Micro Noises 103: Year of the Swans?
Swans on song?
A Rohan Connolly piece in this week's Age alluded to the Sydney Swans having once again flown under the radar in terms of public perception of their ability to win the flag. The Swans are behind Hawthorn, Fremantle and West Coast in premiership favouritism but Connolly suggests they are building nicely towards another tilt at a premiership. And history is backing Rohan up on this one. It suggests that Sydney will at the very least make the Grand Final, if not win it.
As pointed out to us on Twitter last week by Adam Haase, Sydney recorded the 'score of the year', kicking 20.15 against St Kilda. That got us wondering which other seasons a team has registered a score matching the year, and how far they've gone towards winning a flag in those seasons. And we uncovered something very interesting and perhaps instructive. It turns out that the Swans are the only team in history to have kicked the 'score of the year'. They kicked 19.12 as South Melbourne against Richmond in round 11, 1912, and knocked up 20.12 as Sydney against the Bulldogs in round 10, 2012.
And how did the Swans fare in those seasons? In 1912, they finished atop the ladder but fell 14 points short of Essendon in the Grand Final. 100 years later they finished outside the top two but won the Grand Final against Hawthorn as outsiders. The Swans will almost certainly finish outside the top two again this year but, having scored 20.15 in 2015, appear to be well worth a little flutter on making the Grand Final, if not taking out the flag.
No one had the close one
Despite promising a couple of mouth-watering clashes, round 22 did not produce any games with a thrilling finish. The North Melbourne versus Western Bulldogs match was in the balance for three and a half quarters, but the Dogs kicked away to win by 23 points at the end. That margin turned out to be the smallest of the weekend, the 'highest' lowest round margin we have seen in 2015. Not since round 4, 2014 have we seen such a 'blowout' round. The smallest margin on that weekend was also 23 points.
Of the five Saturday games, the Giants' win over Carlton produced the biggest margin - 81 points. It seems that GWS is not just an acronym for Greater Western Sydney, but also Greatest Win (Saturday).
Where are all the close ones?
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It wasn't just last week that was missing a thrilling finish. As discussed in Micro Noises 96, 2015 has been sadly lacking in matches decided by a kick or less. Not much has changed in the last few weeks and the percentage of 6-point or less matches in this season remains the lowest since the VFL became the AFL in 1990.
The prospect of improvement in round 23 seems a remote one, with Fremantle and North Melbourne resting players in larger numbers for their matches against Port Adelaide and Richmond. The other Saturday games, with the possible exception of the Geelong-Adelaide clash at Kardinia Park, are looking like they might also be mismatches. Perhaps our best hope of a thriller might be in Sunday's two meaningless encounters, Melbourne versus GWS, and Collingwood versus Essendon. Who knows, one of them might even produce the first one-point game of the year and help us avoid the first season devoid of one-point matches since 1984.
Score Wars - time to shine for 69
Not a lot went right for West Coast in its match against Adelaide last Sunday, but the Eagles did at least do 69 a favour by scoring 10.9. 69 has rejoined 78 as the most common score of 2015, each having come up 10 times, two more than 85.
First among unequals
The two Sydney sides made history in round 22. The Giants' win over Carlton by 81 points was not only the biggest win in the club's history, it was the first ever VFL/AFL match to finish with a score of 132 v 51. Not to be outdone by their neighbours, the Sydney Swans thrashed St Kilda to give us a first-time scoreline of 135 v 38.
Postcode of the week
Freo coach Ross Lyon is a meticulous planner and we can't help but think that he went right down to a quarter-by-quarter level of detail last Sunday to make sure the Dockers would lock in top spot. Lyon's charges kicked 5, 6, 3 and 3 goals in their four quarters against Melbourne, and 5633 is of course, the postcode of Lock.
Anagrammatic ZIP code of the week
Poor old Brisbane. The Lions have won just three games this season and, given the rumours regarding the number of players that are looking to abandon the side and move elsewhere, don't seem to be a group that can generate any excitement at the moment. That being the case, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised to learn that Brisbane's percentage as at round 22 is 65.339, and that 65339 is the ZIP code of Malta Bend, and that MALTA BEND is an anagram of BLAND TEAM.
Anagrammatic postcodes of the week
GWS had a big win over Carlton last Saturday but let's face it, the Blues this year have been a bog-standard team not capable of beating too many sides. And the Giants knew that themselves. Their behinds total in each quarter on Saturday was 3, 5, 3 1 and 3531 is the postcode of BOIGBEAT, which is an anagram of I BEAT BOG.
The Blues, of course, had high hopes when they took on Mick Malthouse as coach but they missed the boat by a long way in his time at the helm. And the Blues also are well aware of that fact. They were 2.4 at quarter time and 4.9 at half time and 2449 is the postcode of MISSABOTTI which is an anagram of BOAT - MISS IT.
Ridiculous footy anagrams of the week
The AFL has given the sub the red vest. From 2016, teams will revert to having four standard interchange players, with no one having to be a designated substitute. This means that, for all clubs who have not made the finals in 2015, round 23 will be the last in which they will have to nominate a sub. With that in mind, our suggestion to the Blues is that they select Jason Tutt as their man. Tutt has been used in that role already this season and, after all, THE SUBSTITUTE is an anagram of "HI. BEST USE TUTT."
But it's not just the sub that's retiring. Essendon's Dustin Fletcher has officially played his last AFL match. The Bomber beanpole had hoped to come up for one final match against Collingwood this weekend but his achy-breaky groin will sadly not allow him to do so. Let's not forget, though, that Fletcher has often brushed aside pain in many of his 400 games to do his best for the mighty Dons. So it's quite appropriate then, that DUSTIN FLETCHER is an anagram of DEFLECTS HURTIN'.
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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