Micro Noises 96: Will the Pies fly high?
A Magpie flag?
Melbourne had a particularly wet day last Sunday. In the 24 hours to 9am Monday morning we had 28.4mm of rain. A quick check of our records showed that the last time more than 28mm had fallen in Melbourne on any day in July was 1990. Our immediate thought thereafter was, "Collingwood for the flag!" But of course, that's only one very small omen, and we wondered if we could find any more.
Well, Magpie fans, you're in luck. We've found a few more eerie similarities between this footy season and that of 1990. For a start, this year's Grand Final will be played on the first Saturday in October, just as 1990's was. (As, for that matter, was 2010's Grand Final replay. It's an incontrovertible truth that the Pies still haven't won on the last Saturday in September since 1958!)
Secondly, the Pies lost three games in four weeks in the second half of the 1990 season, just as they have done over the past month. Thirdly, 1990 was the season after Hawthorn had won two consecutive flags (1988-89) after having lost the Grand Final previous to that (1987). Sound familiar? Yep. The Hawks lost the 2012 Grand Final before going back-to-back in 2013-14.
But wait, there's more! Remember what the Western Bulldogs suffered through last off-season? The Dogs experienced months of unprecedented turmoil, losing captain, coach, CEO and probably a whole bunch of other things beginning with C (confidence?). But was it really unprecedented? No, in fact. Those old enough will recall that the months before the 1990 season saw the Bulldogs in similarly immense turmoil. Indeed, the club almost merged with Fitzroy. But the club rallied and recovered to amazingly win 12 games in 1990, and the 2015 Dogs are on track to do something very similar.
It's all starting to add up. We get some of our best lessons from history, so perhaps the time has come to acknowledge that Collingwood is on the march to its 16th flag and that it will be won on October 3rd this year!
2015 - the Year go the Thriller Killer
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The state of the game has been a hot topic on mainstream social media this week. Stoppage numbers continue to rise in games of AFL footy and average scores are at their lowest since the 1960s. Even Fairfax journalist Rohan Connolly, long a proponent of letting the game evolve, is starting to wonder if the time has come to intervene and introduce zones at stoppages.
We at Micro Noises have been feeling somewhat frustrated ourselves at the congestion that prevails through many games. In the past we've been more forgiving of hard-fought, close-checking, low-scoring games. So what's changed? We think we may have found at least part of the answer. A low-scoring, dour struggle can be excused in our view if it leads to a thrilling, last-kick-of-the-match affair. The problem with season 2015 is that such matches haven't really done so. As the graphic at right illustrates, only nine out 125 matches this season have finished with a margin of six points or less. That represents just 7% of games as a whole, the lowest figure of any season in this millennium.
Only seasons 2001 and 2003 have come anywhere near that low figure, while 2005 - the year that Sydney broke its 72-year premiership drought - had 16% of such games, including the thrilling Grand Final itself. In theory, lower-scoring encounters should lead to more close encounters. In 2015 that hasn't been the case. We're not sure if intervention is required on the rule front but, like a lot of other lovers of our great game, we're starting to get just a little restless.
The Bill Collins Medal
A week after the introduction of the Bill Collins Medal, not many clubs put their hands up in round 15 to try and stake a claim to it. Quite a few teams actually kicked more behinds than goals, with the worst being St Kilda, which kicked 6.13 and Melbourne who managed a lamentable 7.18 against Essendon's 10.9 last week at the MCG.
Interestingly, the last time a team kicked 7.18, it was also against Essendon. Port Adelaide registered that total against the Bombers is round 16 last year. Even more interestingly, the last time Melbourne kicked 7.18 it too was against the Dons, also in July, also at the MCG and Essendon also kicked 10 goals that day.
Had the Demons added another nine behinds without a goal, we would have had a reversal of the 1948 Grand Final which saw Melbourne kick 10.9.69 and Essendon finish level with them via an almost unfathomably inaccurate 7.27.69.
Certainly not Bill Collins Medal-worthy! GWS remains the leader with the 11.2 it scored against the Dogs in round nine. Ironically, GWS has been the least accurate team across the entire season, with its total of 176.181 a conversion rate of just 49.3% The most accurate team across the season has been Geelong, with their score of 169.127 giving them an accuracy rate of 57.1%.
First among unequals
2015 has been quite a year for first-time score-pairings, with another three cropping up in round 15. Richmond's win over Carlton was the first time we've seen 71 v 41 as a final score in a VFL/AFL match, while West Coast's 147-91 win over Adelaide and Hawthorn's 115-43 victory over Fremantle were also new on the scene.
Postcode of the week
Richmond is making a concerted push towards a place in the top four but they are not quite there yet. And as an acknowledgement of the big birds that are currently occupying the ladder's heady heights, the Tigers scored 2, 3, 2 and 4 behinds across the four quarters of their match against Carlton last Friday night. 2324 is, of course, the postcode of Eagleton, Swan Bay and Hawks Nest.
ZIP code of the week
Look, we're not saying that there's a crisis bigger than Texas down at Kardinia Park, but Geelong did lose 79-120 against North Melbourne on Saturday night, and 79120 is the ZIP code of Amarillo, which just happens to be in Texas.
Ridiculous footy anagram of the week
In light of our discussion above about the lower scores we've seen in season 2015, perhaps the best thing we can hope for in this Sunday's Showdown at the Adelaide Oval is a win by the Crows over the Power, especially if we stop to reflect on the fact that CROWS LOSE is an anagram of LOW SCORES.
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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