The Monday Knee Jerk Reaction: Round Twenty One

Footy is a passion, not some cold hearted, spread sheet dominated rational exercise.

On a Monday, you want irrational reaction. You want emotion to trump reason.

What you really want is idiotic hysteria.

You've come to the right place.

For those in Melbourne, I’ll be performing live in Titus & Lehmo’s AFL Finals Extravaganza on Saturday, the 30th of August. Tickets have just gone on sale today.

Thursday

Western Bulldogs (132) v Greater Western Sydney (44)

This season, Thursday Night Footy has been about as exciting as a one-year-old’s birthday party, and this week the Giants made it worse than even Carlton or Essendon could manage.

Making a game worse than Carlton or Essendon is like playing a better guitar solo than Jimmy Hendrix and Jimmy Page.

Even worse, the Giants are fighting for the eight, with the Bulldogs a key rival. This should have been a good game.

This wasn’t even a complicated game to understand. The Doggies attacked the ball at every opportunity, their midfield was superior, their forwards were too tall, and their defence shut down the Giants run off half back.

All this was significantly helped by the fact the Giants seemed weirdly uninterested in the game, which I soon was too.

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Friday

Adelaide (101) v Hawthorn (87)

While most people love a Hawthorn loss, it was sad to see Will Day reinjure his foot.

The Hawks say this was just bad luck not bad management, a bit like when I try to convince people my headache has nothing to do with the bender I went on the night before.

As I predicted at the start of the season, the Crows are top of the ladder. Did I predict it publicly, or in a way that can be verified? Why so many questions?

The Crows are like your self-sabotaging friend who finally pulled their life together. It’s nice to see, but do we trust them yet?

I think I do. I know, it feels weird to write that, but the Hawks threw everything at them, and the Crows just handled it.

A competent Crows side! Further proof that anything can happen in football.

Saturday

Melbourne (139) v West Coast (56)

It says a lot about Melbourne’s season that there was widespread relief in the crowd when the Dees won this.

Scarred from the week before, even a 63-point lead at three-quarters time didn’t seem safe.

But West Coast aren’t the Saints, in fact, there’s a strong argument they are not an AFL side.

Even the Eagles fans sitting near me had to consult the Record a lot to work out who their players were.

Perhaps most eye-opening from a West Coast perspective was Jai Culley, who they delisted, had 13 disposals, seven marks and two goals.

Being let go by the Eagles must feel like being let out of jail.

Gold Coast (107) v Richmond (23)

Gold Coast were keen to avoid a repeat of their loss to Richmond earlier this season, and they achieved that and then some.

The Tigers were horrible; there’s no other way to describe it.

The only thing interesting about the game was seeing if Richmond would be held goalless.

It took until the third quarter for them to kick one, so that ended any interest I had.

The Tigers finished with two goals, and considering Ben King kicked four, that was surprisingly not enough for the win.

It’s not end of the world stuff for the Tigers, they have overperformed this year already, but it was the percentage-boosting win the Suns need to consolidate their spot in the eight, and they have Carlton next week. Happy days!

Sydney (68) v Essendon (54)

Both these sides have been disappointing this season, but not as disappointing as the SCG surface.

After Andrea Bocelli vandalised the playing surface back in April, it’s been a mess, and things only seem to be getting worse.

Things weren’t helped when 115mm of rain arrived ahead of this game, then during the game a hole was discovered.

No, I’m no expert when it comes to football fields, but I believe holes are not ideal.

You would think the pregame inspection would pick up a thing like that, but perhaps ‘holes in the ground’ are not on the checklist.

Apparently, it was a hole that a sprinkler normally comes out of. Play stopped as groundcrew came out with a bucket of sand and filled it up.

And that was the highlight of this game.

Collingwood (65) v Brisbane (92)

There are only three things that deliver pure joy, being in love, a family gathering being cancelled, and watching your team beat Collingwood at the MCG.

It’s possible a Lions fan got to go to the game after a family dinner was cancelled and met the love of their life in the Ponsford Stand.

After last week’s no-show against the Suns, this was the perfect comeback. Like the perfect comeback I once came up with in response to Sally at work.

Unfortunately, I thought of it three years later.

Has Collingwood started to wobble? They’ve had three defeats in their past four games, and they seem a distracted team.

Could it be that Craig McRae is now dating Jack Silvagni? Is Jack Silvagni the Yoko Ono of the Pies?

I certainly hope so.

While McRae is choosing an outfit for his second date, the Pies just seem off.

The problem is, I feel this is just false hope, and the Pies are going to pull it together and ruin all our lives. Not to be overly dramatic.

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Sunday

Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera (78) v North Melbourne (69)

It was always going to be hard coming off the dopamine hit that was playing Melbourne.

St Kilda found the going tough when North did not surrender at any point in the game, and instead, tried to win it.

Once again, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera added more zeroes to his next paycheck with a performance that has Saints fans praying to any god they can think of for him to stay.

North bought real aggression to this, some too much, with Paul Curtis reported for punching Angus Hastie in the throat.

Personally, I think punching in the throat shouldn’t be allowed in our great game, but I don’t want to get all preachy about that.

Geelong (153) v Port Adelaide (65)

Geelong’s training session couldn’t have gone much better. They moved the ball well, their skills seemed sharp, and they are very fit.

Unfortunately, it’s a while before they’ll get their next AFL game.

They have Essendon next week, then Sydney, and finish with Richmond.

A tough draw if I’ve ever seen one.

Fremantle (94) v Carlton (67)

I turned this on a bit late, and Carlton were a fair bit ahead.

“Oh, good,” I thought, “I can watch Fremantle’s comeback.”

Even when the Blues led by four goals at halftime, there was still no sense the Dockers were in danger.

And again, when they led by eight points at three-quarter time there was still a sense of inevitability that the Dockers would run over the top of them.

So, when the Dockers booted seven goals to one in the final it was hardly surprising.

What to make of this for the Blues? Once again there was effort, but they lost anyway, and convincingly.

You could point to the significant outs, but they could lose like this even when they were in the team.

As for the Dockers, they move up to fifth, pretty impressive since they started the season like someone stumbling out of a nightclub at 5am.

For those in Melbourne, I’ll be performing live in Titus & Lehmo’s AFL Finals Extravaganza on Saturday the 30th of August. Tickets have just gone on sale today.

You can help support me in producing this ridiculous nonsense I churn out on a regular basis. Find out more here: https://titusoreily.com/support-titus

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