The Monday Knee Jerk Reaction: Round Eighteen

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.

Thursday

Fremantle (111) v Sydney (73)

Look, two of the top teams going at it is great, but the focus should obviously be on head rubbing.

It was Pat Voss who triggered the rule banning head rubbing after taunting Melbourne’s Harrison Petty earlier in the year.

‘No head rubbing!’ the AFL announced, something I’ve since learnt most workplaces enforce, especially if you do it a lot.

On Thursday, Chad Warner missed a set shot only for Luke Ryan to rub his head, and the umpire awarded a free kick, which Warner converted.

Personally, I’d love to see a Grand Final decided by a head-rubbing incident.

This game was wild, head rubbing aside.

Fremantle somehow finished the first half goalless, kicking 0.11, and Dockers fans immediately thought, ‘Here we go again.’

Swans fans were thrilled; the Dockers forwards were doing their defence’s job for them.

Meanwhile, up the other end, Charlie Curnow kicked five.

A second-half comeback was on the cards as Fremantle tried not missing every shot at goal.

It worked, by the fourth quarter, they were down by just a couple of points.

Then the Dockers decided to overcompensate for their earlier mistakes, booting seven unanswered goals in 14-minutes.

It made the Swans chance of a Premiership look a little shaky.

This week’s Sport Bizarre podcast looks at FIFA President Gianni Infantino and his rise to power.

Friday

Collingwood (89) v North Melbourne (85)

In a tight game, North, especially Nick Larkey, will be regretting their inaccuracy in front of goal.

Larkey finished with 3.4 in a display that had North fans tearing their hair out.

This season, North have served up some of the worst performances of the season.

At times they have been close to unwatchable, but they have also shown signs they are no longer the floating bye they’ve been in recent years.

The Pies certainly had their hands full at Marvel, but when it counted in the dying moments, they had that extra bit of class the Kangaroos lacked.

And yes, I realise using class and Collingwood in the same sentence is jarring.

The Magpies’ fourth consecutive win has them looking a lot steadier than they have at times this season, but they don’t look like world beaters.

They seem certain to land Lachie Neale, who is currently 33, proving the Pies are committed to having more old people than an episode of The Golden Girls.

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Saturday

St Kilda (87) v Port Adelaide (73)

The loss was only the second worst thing to happen to Port on the weekend, with Zak Butters going down with a high-grade syndesmosis injury.

I’m not a doctor but that sounds bad. Although syndesmosis sounds like something sailors died of back in the pirate era.

Now Port will get to see what next season will be like for the rest of the year.

It also didn’t help that Mitch Georgiades and Lachie Jones also picked up injuries.

The Saints, despite having these advantages, still saw a 37-point lead before halftime whittled down in the second half

It was about as convincing a win as the time I beat my seven-year-old nephew 6-0 6-0 at tennis one summer holiday.

His parents were furious with me that I wouldn’t stop the game when he started crying and that I didn’t let him have a racket.

Still, a win is a win.

Greater Western Sydney (86) v Geelong (73)

Watching Geelong on Saturday was like watching an episode of M*A*S*H, such was the stream of casualties.

Jack Henry and Tanner Bruhn were ruled out, and then Jeremy Cameron broke his collarbone.

It’s quicker to name the bones that aren’t broken in his body.

Scenes of him on the green whistle in a wheelchair, before he was taken to hospital were distressing.

That didn’t stop a journalist from asking him the next day if he’d get up for the next week.

Despite all the chaos on the injury front, the Cats still led by 39 points, 20 minutes into the third quarter.

Then came the Giants, who kicked nine of the last 10 goals of the game.

The victory sees them in 11th spot, knocking on the door of top ten! What an exciting time for the sport.

The Cats’ have now lost five of their past six games, but I won’t write them off just yet; they’ve burnt me too many times in the past with that call.

Carlton (39) v Hawthorn (103)

Some of the worst conditions I’ve seen at the G in a long time, as the rain poured down on a cold, horrible night.

Even watching at home in front of the fire, I still felt cold watching it, and despite me yelling at the staff to throw more logs on, I still couldn’t get warm.

One thing that did get the blood pumping was watching the umpire call “play on” when Ginnivan was preparing to kick for goal, due to him faking a handball.

Adam Cerra rushed forward, only for the umpire to change his mind and then punish Cerra with a fifty for not standing the mark.

This was just a pure howler from the umpire and could have been the difference with Carlton losing by just 64 points.

For Josh Fraser, this was a terrible case of reality.

It’s disappointing, but in reality, Carlton winning seven in a row is like a dog talking; it was exciting to be alive while it happened, even if we knew it couldn’t last forever.

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Adelaide (128) v Gold Coast (49)

As he likes to do after a bad loss, Damien Hardwick went into full deflection mode.

He announced that the Suns’ season was “effectively gone” and they “don’t deserve to play finals”.

“We couldn’t play any worse,” he said, which shows a lack of belief because I think they can.

If only he could do something about it! Like imagine if he was their senior coach!

And they only sit one game out of the top ten. Why announce you’re surrendering now?

Hardwick also said after the game that some fans are "peanuts" and ‘are the sort of people who live in their mum's basements and type on bloody social media forums and all that sort of stuff’.

How dare he insult my culture!

Sunday

Western Bulldogs (86) v West Coast (70)

To say the Bulldogs rely on Marcus Bontempelli is like saying Western Australia relies on mining, a statement so obvious it’s barely worth making.

Time and again he saves them, and without him they’d be a fairly average side.

It was Bontempelli who dragged his team back into this, as the Eagles found form early.

He finished with 25 disposals, 12 clearances, and two goals.

His class is next level.

If Bontempelli is like a scalpel, Harley Reid is like a bone saw. He just muscles his way through contests.

He’s stopped all the nonsense from last season and is emerging as the star everyone predicted he would be.

Add Willem Duursma to the mix, and the Eagles have something they haven’t had in years: hope.

Melbourne (111) v Richmond (65)

Last week, Melbourne gave up 12 goals in a row and still won by 35 points.

This week, they didn’t lose a game they were expected to win.

The test of every Melbourne side is whether they overcome my pessimistic view of the world.

Melbourne ninth straight victory at the MCG is worth noting, as occasionally, the MCG gets some key finals.

This team keeps exceeding all my expectations. It’s the most exciting year since RM Williams brought out those padded vests.

Richmond, however, looked very poor. Their skills hurt your eyes.

Adem Yze has nine wins from 63 games. That’s not good.

The fact that his fitness team seems to have set out to injure every player hasn’t helped. I haven’t seen this much sabotage since the French Resistance.

Brisbane (149) v Essendon (59)

At the start of the year, the Lions, to use a technical football term, sucked.

They played like a bunch of people on the tail end of a Contiki Tour.

It’s fair to say they’ve straightened up in the last few weeks.

Getting a light training session in against Essendon also helped as the ease at which the Lions got ahead was ridiculous.

Up by 33 points at quarter time, the Lions found so much space, as the Bombers seemed to avoid Lions players the way I avoid small talk.

Bombers fans must be wondering how their club has managed to limbo under their already incredibly low expectations.

Watching Essendon is more painful than a primary school play, and less skilful.

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