Round 8 Bets – Well, Geelong did us out of our multi-bet! We missed by one leg! Every other leg got up…Argh! That hurts! Let’s face it, no one saw a Collingwood win this round. They flew out of the blocks and totally stunned the Cats. Geelong’s stars just didn’t come out to play. Cameron Guthrie ended up with 19 disposals. That’s six short of the 25 we had him down for in our player disposal multi-bet. Rory Sloane delivered with 27 in his game (we had him down for 25 disposals). We did get the highest margin of the round though. The Gold Coast vs. Adelaide game returned some much-needed coin to our account.
Oh Yes!
Jarryd Roughead in the Hawthorn rooms on Friday night. Still coaching his teammates through the game at half time. It was an emotional week for the Hawks. Sydney got the win.
Collingwood beat Geelong. Upset of the year…so far!
Travis Cloke kicked four goals in the VFL, but Collingwood have now won two on the trot. Is there room for him in the senior team? They seem to be doing pretty well without him.
The American Pie, Mason Cox, can play Aussie Rules. He lopes along like a giraffe, but what he does with a ball that he hadn’t even touched a couple of years ago, is nothing short of amazing! Loving his humble, good-natured attitude too. Sunday morning, he tweeted, “That awkward moment when you have to go to an Auskick clinic and teach kids how to play footy who have played longer than you.”
Father-to-be Josh Kennedy (WC) flies to Adelaide late and still kicks 7 goals!
North Melbourne are still unbeaten. Sitting on top of the ladder, now two games ahead of Geelong, they’re breaking records now. It’ll be a tough gig for North against Sydney at the SCG on Friday night. The Swans will be out to spoil the party and I think they’ll put the first dent into North Melbourne’s perfect start to the season.
West Coast won away from home. The hoo-doo is officially broken.
Adelaide thumped the injury-plagued Suns by 75 points. How goal freak, Eddie Betts didn’t kick a goal in that game, I’ll never know. The Crows had 13 goal scorers and Eddie wasn’t one of them. Captain, Taylor Walker kicked a bag of five goals. Despite the large margin, the Suns managed a respectable score of 11. 8. 74.
GWS are still winning. The Giants beat the depleted Doggies by 25 points on Sunday afternoon. Despite missing the first four games of the season due to suspension, Jeremy Cameron is a late starter, but he’s putting his hand up in the Coleman Medal race, kicking 5 goals this week. Veteran defender, Heath Shaw is in career best form. With 38 possessions, which consisted of 36 kicks, it’s the most from any player since Geelong’s, Peter Featherby (Round 16, 1981). Adding Shaw to the next level of “freak” (in a good way) is that every one of those 36 kicks hit a target. He’d be unlucky not to get the three votes.
The Saints have bounced back from their thrashing in the west last week. The Bombers were brave early and stuck with them, but St. Kilda pulled away in the second half at Etihad.
Oh No!
The weather was so bad in Fremantle, the wind blew the glass from a corporate box and the Fremantle anchors were taken down. They were wild, crazy, slippery conditions and Fremantle are still winless. In that extreme weather, Richmond winning by a 38-point margin shows us what bad shape the Dockers are in. No team should win by 38-points when Mother Nature evens the playing field. Matthew Pavlich should never have played on for another season. He’s a shadow of his former playing self. Even after a week off to “rest,” he can no longer take a solid mark and ended with just 9 disposals for the entire game.
Umpire, Ray Chamberlain paying a free kick to Richmond in front of goal after pinging Docker defender, Lee Spurr for a deliberate rushed behind. It’s getting to the stage where defenders are too nervous to do what they do…DEFEND! Brisbane’s Pearce Hanley was pinged for the same defensive move on Sunday, but in his case, prior opportunity was there. There were other instances across the weekend when a rushed behind wasn’t penalized. If this rule is now in place, make players and coaches aware of it. All we ask for is consistency. Safe to say, we’re all a bit confused. Clarification needed before Round 10, please! Rule changes…I can’t keep up!
Port Adelaide defender, Tom Jonas is in serious trouble with the MRP after his late elbow to the head of Eagle, Andrew Gaff. The knock out blow caused a melee between fired up players and Gaff was taken from the ground on a stretcher. He was up and about in the rooms after the game, but he’ll likely miss a week after the usual precautionary concussion testing. Jonas on the other hand, will miss far more games than that. In real-time and slow motion, it looks bad. The knock was late, head high and high impact.
The Gold Coast Suns have more injuries. Darcy McPherson (knee) and Callum Ah Chee (concussion) failed to play out the game. No one wants to be Suns coach Rodney Eade…not even Rodney Eade!
Carlton have come back down to earth with an almighty thud. It was bound to happen. Bolton’s Blue Boys are a work in progress. We knew that.
Brisbane’s, first gamer, Rhys Mathieson is boo-worthy! Dropping and throwing his head back to draw the free kick at every opportunity is a pathetic way to get the ball. Win it on merit. It’s really disappointing to see a young player using this tactic to bait opposition players, and umpires are falling for it. Unbelievably, six free kicks were awarded to him because of this move. Commentators took note of it. It was a talking point during the game. The umpires should review Mathieson’s playing style ASAP and start paying a free kick against all players who pull this stunt. It’s the only way to stamp it out. It’s the only way to protect the player from himself.
The thrashings continue. As predicted, the Brisbane Lions lost to Melbourne (63 points) and the Gold Coast Sun lost to the Adelaide Crows (75 points). There’s no easy, or short-term fix for Queensland football. It’s an ugly state of affairs.
Underwhelming crowd numbers. Less than 10,000 people showed up (9,612) to see two exciting teams (GWS vs. WB) face off in a Giants home game on Sunday afternoon. The weather was perfect. Both teams are winning games and in the top eight. What more do the Giants have to do to get bums on seats at Spotless Stadium? One thing’s for certain, since there’s never enough of a crowd to make a mess, it’s probably what inspired the stadium’s name!
We’ll be back with our Round 10 predictions and best bets later in the week.
