Micro Noises 190: The first of the first
The Tom Tom Club
Speculation is mounting that the Brisbane Lions will use the number 1 selection in next week's 2017 AFL National Draft to take Andrew Brayshaw. Now Brayshaw is a pretty famous name in sports, particularly in the worlds of cricket and footy. Andrew Brayshaw is the brother of Angus, who has played 36 games for Melbourne since 2015, and their father is Mark, who played 32 games for North Melbourne, along with 110 for Claremont in the WAFL, in the '80s and '90s.
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Mark's brother is James, who was until recently the Chairman of North Melbourne, and who played 75 first class games of cricket for both South Australia and his home state of Western Australia. The patriarch of the sporting clan is Ian Brayshaw, himself a Claremont premiership player, and a veteran of over 100 Sheffield Shield matches.
So as you can see, Brayshaw is quite the important name in footy. But the truth is, we're more interested in young Brayshaw's first name - Andrew. And we promise that has nothing to do with the first name of the author of this column! No, the reason for our interest is that the number one pick of last year's draft was also an Andrew - Essendon's Andrew McGrath.
Though Andrew has long been a common name, Brayshaw, if taken by Brisbane, will become only the second number one selection of that name in V/AFL history. In fact, across 21 drafts so far, only one first name has come up more than once - Tom. Melbourne took Tom Scully with pick one in 2009, while GWS used their first pick to take Tom Boyd four years later. Ironically, Scully is now a veteran with the Giants, while Boyd has lived the premiership dream with the Western Bulldogs.
We did a bit of research hoping to discover that one of Scully or Boyd was officially born a 'Thomas' and the other a 'Tom' to give us 21 different first names in 21 drafts, but the two of them both have 'Thomas' on their birth certificates. Still, with a couple of exceptions, the list of the rest of the number one draft picks reads like a 'Who's Who' of common footy first names, Jack, Patrick, Luke, Nick and Josh all featuring.
If Brayshaw is not selected with pick one, Cameron Rayner is seen as another potential first pick. His selection would give us 21 different first names from 22 first picks.
And the winners are...
We here at Micro Noises owe our readers a bit of an apology. Since the Grand Final we've been so busy focussing on the Tigers' triumph, telling trade tales and having fixture fun, we've neglected to inform you of the winners of our various Micro Noises awards for the 2017 AFL season. So with out further ado, here they are...
Score Wars: 100, 90, 80...
For the second time in three years, we have joint Score Wars winners. And the two winners end with a zero, just as last year's victor did. After 100 took the prize home last year, coming up 10 times, 90 and 80 have won the day this year, each making 11 appearances. All of them were in the home-and away season, 80's last occurrence in round 22 when Adelaide scored 11.14 against Sydney, with 90 joining it in the lead the following week when the Bulldogs kicked 13.12 against Hawthorn.
Other common scores of the 2017 season included 86 and 81, which each came up 10 times, while 103 and 89 each popped up nine times.
In a statistical quirk, 107, 100, 99, 79 and 57 all came up for the seventh and final time of the season in the last home-and-away round.
The Marginal Medal
The 2017 Marginal Medal produced joint winners, just as Score Wars did. Does that mean we have joint joint winners? Either way the thrilling finish in the Marginal Medal came about as the result of an abundance of thrilling finishes to AFL games this year. The year's two most common margins were both under a goal - 2 points and 3 points, each coming up eight times. Just behind them was 8 points, which was a margin in seven matches, while 13, 14, 17, 19 and 23 all came up six times.
It was back-to-back wins for 3 points, which took out the 2016 Medal - again jointly - with 38 points, in 2016.
1 versus 100
We really thought this would be the year that the drought would finally break but, alas, our dreams were shattered. Not since 2006 have we had a season in which more games were decided by 1 point than by 100 or more, and this year looked likely to be the one we would end its run of outs. By round 14, we had had five 1-point games and only two decided by three figures, But a late flurry of three-figure thrashings, one each in rounds 21, 22 and 23, saw 100+ draw level with 1 point as we headed into the finals. A dearth of close finals saw no addition to 1 point's total, but fortunately the biggest September thrashing was 67 points. So the the two finished locked on five each and we're left to hope that 2018 will see 1 point finally break through.
YEAR | 1-POINT GAMES | 100+ MARGINS |
2017 | 5 | 5 |
2016 | 4 | 6 |
2015 | 0 | 4 |
2014 | 1 | 8 |
2013 | 5 | 8 |
2012 | 1 | 9 |
2011 | 4 | 10 |
2010 | 4 | 4 |
2009 | 2 | 1 |
2008 | 2 | 5 |
2007 | 5 | 5 |
2006 | 7 | 5 |
The Bill Collins Medal and Bill Collins Memorial Shield
We have joint winners again in the Bill Collins Medal, named in honor of the race-caller known to all as 'The Accurate One'. The Medal goes to the team that provides that most accurate scoring performance of the year, and in 2017, both Melbourne and Richmond had a game in which they achieved a very impressive 83.33.
We've taken an executive decision here and awarded the medal to Richmond, because their accurate score involved more scoring shots (and a win). The Tigers kicked 25.5 against Fremantle in round 23, and that effort gets the nod over Melbourne's 10.2 in their loss to GWS in round 20. But the new isn't all bad, Demons' fans, your team has taken out the Bill Collins Memorial Shield with an overall accuracy of 57.52%, ahead of Brisbane's 55.53% and Geelong's 55.01%. The Bulldogs take home the accuracy wooden spoon, just 46.68% of their shots finding the big sticks.
Vickery 125
With Ty Vickery announcing that he has hung up the boots, he becomes the 18th V/AFL player to finish with a total of 125 games to his credit. The full list is below, and we asked the Twitter world to vote for the best. Collingwood's Charlie Utting rated a few deserved mentions, but Barry Richardson claimed the most votes. Add your thoughts in the Comments section below. Perhaps you think it really should be George 'Topping' the list!
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Year of the week
We've just had a look at the indicative draft order for next week and it seems somewhat serendipitous to us. Richmond's first two draft picks are a celebration of this year's drought-breaking premiership - 20 and 17!
Ridiculous footy anagrams of the week
The week before National Draft week is always a bit quiet, so it's hardly surprising that one of the biggest stories of the week was the news that Marcus Bontempelli's long flowing locks have had the chop. Given the Bont's long hair didn't take the Dogs to a flag this year, we commend this alternative attempt at success, and note that LAUD BONTEMPELLI'S CROPPED HAIR is an anagram of PLAN B COULD LEAD TO PREMIERSHIP.
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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