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GuyWhoLikesSport

Which AFL Team Can Actually Win the Flag?

Which AFL Team Can Actually Win the Flag?

• GuyWhoLikesSport
This is a very strange year in the AFL.   It’s like the Oppenheimer Oscars where everything seems to be pointing in one direction more because of the relative quality of the field compared to the overall quality of the leader (I will die on the hill that Oppenheimer wasn’t that good. Marty Supreme was better).   Fremantle is a $3.00 favourite with Neds and are three games clear on top of the ladder. Next is Brisbane, who just copped 25 goals against a Carlton team that’s about to get forced into hiring its interim, at $5.40.  It feels like other that Fremantle, the entire competition is somewhere between okay and terrible.…
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The Sydney Swans and the Art of Working Through It 

The Sydney Swans and the Art of Working Through It 

• GuyWhoLikesSport
In Opening Round, Sydney had 634 metres gained by hand against Carlton. In Round 1, they had exactly the same amount of metres gained by hand against the reigning two time premiers, Brisbane.   That number was 200 metres higher than GWS, who led the league in handball metres last year, averaged last year. They won the games by a combined 107 points.  In both games, the Swans had about 6,700 total metres gained and spent more than 55% of the game in their front half with an even front versus back half scoring profile. They were solid in their fundamentals, but with that handball game they…
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Redrafting the 2024 Draft

Redrafting the 2024 Draft

• GuyWhoLikesSport
Just two years after a “legacy” draft, where Richmond had four picks in the top 15 including the first overall pick, the Tigers are 2-17 and below an Essendon team in the middle of an identity crisis that Steve Carell in Crazy Stupid Love would be embarrassed by. Poor skill execution is dearly hurting Richmond, according to head coach Adem Yze.https://t.co/nNywSM4uAF— AFL (@AFL) July 26, 2026 With the senior pillars of the club fading, in particular Nathan Broad, the young players taken highly in the 2024 draft either aren’t playing or aren’t stepping up. Sam Lalor from 50 🚀#AFLDogsTigers pic.twitter.com/HYlsL4sljm—…
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How Far Can the Pies Go?

How Far Can the Pies Go?

• GuyWhoLikesSport
Two things are indisputably true: Linear TV is dying a slow but certain death because of social media, and  Newscorp makes a profit mostly because of Fox News.  It’s the same thing with oil companies versus AI. AI companies haemorrhage cash and will probably never make a profit but their share prices will continue to rise on the promise of what they could be. Exxon just keeps on printing cash quarter after quarter, especially these days.  Collingwood is Exxon. They’re Fox News. They have been a full year older than the next oldest team over the last five games (Geelong)…
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Every AFL Team as a Character from The Odyssey

Every AFL Team as a Character from The Odyssey

• GuyWhoLikesSport
I saw Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey last night.  From a guy that didn’t like Oppenheimer and hasn’t loved a Nolan film since The Dark Knight, holy shit it was so good. Every story beat felt incredibly familiar but it was somehow fresh because of Nolan’s freakish ability to do kind of just enough re-imagining to make himself different. You saw it in the Batman trilogy just like you saw it in putting the Trojan Horse in the water rather than on wheels to make it seem more believable. I don’t generally love his movies, but this one was so good. …
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The Sliding Doors of UFC 329 

The Sliding Doors of UFC 329 

• GuyWhoLikesSport
Right as Conor McGregor leapt up to attempt to kick Max Holloway’s head clean off, the first true potential successor to McGregor was being interviewed.  Paddy Pimblett stopped his interview, barely sweating after dispatching ex French special forces soldier Benoit Saint-Denis inside a minute, and saw that McGregor was already done.   With a Logan Roy after Kendall killed the waiter level of ruthlessness and opportunism, Pimblett seized the moment. He said, shortly after registering a level of shock, “well he’s finished! The new boy is in town! The main man’s here!”  He’s right. On both counts.   Firstly, McGregor truly is finished.   In a rational…
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Fremantle, Sydney, and the Seeds of Defeat 

Fremantle, Sydney, and the Seeds of Defeat 

• GuyWhoLikesSport
With the World Cup starting to wind down, the AFL needed a game to reassert itself into our imagination.  First v second? Potential Grand Final preview? Thursday night?   Perfect.   And while the game was impressive, particularly from Fremantle, it was a perfect example of Michael Corleone style winning battles but slowly winning wars right up until his wife gets an abortion behind his back likely facilitated by adopted brother.   The game showed what Fremantle and Sydney can both do when they’re up and running, but also the thing that will cause them to not win the premiership if indeed they don’t…
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The Strange End of Conor McGregor 

The Strange End of Conor McGregor 

• GuyWhoLikesSport
On Sunday afternoon Australian time, Conor McGregor is back.   Again.   After five years out of the Octagon post-breaking his leg against Dustin Poirier – and after various life events that included the taking of “banned drugs” to recover, a finding against him in a sexual assault lawsuit, a couple of political campaigns, a White House visit – he’s back to doing what made him famous: fighting in the UFC.   But this one feels like the last comeback.  At 37 and with just two fights left on his UFC contract, and a record of 1-3 in his last seven years with the UFC, the man that has loomed over the UFC for the better…
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The Socceroos and the Weight of Opportunity 

The Socceroos and the Weight of Opportunity 

• GuyWhoLikesSport
A lot has been made of what Mark Milligan and the rest of the SBS crew said about the future of Australian football.  In the aftermath of yet another painful Socceroos World Cup exit, this time against Egypt on penalties, Milligan asked the FFA to decide what it wants to be. When will it decide that just qualifying isn’t enough? When are we going to scale the way that we play so we can compete at the World Cup?  These are the right questions to be asking. They’re also the questions that we asked after we lost to Argentina in Qatar last…
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The AFL Premiership Metrics: as Told by Guy Ritchie 

The AFL Premiership Metrics: as Told by Guy Ritchie 

• GuyWhoLikesSport
Guy Ritchie has made three good movies and a lot of slop. That’s not dissimilar to this AFL season which, finally ,is back to a full slate of nine games a round.  To mark the end of the bye rounds, and now that everyone has finally played the same amount of games, let’s check in on Andrew Whelan’s premiership metrics. As a reminder, these metrics are a collection of numbers that premiers tend to be good at, and Andrew has split them by ranks with and without the footy.   To get through them, and so it’s not just a sea of numbers, we’ll tell the…
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