The Race for the Flag in Squiggly Lines

Animated!

These bye weeks are so unfulfilling. I have to do a whole chart but only some teams have played. It just feels half-arsed. And I tell you what, it doesn’t help that Richmond is spudding it up. Anyway:

THIS WEEK NOT MUCH HAPPENED. Apologies to Bulldogs fans, who saw a thrilling upset in Sydney. That was pretty good. But they were already one of those teams that could finish anywhere from 1st to 8th and they’re still that. So for the most dramatic thing that happened in football this week, it’s just not that dramatic.

Collingwood and Carlton combined to kick three goals in one somnolent half of football in what must have been a real thriller for the crowd of 56,000 at the ‘G. I have no idea what happened in this match. I didn’t watch it. I don’t remember a lot of rain over the weekend so I can only assume that they lost all their footballs, or the ground was blanketed in thick fog, causing players to become lost and get run over on Punt Road. Something like that. Whatever it was, it sent those teams racing off towards Fremantle territory, which seems like fair punishment.

Gold Coast have apparently entered their Third Act, i.e.:
Act 1 (Rounds 1-3): Pretty good
Act 2 (Rounds 4-11): Awful
Act 3 (Rounds 12+): Pretty good

Meanwhile, Adelaide and West Coast did enough to hold ground.

Ladder predictor! I fear for that chart I do at the end of the year comparing this to the final ladder. It could be ugly. The Top 8 remains a twitchy clusterhug of evenness, with teams leaping up and tumbling down after each week’s (or game’s) results.