120th greatest rivalry in the AFL?

[El_Scorcho]

Port and Freo have the whole Josh Carr thing, and we seem to get in more melees against them than anyone else. I think we have a bit of a rivalry going with freo actually.

Probably pretty well agree with the rest of our nothing rivalries though. Good post punter!

Edit: Actually, to be honest, I don't think having played a solitary final or two makes a difference in this kind of thing. Nor do I think the Victorian/former Victorian thing matters. The Bulldogs and Sydney I wouldn't have thought would have a particularly fueled rivalry.

 

[D_One]

Yea I agree with this except Port have played a final against West Coast, so that could rule that game out.

Anyhow, everyone seems to think that rivalry means biggest crowd, and so, for example Port Adelaide V North Melbourne has been a popular option. However there is a pretty good rivalry with North Melbourne forming/formed over the years. North beat Port from 97-03 (? i think 03) on every occasion including a 99 final. Since then it's been more even, however Port have been defeating North in the more important games, eg. 2005 Elimination, 2007 Prelim and 2008 Round 22. On each of these occasions it has been pretty embarrassing for North. This year North beat Port by 5 points (Rnd 7) and 4 points (Rnd 22) with the Round 22 game involving the retirement of Peter Burgoyne and Brendan Lade. If Port had won these two, they would've made finals. So it's a little pay back. There have also been some close encounters and good games including the two close games this year, a 40 point come back in Canberra (North's Way) and a miss just before the siren from Warren Tredrea. There has also been controversy over the Warren Tredrea bow and Chad Cornes' goose step in the 2007 final.

I agree. Port has a genuine rivalry with North. It took us 10 attempts to beat them. We have played them in three finals and have had a lot of close matches lately.

We also have a real rivalry with Brisbane (Finals and 04 GF), Hawthorn (Mark Williams choke gesture), Collingwood (The kyboshed out 1990 entry attempt, deny us our heritage, Nick Stevens no-deal and Kane's finger gesture) and the Camry Crows (they only exist to be a Port Adelaide alternative)

We also have a minor rivalry with Carlton (Chad and Rattens comments last year), Essendon (a few finals and we took Wangas,Cockatoo-Collins and Hardwick from them), Geelong (2007 especially the GF build up), St Kilda (2004 Prelim), Sydney (2003 Qual Final) and West Coast (2007 Qual final)

Games against Melbourne, Richmond and Fremantle don’t arouse too much passion. No real rivalry there.

That said I don’t think I've ever bothered to sit down and watch a Freo vs Richmond game in the last 15 years. Two clubs perennially stuck down the bottom of the ladder.

 

[Bayer_]

for me...it's hard to make a case for Hawthorn vs Fremantle, Melbourne, or Eagles.

Otherwise there's something for pretty much every team, as manufactured and obtuse as it might be.

So you don't reckon our stealing the 1991 flag from under their nose, or them knocking us out by 13 points in 1992 (when we all knew that either side was going to take the flag off the handbaggers) makes a case for a rivalry?

 

[Valli]

Oh yeah, and what happened to the Docklands Cup between Port and Freo?

 

[bigmikewcefan]

So with a 16 team competition there are 120 possible combinations of Team X vs Team Y.

If you were to list the rivalries from top to bottom you might have those such as Collingwood vs Carlton, Essendon vs Hawthorn, Port Adelaide vs Adelaide, West Coast vs Fremantle, Sydney vs West Coast, Geelong vs Hawthorn, etc amongst the top.

So the question I put to you Bay13ers is which is the least relevant matchup in the AFL. Which annual game draws absolutely no passion or interest from anybody and should ideally be scrapped from the AFL fixture?

For me it is without doubt Melbourne vs West Coast. Can't remember one memorable game between these two sides, no famous moments (besides some Jakovich family incest) and even the few finals they played were boring as batshit and foregone conclusions.

Says a lot about how irrelevant a matchup is when the most emotion it evokes is from a bunch of BF posters arguing about whether picking Watts or Naitanui ahead of Hurley was the bigger stuff up.

Discuss...

lol - hurley comment

but seriously, any game melbourne are involved in.....they should just fold...

 

[bigmikewcefan]

So you don't reckon our stealing the 1991 flag from under their nose, or them knocking us out by 13 points in 1992 (when we all knew that either side was going to take the flag off the handbaggers) makes a case for a rivalry?

aside from the difference in decades - wc and hawks both need to be near top (as with any 2 teams really) to have a good rivalry.