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Animated!

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So… Hawthorn. This isn’t an easy conversation. You’ve been there for me since I started posting squiggle stuff on BigFooty. You camped out among the premiership cups for months on end. You were a pleasure to watch and easy to predict.

It’s even easy to identify the moment it all went wrong for Hawthorn: Round 6, April 30, 2016, 4:35pm. That was when the Hawks, travelling at 4 wins and 1 loss after a series of narrow escapes, ran into GWS and started watching footballs flying over their heads. They lost by 75 points. It was the beginning of the end because if there was one thing the Hawks made clear during their period of dominance, it was that good teams don’t get thrashed.

Thrashings are very indicative. Squiggle pays a lot of attention to them, even more than wins. Very good teams don’t receive them, under any circumstances, not even when nothing’s going right. They cough up close losses but not thrashings. And they belt bad teams.

So after copping an 86-point belting from the Suns, the Hawks take the big plunge on the squiggle, while Gold Coast leap toward the middle of the pack:

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Adelaide and GWS did what was expected, while Sydney had another bad week — again, not because their performance was so terrible, but because when you can only afford to lose 5 or 6 games for the year to make the top 4, it’s not great to accumulate three of them before your first win. They’re still rated the third-best team, but they probably need to go at least 16-3 from here, and that’s a huge ask.

A good week for the Cats, mainly because Sydney and the Bulldogs’ troubles freed up some breathing space in the top 4. Also good for Collingwood, who banked a win that few would have counted on, and stole ground from top-8 competitors in Hawthorn, Melbourne, and North.

Carlton and Essendon take a step to the right, mainly because of a heavily rain-affected game. But Fremantle overtake both after beating the Bulldogs.

The Tigers are now 3-0, but squiggle isn’t too excited yet. They’re a genuine finals chance, currently predicted to miss out on percentage only, but their results have been only mildly better than expectation. To really move, they need to belt Brisbane next week.

Flagpole! Pretty much business as usual here:

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