Micro Noises 179: Filling in the gaps
A perfect finish for Boyd and Stevie J
The last few weeks have seen a number of players announce that the 2017 season will be their last. Luke Hodge got the ball rolling, and Sam Mitchell, Matt Priddis, Nick Riewoldt, Scott Thompson, Dennis Armfield and Jobe Watson have also called time on great careers. On Tuesday, the Western Bulldogs' Matthew Boyd added his name to the growing list, and two days later Steve Johnson announced that his second season at GWS, after 14 with Geelong, would be his final one at the top level.
Sadly for both players, neither is going to quite make it to the 300-game mark, but there's a silver lining to those clouds - at least in our eyes. Depending on how many more games each of them play, the two of them will have the chance to take a unique place in the record books. Boyd has played 291 games so far, the most of any player to have made his way to the AFL via the rookie draft. He is currently battling an achilles injury but if he can get back onto the field and play another four matches, his AFL game total will be 295.
Johnson, meanwhile, has played 289 games. If he plays the last three home-and-away games and four finals, he will finish one ahead of Boyd on 296. If we can conjure up such a finish for the two of them, it will take 295 and 296 away from the list of game totals below 300 on which no AFL player has ended their career, leaving 299, 298 and 287 as the only three. Surely for 'Boydy' and Stevie J, both of who have lived the premiership dream, that will be a great way to finish two great careers.
And Joey makes three?
Meanwhile there's another player who hasn't yet made a decision about whether he will play on next year - St Kilda's Leigh 'Joey' Montagna. And for the sake of "filling in the gaps", we'd like to suggest that now might be the time to hang up the boots. Joey is currently sitting on the sidelines with a hamstring injury that will see him miss all remaining home and away matches at the very least. Even if the Saints make it to September, there's no guarantee Montagna will recover in time. And if he doesn't, he will end the season with a games tally of 287 - one of those three outstanding totals.
So how about it Joey? If you don't make it back onto the park this year, we humbly suggest that you call it a day and take your own unique place in history.
When even your points 'for' are against you
Not much went right for Geelong at Kardinia Park last Friday night. The Cats were caned by a slick Sydney Swans outfit to the tune of 46 points. To make matters worse, the Swans taunted Geelong in a way even they probably didn't realise - they restricted Geelong's final score was 8.13.61. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with that score - although it was both an inaccurate and low one - but what it did do was take the Cats 'points for' total for the season to 1881. And that's not a nice number at all for Geelong.
Why? Because 1881 was a year that Geelong was pipped for the premiership by the team that thrashed them on Friday - South Melbourne as it was known then - thus preventing the Pivotonians (as they were then known) from claiming what would have been an unmatched seven consecutive flags. Geelong won three premierships in a row from 1878 to 1880, and another three in a row from 1882 to 1884, but they missed the all important one in the middle - 1881.
Crows now flagging in the premiership race
After it summarily brushed aside Port Adelaide last Sunday, Adelaide firmed as favourite to take out this year's premiership and on the surface, that seems to make a lot of sense. After all, the Crows defeated the side that's fifth on the ladder with the second best percentage in the league by a whopping 84 points.
Right ▼
In fact, though, when one delves a little deeper into Adelaide's demolition job on the Power, the evidence suggests it may well have kicked itself out of flag contention. The Crows dominated from the start but could barely find the big sticks in the first term. As a result, they were a woeful 1.9 at quarter time, eventually straightening up to the point of finishing on 18.22.130.
And that's where the problem lies for the flag favourites. Perhaps a little surprisingly, it was only the 11th time in V/AFL history that a team had ended a match on 18.22. So we had a look back at the previous 10 such occurrences, and discovered that none of sides that finished on 18.22 went on to claim a premiership in that season.
In fact, the above table demonstrates that 18.22 is such a damaging score, it actually eliminates any side recording it from even making the Grand Final. Five of the 10 sides to have kicked the score have fallen at the Preliminary Final hurdle, and the other five have not even made it that far. And a closer look at the table reveals that the team losing to the side kicking 18.22 has a better chance of making the Grand Final, with Essendon going down to Fitzroy's 18.22 in 1947 before ultimately going down to Carlton in the premiership decider.
