Micro Noises 63 - A ludicrous ladder
A preposterous projected premiership ladder
How amazing was round 18? Not only did it (seemingly) go forever but it threw up bizarre results and/or margins in just about every game. Four of the round's matches were decided by 10 points or less and the other five were won by the team that started as non-favourite. The footy world has been turned on its head over the past two weeks and who are we to say that this madness won't continue? So in that spirit, we invite our readers to continue a suspension of belief and sensibility and just imagine if the next five weeks yielded the following winners.
ROUND 19 | CARL | ESS | WCO | GWS | STK | NM | MELB | WB | COLL |
ROUND 20 | RICH | GWS | CARL | MELB | PORT | FREM | BRIS | WCO | WB |
ROUND 21 | CARL | SYD | GCO | WCO | RICH | BRIS | WB | FREM | GWS |
ROUND 22 | CARL | ADEL | GCO | GWS | MELB | HAW | BRIS | WB | RICH |
ROUND 23 | ADEL | RICH | MELB | WB | CARL | COLL | WCO | PORT | GEEL |
Granted, some of those results seem pretty far-fetched but hey, let's not forget what happened at Docklands the other day between bottom-placed St Kilda and Fremantle, a side looking at top place on the ladder. Not only did the Saints win, they positively pounded the Dockers into submission. So let's not laugh at these suggested results. They could happen. And if they do, all 45 of them, something weird and wonderful will happen at season's end. It will look like this:
TEAM | W | L | D | Points | |
1 | Sydney | 14 | 8 | 0 | 56 |
2 | Hawthorn | 14 | 8 | 0 | 56 |
3 | Fremantle | 14 | 8 | 0 | 56 |
4 | Port Adelaide | 14 | 8 | 0 | 56 |
5 | Geelong | 14 | 8 | 0 | 56 |
6 | North Melbourne | 11 | 11 | 0 | 44 |
7 | Essendon | 11 | 11 | 0 | 44 |
8 | Adelaide | 11 | 11 | 0 | 44 |
9 | West Coast | 11 | 11 | 0 | 44 |
10 | Collingwood | 11 | 11 | 0 | 44 |
11 | Richmond | 11 | 11 | 0 | 44 |
12 | Gold Coast | 11 | 11 | 0 | 44 |
13 | Carlton | 11 | 11 | 0 | 44 |
14 | Western Bulldogs | 11 | 11 | 0 | 44 |
15 | GWS | 8 | 14 | 0 | 32 |
16 | Melbourne | 8 | 14 | 0 | 32 |
17 | Brisbane | 8 | 14 | 0 | 32 |
18 | St Kilda | 5 | 17 | 0 | 20 |
That's right folks, we could end up with five teams on 14 wins and NINE teams on 11 wins, with the battle for top two, top four and top eight spots coming down to percentage. And some of those percentages are pretty close. Just imagine if two sides ended up with identical percentages. It could happen. But the AFL is prepared for this. They have a contingency plan for such an eventuation. If two sides end up on equal points and identical percentages, the results of the games played between the two sides will determine which team finishes higher.
Which is all well and good in the case of Hawthorn and Sydney, for instance. The two sides have met twice, with the Swans winning once by 19 points and the Hawks once by 10 points. Sydney would be awarded the higher place by a net margin of nine points. But what of Sydney and Port Adelaide, for example? Those two sides meet in round 20. When they met earlier in the season, the Swans sneaked home by four points. If Port gets home by the same margin in round 20 and the two sides ultimately end up with identical percentages, the AFL will be forced to go to the next level of "tie-breaking" - a toss of the coin! The same thing could happen if Fremantle beats Hawthorn by 58 points in round 21 or Fremantle beats Port Adelaide by 18 points in round 23 (assuming they finish level on points with identical percentages).
That's a complicated scenario but - and we admit it's a big "but" (but we like big buts and we cannot lie) - it could actually even get more complicated than that. What if Sydney, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide and Fremantle all finish equal on 14 wins with identical percentages?
If our understanding of the AFL's rules is correct, here's how it could pan out, in four simple (yet enormously complicated) steps:
1. Sydney finishes higher than Hawthorn courtesy of a net winning margin of nine points across two games.
2. Hawthorn and Fremantle are forced to toss a coin after the Dockers beat the Hawks by 58 in round 21 (having lost to Hawthorn by that margin in round three). Hawthorn wins the toss, giving them a higher ranking than Fremantle.
3. Fremantle defeats Port Adelaide by 18 points in round 23, having lost to the Power by 18 points in round eight. Another coin toss is required. Fremantle wins the toss, giving them a higher ranking than Sydney.
4. Port beats Sydney by four points in round 20, reversing the round 13 result by the same margin. A third coin toss is called for. Port Adelaide wins the toss, giving them a higher ranking than Sydney.
So that's all pretty simple, isn't it? Sydney gets ranked higher than Hawthorn, which gets ranked higher than Fremantle, which gets ranked higher than Port Adelaide, which gets ranked higher than... wait a minute - Sydney?
Of course it will never happen. But we think it would be great if it did, just to see the look on Gillon McLachlan's face when confronted by that scenario!
Déjà vu all over again
Of course the above scenario would have been made all the more delicious (as Bruce might put it) had Hawthorn defeated Sydney by 19 points as the Swans had done to the Hawks in round eight. But they didn't; they won by only 10 points. And Hawks' fans with long memories may have felt a certain sense of familiarity about that result. Until Saturday night, Hawthorn had not won by that margin since 2002. And funnily enough, that game was also on a Saturday in July. And more funnily enough, that game was at the MCG. And even more funnily enough, it was against Sydney! The one stark difference between the two games was the crowd. While 72,768 turned up to the 'G last Saturday night, only 25,079 were there on that day in 2002.
Spooky start-ups
You may or may not have noticed that it was the 30th of July earlier this week. And we couldn't let that fact go past without mentioning that only two people with the surname of Conlan - Fitzroy's Mick and Richmond's Greg - have played footy at VFL/AFL level. What does that have to with the 30th of July? Well, as it turns out, that is the date they both played their first games. Mick against Collingwood in 1977, and Greg against Essendon in 1983.
Postcode of the week
Richmond beat West Coast in just about every department at Subiaco last Friday night. But in their 17-point win, one thing the Tigers didn't seem to do was mark as well as the Eagles, with West Coast taking 36 grabs and Richmond just 27. How ironic, then, that the Tigers' behind sequence over the game's four quarters was 2,4,2,3 and that 2423 is the postcode of Markwell.
Ridiculous footy anagram of the week
Great news for Demons' fans this week, with Paul Roos announcing that he would extend his coaching contract into a third season. Roos is undeniably a fine football tactician but he brings more to the team than knowledge. His mere presence at the Demons has had emboldening effect on everyone at the club. How appropriate, then, that THE MELBOURNE DEMONS' PAUL ROOS is an anagram of HE'S OUR TOP "EMBOLDEN US" ROLE MAN.
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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