Micro Noises - Issue 11
The Chad drought is over
It's true. After 12 long years the Chad drought is finally at an end. Sadly, I'm not referring the one in East Africa, merely to the fact that, in being the round 22 nomination for the AFL Rising Star Award, Chad Wingard has become the first Chad to be so nominated since 2000. That year was a golden one for Chads, as both Port Adelaide's Cornes and West Coast's Fletcher were nominated for the award, and Chad Davis, son of Allan, made his debut.
Egad! A tad mad, possibly rad (maybe sad?) list of not bad Chad lads we've had
Making "best of" lists is always a fraught exercise, given that they are so subjective, but I defy anybody to challenge my view that the list below is of the eight greatest Chads to have pulled on an AFL guernsey.¹
Name | Club(s) | Debut | Games |
---|---|---|---|
Chad Liddell | Collingwood | 1995 | 29 |
Chad Morrison | West Coast, Collingwood | 1996 | 169 |
Chad Rintoul | Adelaide, West Coast, Collingwood | 1997 | 76 |
Chad Cornes | Port Adelaide, GWS | 1999 | 254 |
Chad Fletcher | West Coast | 1999 | 174 |
Chad Davis | St Kilda | 2000 | 31 |
Chad Jones | North Melbourne, West Coast | 2004 | 13 |
Chad Wingard | Port Adelaide | 2012 | 18 |
And just looking at that list, it seems that West Coast and Collingwood have had quite a "thing" for Chads over the years. The Eagles' nest has been home to four of them and three have donned the black and white.
And speaking of droughts...
In last week's Micro Noises, we mentioned that SANFL team Central Districts had scored an amazingly accurate 23.2 (140) in their round 21 match against the Panthers. Our thanks go to Andrew Robinson, who scoured VFA records from 1897 to 1995, and found no more accurate performance than that. If anyone can track one down in any other league or association, we'd love to hear from you. This week, a glance at round 22 of their season page shows that the SANFL has served up a second successive statistical stunner. The final score in the Norwood v Eagles match was 9.4 (58) to 5.5 (35). Apart from being a bit of a low score-line, there's nothing particularly stunning about that - until you look at what the 3/4-time score in that match was: 9.4 (58) to 5.5 (35). That's right, not only did Norwood fail to score in the last quarter, so did the Eagles. That's a pretty rare event, we think. Only once in VFL/AFL history has there been an entirely scoreless quarter of footy. It happened in round 13, 1901, when Fitzroy and Collingwood failed to trouble the scorers in the final quarter.
More about droughts
Congratulations to Richmond who, in defeating Essendon last Friday night, became the first team since Hawthorn in 1979 to register a final score of 13.24 (102). The Hawks won a flag four years later, so Tigers' fans can look forward with some confidence to season 2016.
One final drought-breaker
And the Saints broke an even longer drought in defeating GWS on Saturday. The margin of 128 points was the first of exactly that magnitude since Carlton 30.30 (210) defeated Hawthorn 12.10 (82) in 1969.
Definitely, absolutely the last item about breaking droughts
Micro Noises took a trip out to Box Hill City Oval on Saturday and witnessed a great game of footy between Diamond Creek and the Darebin Falcons in the Victorian Women's Football League Grand Final. The match was an arm-wrestle for most of the afternoon and when the final siren sounded, it was the Creekers who emerged victors by just five points over Darebin. It was a fantastic effort by Diamond Creek, as they had not beaten Darebin before the Grand Final - not just in finals, not only this season, but EVER - in ANY grade. If you're going to break a drought, there's surely no better time to do it than in a Grand Final.
Looking back to the future
Those of you who have been reading Micro Noises since the beginning might remember the lead item of the very first edition, in which we suggested that only five sides, Hawthorn, Collingwood, Adelaide, Essendon and the Bulldogs, had any real chance of winning the 2012 premiership. The prediction was based on the fact that, in each year since 2005, all flag-winning sides have won in both rounds 7 and 8 of that season, and those were the only five sides that were victorious in both those rounds in 2012. Since then, the Dogs and now Essendon have fallen by the wayside. But Hawthorn, Collingwood and Adelaide are well and truly in the hunt. So while you might be tempted to have a little flutter on the Swans, the Eagles, or maybe even the Cats to be the victors on the last Saturday in September, we respectfully remind you that recent history says they will not.
First among unequals
Time for our favourite segment of the week, in which we identify final scores that have never before been seen. This week's first-timers are 102-57 (Richmond v Essendon), 163-35 (St Kilda v GWS) and 81-150 (Melbourne v Adelaide). Congratulations to all involved.
Postcode of the week
Tiger fans were pretty frustrated with Richmond's wayward last-quarter kicking on Friday night. The return for that term was just 1.8 but we'd like to think that the Tiger players had bigger things on their minds in orchestrating just a solitary goal for the quarter. It's our theory that it was all part of a master plan to honour an ex-Tiger who wore number 6 on his back, played 166 games, and went by the first name "Mark". By kicking just the one last-quarter goal, the Tigers completed a quarter by quarter goal tally for the match of 5,3,4,1. And 5341 just happens to be the postcode of Chaffey.
Ridiculous footy anagram of the week
Poor old Brett Ratten. Just when it appeared he'd saved his job as Carlton coach, the Blues lost an unloseable game against the Suns and the spectre of Mick Malthouse hangs over him again. Footscray, Collingwood and West Coast players of times gone by already know that their old coach could be best described by the fact that MICHAEL MALTHOUSE is an anagram of I AM MOUSTACHE HELL. But one wonders what Brett Ratten thinks of the difference in coaching ability between himself and Mick, especially if the Blues hierarchy decide to give him the boot. Perhaps the answer lies in the phrase COACHES BRETT RATTEN AND MICHAEL MALTHOUSE. It's an anagram of A LOST CHANCE. I LEAD BETTER THAN MR. MOUSTACHE.
Footnotes
- Given that these are the only Chads to have ever played VFL or AFL footy, I'll be pretty surprised if any challenges are forthcoming.
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