So there you have it. Just when it looked like we had a breakaway flag favourite, the premiership race is once more a wide-open affair, with the Crows not only knocking Port out of premiership contention, but themselves as well!
An even rarer occurrence
18.22 might be a rare score in V/AFL annals but there was an even rarer one recorded in round 20. Melbourne might have been very disappointing in its loss to GWS in Canberra last week but at least it brought up a statistical oddity in doing so. The Demons kicked 10.2.62, just the fourth time in history that score has been registered in a V/AFL match.
The score was previously kicked in 1944 by Hawthorn, 1954 by Geelong and 1991 by Collingwood. Come to think of it, none of those sides went onto win the flag in those years, so it looks like the Demons are out of the hunt for the flag, too. And as we pointed out in last week's Micro Noises, West Coast is also out of the running as a result of its 112-45 victory over the Lions. So it looks like we've now eliminated four clubs - the two South Australians, West Coast and Melbourne - from flag calculations.
Perhaps the premiership race isn't as wide open as we thought.
ZIP code of the week
Back in the mid '90s, around about the time the Bears became the Lions, a nickname emerged for Brisbane - 'Brisvegas' - used to make a tongue-in-cheek association with glitzy gambling metropolis Las Vegas in the US, based on the Queensland capital’s supposed lack of sophistication and culture. Last Saturday at the 'Gabba, whether by design or accident, the Brisbane Lions seemed to embrace the association themselves, by losing 89-103 to the Western Bulldogs. 89103 is, as we all know, the ZIP code of Las Vegas.
Postcode of the week
By the end of last Saturday night's match at Docklands between Collingwood and North Melbourne, the gulf between the two sides was huge and the Kangaroos were well and truly down the gurgler. And it finished that way because the Magpies kicked 2, 3, 6 and 5 goals in each of their four quarters. 2365 is of course, the postcode of The Gulf and The Basin.
Ridiculous footy anagrams of the week
It took until round 20 but 2017 had finally claimed its first coaching victim, with the Gold Coast Suns giving Rodney Eade his marching orders earlier this week. Of course, 'Rocket' has been through this scenario before, both at Sydney and the Western Bulldogs, so when he was called into the Suns' board room, he would have likely been expecting what was coming. And we can't help but wonder if he let out a hollow laugh when told of his fate. After all FOOTBALL'S RODNEY EADE is an anagram of...
"BE AT END OF ROAD?"
"YES."
"LOL."
It must have been somewhat of a relief for NICK LARKEY to pick up six disposals in his second game for North Melbourne against Collingwood last Saturday night, because in his first game against Essendon two weeks earlier he failed to get a possession. However, there were a couple of times in that match where he did nearly kick the ball - and so there should have been, because he's an anagram of NEARLY KICK.
We had confirmation this week that James Hird has accepted the AFL's invitation to present the Norm Smith Medal to its winner on Grand Final today. And while there are those who think that Hird deserves the opportunity, having served a penance for his role in the Essendon supplements saga, others will see view the PRESENTATION OF THE NORM SMITH MEDAL through a different, anagrammatic lens: HIRD PRESENTS IT - OH, A MOMENT OF LAMENT.
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.
Comments
Leo from Freo 11 August 2017
Great stuff Andrew.
Re your mention of 'lament' above... lament, n. 1. A feeling or expression of grief; a lamentation. 2. A song or poem expressing deep grief or mourning
My team Freo has been in the competition for 23 years . Anagram of lamenter ...Fremantle. :(
Andrew Gigacz 12 August 2017
Thanks Ron. Great anagram! I hate to say it but FREMANTLE is also an anagram of MEN FALTER. But I'm sure Freo's time isn't far away. If my Doggies can win the flag, then anyone can!
Leo from Freo 12 August 2017
MEN FALTER. Haha ....I like it. :)
Andrew, try as I may, the website's not allowing me to put my favourite team and favourite local team on my profile. Wondering if there may be a little glitch in there.
Login to leave a comment.