Micro Noises 88: Back to the 50s
Demons take us back to the 50s
It's what every Melbourne fan would want, isn't it? Given the Demons were involved in every Grand Final from '54 to '59, winning four of them, what proud supporter of the Red and the Blue wouldn't want to see their club return to the golden age of the 50s? Well the good news, Dees fans, is that Melbourne has done exactly that! The bad news is that the Demons haven't quite returned to the successful 50s - more like the unsuccessful 50s if you look at it closely. You see, in its five losses, this year, Melbourne has scored totals of 56, 55, 50, 50 and 50. Not quite the 50s fans might have hoped for but at least the Demons are consistent!
A better than 50-50 chance to score 50
The last three of Melbourne's losses saw them score not just in the 50s, but exactly 50 on each occasion, prompting a question to us from Twitter as to whether a team has previously registered an identical points total in three consecutive rounds. To which our answer is "we don't know - yet". But rest assured, the Micro Noises micro statisticians are on the case and we hope to have the answer to you in Micro Noises 89. Our early research has taken us back to 2005 and we have not yet uncovered such an instance.
Hawks dish out revenge
They say revenge is a dish best served cold. Well, anything served after a 71-year wait will surely be cold and on Saturday Hawthorn finally gained retribution for a loss sustained against Melbourne in 1944. The Hawks won 155 to 50 and the final margin of 105 points represents a reversal of what happened when the Demons met Hawthorn in round 11, 1944, the Demons winning by the same margin - with almost the same score - 157 to 52.
Greatest Western Sydney
The Giants took a giant leap forward in their development in defeating Hawthorn in round six, and they have consolidated their gains in round seven with a record-breaking win against Carlton. The win might have been described former by Bulldogs and Tigers coach Terry Wallace as a spiflication. The 78-point win represented the Giants' greatest winning margin in their short history, or alternatively Greater Western Sydney's Greatest Winning Spiflication, aka GWS's GWS. The Giants' final total of 135 was also their greatest winning score, and therefore also GWS's GWS. For any Giants fan who is not in the best of health that result will surely help them GWS - Get Well Soon - and if ex-Blue Mark McLure was sitting next to Sandy Roberts in the Fox Footy studios as the match unfolded he no doubt would have exclaimed "GWS!", meaning of course, "Gee Whiz, Sandy!"
Brunswick, 3056 - or was that Brunswick 3s, 506?
While Brunswick's postcode is 3056, we were reminded this week of the day just over three decades ago when the Brunswick 3s scored 506 against a hapless Geelong West. Our attention turned to that game when the Local Footy twitter account tweeted the following:
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One of our Micro Noises micro statisticians did in fact recall a bigger score and dug up the little snippet on the right from The Age back in 1981. So, as bad as Smythesdale's day was last Saturday, it was nowhere near as bad as the day Geelong West had in 1981. And while things might be at a particularly low ebb for the club at the moment, officials at SMYTHESDALE have been quick to assure everyone that the club will survive, despite it being an anagram of DEATHLY MESS.
One versus 100
It's taken until round seven for Eddie's favourite competition to kick off in 2015 but we have finally had a match that's produced a margin of either one point or 100 or more. Hawthorn's big win over Melbourne means we've seen the first 100+ margin of the year, while no one-point games have yet been recorded. A last minute goal to the Magpies over Richmond would have provided one, but it was not to be, with the Tigers hanging on by five.
The introduction of Gold Coast and GWS has been somewhat of a boon for fans of three-figure margins, with at least eight being recorded in each of the last four completed seasons. It's looking unlikely that we'll hit that figure in 2015 but at Micro Noises we're beginning to wonder if we'll see any one-point matches at all this season. 2009 was the last season in which we had more one-point matches than 100+ games. Here's a snapshot of the last 10 years.
YEAR | 1-POINT GAMES | 100+ MARGINS |
2015* | 0 | 1 |
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 |
Year of the thriller-killer
Most footy fans would agree that 2015 is shaping up as one of the most even for a long time. Notwithstanding Fremantle's two-game break at the top of the ladder and the woes at Carlton, it's pretty much a case of "throwing a blanket" over the other 16 sides, in terms of evenness. Incongruous with that, and the fact that we have seen many highly entertaining matches this year, is that to round seven there have been only four games decided by a goal or less.
