Micro Noises 57 - Hawks at the double
A double double
Round 11 gave us a "double double" - two seven-point games and two 38-point games. It was the 10th time in history that two seven-point games have been recorded in the same round, and the sixth such occurrence for the 38-point margin, but the first time in the one season both margins have come up twice in the one round.
As happy as Collingwood fans would have been with the Magpies' 86-point thumping of St Kilda on Friday night, they might be a bit disappointed that their team was not involved in one of those two seven-point affairs. The Pies, you see, have been involved on five of the occasions in which two seven-point matches have occurred in the same round - 1903, 1927, 1935, 1957 and 1970, and in the cases where the Pies won the seven-point match - all except 1957 - they have gone on to play in the Grand Final. And in three of those four Grand Finals, the Magpies were victorious.
A 38 special for the Hawks
On the other hand, Hawthorn fans should be happy that there were two 38-point games in round 11, even if their team was busy winning one of the seven-point games. Why? Because the last two seasons that have featured two 38-point matches in the same round - 1961 (round 15) and 1988 (round 21) have seen the Hawks go on to take that year's premiership.
Around the states
A couple of close calls in the state leagues last weekend. The first was the Lauderdale versus Burnie match in the TSL played last Saturday at Lauderdale Oval. The match ended in a draw, both teams locked together on 13.11.89 when the final siren sounded. But drawn matches, while not common, aren't exactly rare either. What made this match particularly unusual was the fact that, after Burnie had jumped out to a 29-point lead at the first change, the two sides were also level at half-time and three-quarter time.
This got us wondering if there has ever been a match (at least since 1897, when behinds became part of teams' final scores) - at any level - where the score has been level at all four quarter breaks. We haven't found one yet. Let us know if you do.
The other near miss occurred in the WAFL match between West Perth and East Perth. The match itself wasn't overly close in the end with East Perth winning by 16 points, 10.9.69 to 7.11.53. But we wish the Royals had scored two goals fewer and won by only four points. The Royals, you see, were 2.3 at quarter time, 4.5 at half time and 6.7 at three-quarter time. Two fewer majors would have given East Perth a final score of 8.9 and a quarter-by-quarter score sequence of 2.3, 4.5, 6.7, 8.9. And that's a sequence you can count on making us excited.
Score Wars
Carlton's losing score of 13.13 against Brisbane in Saturday's twilight game briefly gave 91 a share of the Score Wars lead, along with 83 and 87, each of those final scores having come up six times this year at that stage. However, GWS nudged 87 back into the outright lead by kicking 13.9 in its thrilling loss to Hawthorn at the MCG the next day. The seven instances of 87 in 2014 have all been by different teams - Gold Coast and Carlton in round one, Fremantle in round two, Geelong in round three, Hawthorn in round five, St Kilda in round nine and now the Giants.
And we keep mentioning it, but last year's most common final score - 103 - still hasn't made an appearance in 90 matches so far in 2014.
The Marginal Medal
As mentioned earlier, round 11 saw two 7-point games and a couple of 38-point games, shaking things up at the top of the Marginal Medal table. 38 is now a joint leader with 32, which also came up once in round 11. Those margins have come up five teams each this year, one more than 7 and 8.
Postcode of the week
Adelaide and the Gold Coast Suns have both trumpeted themselves as potential finalists with some great footy in recent weeks. Appropriately, the quarter-time score in their match at the Adelaide Oval last Sunday was 5.2-5.1. And, as we all know, 5251 is the postcode of Bugle Ranges.
Ridiculous footy anagram of the week
It's been fantastic to see Collingwood's Lachlan Keeffe become a regular member of the Magpie team since he returned late last year from a knee reconstruction that kept him out of footy for more than 12 months. Like all football fans, we hope Keeffe has no further troubles with his knee or, for that matter, any other part of his body from the waist down, especially in view of the fact that THE MAGPIES' LACHLAN KEEFFE is an anagram of A HIP/LEG/KNEE/CALF/FEET MASH.
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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