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.
Friday
Geelong (115) v Hawthorn (85)
The Hawks might be young and exciting, but Patrick Dangerfield is like Robert De Niro in Ronin.
He’s seen it all before and doesn’t mind lulling opponents into a false sense of security, because when it matters, he makes it count.
That also makes Hawthorn the Sean Bean character in Ronin, which I like, as he is also arrogant and unlikable.
And let’s be clear, in AFL terms, Dangerfield is ancient. He’s 35 years old and has played 359 games.
He is ancient technology, a Sega Mega Drive to the Hawks’ Switch 2.
That’s a lot of kilometres on the odometer, but that didn’t matter when it was time to put him in the midfield.
Up until that point, the game seemed to be tilting in the Hawks favour.
That wizard guy was up and about, and Mabior Chol drove Tom Stewart into the turf like he was exploring for oil.
With Stewart out, a man who contributes one out of every seven Geelong tackles, you could have been forgiven for thinking the Cats were in trouble.
The Hawks just seemed quicker in the first quarter, but once again, Chris Scott did some of that coaching stuff, and by halftime it was even.
The second half was when Dangerfield went bonkers. It really was something to see.
Whatever needed to be done, he did. A smother? Done. A clearance? Simple. A goal? Sure.
He would finish with 32 disposals, three goals, 21 contested possessions and eight clearances.
Hawthorn’s big problem is they looked great when they had the ball, but the Cats big bodies in the midfield just didn’t let them have it.
It really was men against boys in the second half, and while the Hawks threatened a comeback, like a Very Fast Train proposal, it never really got off the ground.
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Saturday
Collingwood (71) v Brisbane (100)
There is only one thing that scares me more than a Collingwood premiership, heart disease.
I’m glad to say I don’t have to worry about one of them for the rest of this year.
Pies fans were in for a tough night when Scott Pendlebury went down without touching the ball in the first few minutes with a calf strain.
Like all things he does, the calf strain seemed to happen in slow motion.
It was a fairly miserable first quarter for the Pies, with any concerns that they were too tired and beaten up put to bed straight away.
Perhaps the most surprising moment of the first quarter was Dayne Zorko, in an out-of-character act, ripped off Mason Cox’s goggles
To be fair to Zorko, Cox had just kicked a goal from a free kick that Zorko had blatantly given away.
I mean, who rips off someone else’s glasses? Except for a high school bully.
Obviously furious after the glasses’ incident, Collingwood kicked six unanswered goals in the second quarter to be in control at the half.
Brisbane really got moving in the third. Cam Rayner and Will Ashcroft started to catch fire, like so many things seem to do in Melbourne these days.
Down back, Harris Andrews was knocking everything back like a nightclub bouncer with his first taste of authority.
Jamie Elliott however was keeping the Pies in it, with one of the great final’s marks.
He almost got another late in the fourth, as the Pies surged, but the umpires decided, in a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top, that Collingwood would not be winning.
Or it could be that when Brandon Starcevich went back with the flight of the ball, the umpire thought he got the ball not the man.
Or the umpire got it wrong.
Or he got it right and wrong because AFL umpiring is completely subjective these days and no one really knows what’s going on and the umpires are just the poor souls who have to work it out in real time.
Either way, the Pies probably weren’t going to get there anyway. The Lions had too many weapons.
Either way, we have a Geelong-Brisbane Grand Final and further proof the AFL’s equalisation efforts are going swimmingly.
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