's not even the first player of that first name (he is actually a 'Nathan', after all) to win the award. And getting down to tin tacks, he's not even the first player to have a first name beginning with N and a four-letter surname who plays for a team that begins with F to win footy's most coveted individual award. No, sadly for Fremantle's Nat Fyfe, he was beaten to the punch by 74 years, with the 1941 Brownlow Medal being taken home by Footscray's Norm Ware.
But it's not all doom and gloom for Fyfe, because he is the first player to win the medal with a total of 31 votes. This means that a medal has been won with every total from 17 (Robert DiPierdomenico and Greg Williams, 1986) to 34 (Dane Swan, 2011), with the exception of 33.
For the record, the four-letter surname winners are Dinny Ryan (1936), Norm Ware (1941), Alistair Lord (1962), Graham Moss (1976), Scott Wynd (1992), James Hird (1996), Michael Voss (1996), Chris Judd (2004, 2010), Dane Swan (2011) and Fyfe. The 'N' winners are Norm Ware (1941), Neil Roberts (1958), Noel Teasdale (1965), Nathan Buckley (2003) and Nat Fyfe.
Extrapolating from Norm Ware's 1941 win, we can expect Fremantle to go on and win its first premiership in 2028, (the Dogs won their first in 1954), which is probably not the news Fyfe, Ross Lyon and Dockers' fans would be hoping to hear.
McPharlin spoils it for Brown, Cameron and Neale
Congratulations must go to Fremantle's Luke McPharlin, who drew a curtain on a fine career this week, announcing his retirement after the Dockers' loss to Hawthorn last Friday. But as much as we laud McPharlin's career, we are just a tad annoyed that it ended on a total of 256 games. McPharlin, you see, joins Jonathan Brown, Leon Cameron and Kevin 'Cowboy' Neale as the only players to have finished on that number of VFL/AFL matches. But McPharlin doesn't qualify for membership of an even more select group as do the other three. Remarkably, Brown, Cameron and Neale all played their early footy at South Warrnambool. McPharlin, of course, originally hails from Perth. We think the only honourable thing for McPharlin to do now is to spend a season or two with the Roosters from next year.
If there was a footballer named Luke who did deserve to finish their career on 256, then that player was probably Luke Power. 256, after all, is two to the power of eight.
Score Wars
In our last Score Wars update, we reported that 69 and 78 were leading the way as the most common scores of 2015, each having come up 10 times, two more than third-placed 85. Four weeks down the track and the story at the head of the table remains the same, with 69 and 78 still leading on 10. However, 85 has been joined by 83 and 80 in equal third place. All three scores have been seen eight times this year, and could still claim victory if Hawthorn and West Coast were to draw this Saturday.
The Marginal Medal - we have a winner
With only the Grand Final remaining, we can declare 9 points the winner of the 2015 Marginal Medal. 9 was a margin in eight matches this season, making it the most common of 2015, two clear of 10 and 37, which were joined in equal second place by 27 with Hawthorn's win over Fremantle last Friday.
The Bill Collins Medal
A fine display of accuracy from the Hawks last saw them in a 'close, but no cigar' effort to win the Bill Collins Medal. Their score of 15.4 represented an accuracy percentage of 78.95, enough to make it the fourth-most accurate scoring performance by a team this year, behind Fremantle (11.2 in round 9, an accuracy rate of 84.62), West Coast (14.3, R1, 82.35%) and Port Adelaide (16.4, R10, 80.00%). Coincidentally - or is it? - those three most accurate scores of this season were all against the Western Bulldogs.
Anagrammatic postcode of the week
Despite an improved second quarter, the West Coast Eagles still found themselves in the dilemma of being five points behind North Melbourne at the long break on Saturday. But they need only have looked at the half-time score to know that North would falter when play resumed. That score had the Eagles trailing 3.8 to 4.7 and 3847 is, of course the postcode of HIAMDALE, NAMBROK, ROSEDALE AND WILLUNG, which is an anagram of AHA! END DILEMMA. KANGAROOS WILL BLUNDER.
Anagrammatic year of the week
Sadly for Fremantle, it's a case of another year, another season without a flag. The Dockers started strongly but were eventually burnt off by a Hawthorn outfit hellbent on winning a third consecutive flag. And perhaps the Freo players subliminally knew their fate as the game unfolded. The Dockers' behind total at the end of each of the four quarters was 1, 4, 4, 7 and 1447 was the year Lord Chancellor of England, Henry Beaufort, died. And HENRY BEAUFORT is an anagram of YEAH, FREO BURNT.
Ridiculous footy anagram of the week
There was no fairytale ending to North Melbourne's dream of trying to win a premiership from eighth on the ladder. The Kangaroos' 2015 story ended with defeat at the hands of West Coast on Saturday night. And while the tale had a sad ending, at least North could lay claim to having the oldest character in it, 37-year-old Brent Harvey. How fitting it is, then, that THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD is an anagram of HARVEY - ELDEST IN STORY.
Micro Noises is Andrew Gigacz's regular, quirky look at all things footy. The name Micro Noises is an anagram of Enrico Misso, who played one game for St Kilda in 1985. He remains the only Enrico and the only Misso to have played footy at the highest level.
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