Special Interest

This has not been a good year for gameplay in the AFL. Last year, I felt like we hit a happy medium between attack and defence in the game and it was probably the best year of footy I can ever remember. This year, it’s been different. Even though scoring numbers are basically the same, there’s been a profound difference between the haves and the have nots. The league-wide scoring numbers are mostly propped up by good teams demolishing bad teams. This year we have had 20 games decided by 0-5 points, about 10% of all games. Last year we…

This season has felt like the AFL circa 2015: the quality of play has been poor, but the ladder is going to be close enough in the end for the league to spin it as ‘healthy competition’ This was a big weekend for that close finish, though, with three games between top nine sides. Here’s one takeaway from each. Fremantle v Brisbane: Fraudmantle is real Heading into Friday night against the Lions at a packed Optus stadium, Fremantle had won five in a row and three of them by less than three goals. They were in some form, even if…

I’m 29 years old, born in 1996. My first real football memory, as a Richmond fan, is Richo kicking 10 against the Dogs in 2004. That’s closely followed by Richo getting pinged for the newly introduced hands in the back to rob us of a Dreamtime win in yet another shit season. Based on that, I reckon my football consciousness started in around 2005. In that 20 years, Nathan Fyfe is the single best contested player I have ever seen, and I am sad to know that I’ll never see him in the heart of the contest again. a legend…