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It’s becoming increasingly easy to pick winners in this year’s AFL. Most footy tipping competitions are brimming with participants who are regularly tipping seven or eight winners per round.
A quick look at the ladder though shows the season isn’t all that lopsided. Only two teams remain undefeated (and that will be reduced to one by the end of this weekend) and only one team remains without a win.
Then there is the usual logjam for places within the lower reaches of the top eight.
There have been some magnificent games of close, hard-fought football, including some memorable comebacks such as Essendon’s gutsy victory over Fremantle in Perth and Port Adelaide’s rise-from-the-dead performance against West Coast.
But it seems there hasn’t been too many curve balls to throw the punters off track.
Apart from Brisbane attempting to con us during the pre-season competition, West Coast’s sluggish start and Essendon failing to buckle under off-field pressures, the rest of the season seems to have been pretty much predictable.
Let’s face it, even Richmond are sitting in ninth spot.
With just over a quarter of the season gone, the top five teams will probably only see one change before the season’s end.
Essendon, Geelong, Sydney and Hawthorn should be able to hold form and secure double chance final spots, with only Port Adelaide set to slide out of contention.
Port have started the season well, but for the most part, their opposition has been sub-par. That’s not Port’s fault, but wins against Melbourne, GWS and Gold Coast make up three of their five victories.
Stirring wins against the West Coast Eagles and cross town rivals Adelaide show they are heading in the right direction, but sustained success for the Power is still a couple of seasons off.
With the top four seemingly decided, you would expect Fremantle, Collingwood and Carlton to claim three of the remaining spots, leaving eighth position to be battled out between Port Adelaide, Richmond, West Coast, North Melbourne and Adelaide.
This leaves six teams already out of contention for a finals spot.
Gold Coast, despite a couple of early wins (one of which was against GWS), will fail to make further inroads. They may end up with their best win/loss ratio to date (they have Melbourne this week), but their impressive first round victory against St Kilda will remain the highlight of their season.
Brisbane have struggled since the real stuff started and St Kilda appear to be on that cyclical slide that all clubs bar Sydney and Geelong seem to experience.
The less said about the Western Bulldogs, Melbourne and GWS the better.
While GWS made everyone sit up and take notice last week, those waxing lyrical about the emergence of the boys from Blacktown need to take a breath.
Yes they took on and embarrassed an arrogant Essendon side, which thought it just need turn up to win, but after the Giants kicked the first goal of the third quarter to stretch their lead to 28 points, the real story of the match emerged.
In just under half a game of football, a scratchy Essendon kicked 14 goals to four; a 67 point turn around in less than an hour’s play.
Jeremy Cameron played a blinder for the Giants, but they are as far from on-field success as they have ever been.
While upsets may have been few and far between this year, the onset of injury and fatigue as the season wears on should ensure that it becomes harder to tip a winner, but only marginally.
Tipping against Melbourne, GWS, Gold Coast and the Western Bulldogs and not tipping against Essendon, Geelong, Hawthorn or Sydney (when fixturing allows) should see the punter pick up easy points more often than not.
The hardest round yet from a tipster’s point of view seems to be coming this weekend with five games that look evenly balanced.
The top of the ladder clash between Geelong and Essendon should be a classic, while Port Adelaide v Richmond, Hawthorn v Sydney, Fremantle v Collingwood and Melbourne v Gold Coast will be hard to predict, toss-of-a-coin games.
Of the other matches, West Coast should defeat Brisbane, North Melbourne should beat the Bulldogs, Adelaide should get over the Giants and Carlton should continue to gain form against the Saints, although this is the game that is most likely to result in an upset.
If a competition’s health is decided by its unpredictability, this season is only just lurching along.
Here’s hoping over the coming weeks we see a few more upsets and the race for finals positions doesn’t completely peter out mid-season.
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