Micro Noises 49 - Shrinking Giants
Shrinking Giants
As we were casually comparing the 2013 and 2014 heights of AFL players the other day (isn't that what everybody does to relax?), we couldn't help but make a couple of disturbing observations. GWS players Jono O'Rourke and Lachie Whitfield appear to have shrunk significantly over the off-season. O'Rourke's height in the official 2013 AFL Season Guide was noted as 188cm. This year he's listed as being 184cm tall. Similarly, Whitfield was 187cm in 2013 and is now also only 184cm. If this disturbing shrinkage continues, in 10 years time O'Rourke (144cm) and Whitfield (154cm) will be the shortest players ever to have pulled on a VFL/AFL jumper.
But it gets worse for GWS, with Thomas Bugg, Stephen Coniglio, Phil Davis, Stephen Gilham, Adam Kennedy, Liam Sumner and Jacob Townsend all being listed as one centimetre shorter this year than in 2013.
If this progression continues, Greater Western Sydney are going to need to find a new nickname.
Blues turn back the clock
Carlton turned the clock back 117 years on Sunday night but not even the most nostalgic of Blues' fans would have been particularly pleased about it. The Navy Blues were crushed by Essendon to the tune of 81 points, a margin by which they had lost only once before, against Melbourne in round 5, 1897, the very first VFL season.
Blue blanks
And while on the subject of Carlton losing margins (sorry Blues' fans, but then again, we did the same for Collingwood fans a couple of weeks ago), there are only seven margins fewer than 100 by which the Blues have never lost - 63, 71, 75, 86, 88, 93 and 96.
Score Wars
Finishing second in 2013 might not have been enough to sting Fremantle into action against its vanquishers last Friday night, but it certainly seems to have been enough for the score 87. Having been pipped by 103 in 2013, 87 is on fire this season. It was Geelong's winning score on Saturday night and has now come up four times already in 2014. 69 has registered three times, with 68, 83, 86, 90, 98, 99 and 134 all having appeared twice. Last year's winner, 103, is still yet to make an appearance.
The Marginal Medal
48 points was the sole leader in the race to win this prestigious award after round two but that margin has now been joined in the lead by three others that were recorded in round two, 7, 25 and 32. 32 points appears to be a particular favourite of GWS, the Giants having won by that margin against both Sydney and Melbourne. Last year's joint winners, 9, 28 and 41 have not been seen in 2014, while the most common margin of all time, 1 point, has also not made an appearance this season.
First among unequals
This week saw three more match score gaps filled in. A total of 14,400 VFL/AFL games have now been played and the following combinations appeared for the first time last weekend:
- Gold Coast's 53-point win over Brisbane was the first occasion 134 v 71 has been seen;
- GWS and Melbourne gave us 79 v 47 for the first time;
- and Essendon's 81-point demolition of Carlton on Sunday at the MCG was the inaugural appearance of 138 v 57.
Postcode of the week
Not many would doubt that Melbourne still has a rather large hill to climb before the Demons are going to be a regularly competitive football team and this was reflected in the club's loss to GWS last weekend. The downtrodden Dees kicked 2, 3, 0 and 0 behinds in each of their four quarters and 2300 is the postcode of The Hill.
Ridiculous footy anagrams of the week
It's been nothing but bad news from West Coast's Mark LeCras on the injury front in the last couple of years. LeCras needed a full knee reconstruction after rupturing his ACL in 2012 and then broke his forearm last year. Last weekend he re-injured the arm and will be out for another four weeks. One would not blame LeCras for being sick and tired of those arm and leg problems, and this is poignantly reflected by the fact that THE EAGLES' MARK LECRAS is an anagram of ARM, LEG CREAK - HE'S STALE.
Meanwhile Mark's teammate the EAGLES' CHRIS MASTEN is also out injured with a hamstring that has stopped working. We're not entirely sure if Masten has a Spanish background but we note that he's an anagram of EL HAMSTRING CEASES.
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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