{"id":655283,"date":"2026-05-07T10:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/655283\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T10:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:13:12","slug":"afl-round-nine-2026-scores-results-odds-stats-and-start-time-from-optus-stadium-in-perth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/655283\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL round nine 2026, scores, results, odds, stats and start time from Optus Stadium in Perth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sam Mitchell was straight to the point when asked if he had a plan to curb Fremantle wizard Shai Bolton in Thursday night\u2019s blockbuster at Optus Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, more than one,\u201d the Hawthorn coach quipped.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The wizards of the AFL go head to head: Fremantle\u2019s Shai Bolton (left) and Hawthorn\u2019s Nick Watson. \" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/db8c7c0dff6586603f1b221dc49e6eb58ab66b4c.jpeg\"  class=\"sc-d34e428-1 ldCIuB\"\/>The wizards of the AFL go head to head: Fremantle\u2019s Shai Bolton (left) and Hawthorn\u2019s Nick Watson. Artwork: Aresna Villanueva<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s an enormously talented player, and offensively, he\u2019s creating enormous problems for the opposition, and what he does in the front half in particular is very difficult to replicate and difficult to stop. But, yeah, we certainly have a plan for him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, this contest between the second and third-placed teams features two footballing wizards: the mercurial Bolton, who thrives late in games, and Nick Watson, the man actually dubbed \u201cthe Wizard\u201d, who also flourishes when the spotlight is at its brightest.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/sport\/afl\/shifty-as-hell-bolton-watson-set-to-ignite-the-battle-of-footy-s-wizards-20260505-p5ztx0.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to read the full story.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Mitchell was straight to the point when asked if he had a plan to curb Fremantle wizard&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-655283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}