To find another season where we have had so few thrillers, we need to go all the way back to the year 2003. That year's first seven rounds also saw just four matches decided by a goal or less: a six-point game in round one, a five-point match in round seven, a two-point thriller in round two and a draw in round three. For Hawthorn-supporting omen lovers, that season saw a team (Brisbane) win a third consecutive premiership.
The last season in which the first seven rounds produced fewer than four matches decided by six points or less was 1991, when there were only three.
First among unequals
An amazing four of round seven's nine games produced score pairings never before seen in the VFL/AFL. The two Saturday afternoon games kicked things off with the Adelaide v St Kilda game giving us the first occurrence of 119 v 73, and the Hawthorn v Melbourne match introducing 155 v 50 into AFL annals. On Saturday West Coast and Gold Coast played the inaugural 135 v 43 match, while on Sunday the Brisbane v Port Adelaide game ended 102 v 65 to create another first. Interestingly 102 v 64 and 102 v 66 have each come up four times in VFL/AFL history.
Meanwhile GWS are quietly going about establishing a tradition of being the team to be involved in all matches that end 135 v 57. The Giants won with that scoreline on Saturday against Carlton and were on the receiving end of the same final score combination against Melbourne in 2012. That score pairing has not been seen in any other VFL/AFL match.
Score Wars
Richmond's five-point win over Collingwood on Sunday restored its chance of competing in September and also restored 105 to a share of the lead in Score Wars. 105 has now been a final score five times in 2015, along with 78. Those two scores hold a lead of two over the next most common scores of this year, 120, 119, 118, 87, 80, 76, 74, 68, 60 and 50, each of which has come up three times.
Year of the week
Another loss to the Gold Coast Suns in round seven, their sixth for the year and as a result, the coach, players and administration of the club are under the media magnifying glass like perhaps never before. And perhaps the Suns think that deserves to be the case. At the end of each quarter in their loss to West Coast, their behind total was 1, 2, 6 and 7 and 1267 is the year in which Roger Bacon completed his work Opus Majus, which includes what some believe to be the first description of a magnifying glass.
ZIP code of the week
When Richmond met Collingwood at the MCG last Sunday afternoon, the fortunes of both sides fluctuated throughout the match, with one team and then the other holding sway, before Richmond finished just ahead of the Pies as the game came to a wonderful climax. Appropriately, the final score left Collingwood with a percentage of 120.42 and 12042 is the ZIP code of Climax in New York.
Postcode of the week
An horrific clash of heads saw St Kilda skipper Nick Riewoldt end up in hospital for precautionary scans last Saturday. Riewoldt accidentally bumped into Adelaide's Brodie Smith and lost consciousness immediately. Fortunately Nick suffered nothing more serious than concussion and should be back on the field within a couple of weeks. We're not sure if the knock left Riewoldt with any sort of a mark on his scone but we did note that St Kilda scored 3,2,2 and 3 goals across the four quarters of the match, and that 3223 is the postcode of Indented Head.
Anagrammatic postcode of the week
Is North Melbourne a genuine flag chance? After losing to the Kangaroos, Essendon players might think so. Even in the first half the Bombers gave a subconscious clue that a premiership could be on the cards. The Dons were 5.0 at quarter time and 6.3 at half time. 5063 is, of course the postcode of Fullerton and Highgate in South Australia and an anagram of FULLERTON, HIGHGATE gives us the question and the answer: UH... A NORTH FLAG? LEGIT!
Ridiculous footy anagram of the week
Despite calls from several sectors for his head, Carlton coach Mick Malthouse has defiantly declared that he's not going anywhere and wants to be part of the rebuild at the club. Nevertheless, many pundits feel that a return to glory under Mick is stuff of dreams that are unlikely to be fulfilled, a point neatly reflected by the fact that THE REBUILD UNDER MALTHOUSE is an anagram of HI BLUES! DREAM ON! (ELUDE TRUTH.)
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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