Does anyone have a handle on the 2018 season yet? I sure don’t.
Four teams are undefeated: Greater Western Sydney and Port (very expected), as well as Hawthorn and Gold Coast (not nearly so much).
Four teams are winless: Carlton and Brisbane (understandable), along with Collingwood and Footscray (a bit more startling).
The first 18 games produced surprising results – North over the Saints by 52? Fremantle defeating Essendon? – and some classic games – follow Geelong around and watch the fireworks blow! They’re two for two in producing instant classics!
Digging into the numbers a bit deeper may give us a better perspective regarding what’s happening and what’s going to happen in the next few rounds.
Better than anticipated (BTA)
All three of these teams have beaten the spread twice, raised their ELO ratings twice, and shown themselves BTA twice.
Gold Coast may have beaten two of last year’s bottom four sides to amass their 2-0 record, but given that I had them in (fictional) ’19th place’ before the season started, I’m impressed anyway.
My ELO-Following Football ratings had them as the lowest rated team in the league, having lost the only top 20 rated player in their history. They have persevered with a superb offensive plan, a solid defence, and a never-say-die attitude that only the young are naive enough to maintain (I wish I was young enough to still have that attitude).
They’ll be tested more deeply soon as they continue on the longest road trip in AFL history: this Saturday, somehow, they become the third team to hold a ‘home’ game at the brand new Optus Stadium as they ‘host’ Fremantle. (To the league’s credit, they then get to stay there to play a ‘road’ game in the same facility, against West Coast, in Round 4.)
Port Adelaide defeated a top team on the road – stop the presses! More to the point, Sydney had Lance Franklin crankin’, and Port still managed to pull away in the late stages, thanks not only to their new recruits but to star-in-training Riley Bonner, who kicked what felt like the clinching goal.
(And let’s add an additional BTA to Lance Franklin, who’s already at a dozen goals for the year – some of the spectacular variety. Everyone in this league can kick one sideways-half-backwards; only Buddy can do it standing on the arc.)
AAP Image/David Moir
Hawthorn is good again. I don’t know how it happened, but that I have a sneaking suspicion that they were never that bad. I wouldn’t put it past the best coach in the league to have cleverly disguised #HawkTank2017 in such a way that made them look old and beyond repair last season, once he saw that they had no shot at a high seed after six games last year.
But superstar Tom Mitchell was better than Dangerwoodlett by himself Monday, Ben McEvoy and Liam Shiels are suddenly irreplaceable, and Jarryd Roughhead won the game Monday night with a shot that showed he understood the situation perfectly: a behind was as good as a goal right then. It’s hard to beat a smart team that tries hard.
Poorer than expected
Three teams have dropped ELO rating points in both games and shown us that a reconsideration of their prospects in 2018 may be in order already.
The Western Bulldogs’ post mortems from others will probably fill the pages of this publication. No need for me to pile on right now, except to add that playing smart is something they’re not doing.
St Kilda was the most disappointing single-game team in Round 2, although the Dogs take the cake for their current body of work overall. Losing to one of the spoon favourites is one thing, losing to them on the ground you’re used to defending is worse, losing to them by 52 is worse still.
The Saints scoring just five goals and 13 behinds in perfect weather that required a Saturday morning meeting to make sure Richardson didn’t lose the team entirely after two weeks of the season. Their win over Brisbane was more difficult than we expected, but we all thought ‘perhaps the Lions really are moving forward’. Instead, we may need to rethink the Lions as well.
Collingwood was one of my picks to surprise and move into the final eight this season. But if their injured forwards are out for as long as it seems they might be, any team that can score 90 will find the Magpies easy pickings.
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What does the ELO-Following Football computer think about Round 3? It’s still obsessing over Round 2 that’s what! It agreed with the crowd on Adelaide, Melbourne, and GWS winning; it lost alongside the crowd with the Roos, Blues, and Bombers losing. We wanted to bet Portside but had too much faith in Buddy, forgetting he was but one man.
We saw that the Bulldogs were in trouble but pulled the trigger on them anyway, and we knew the Geelong-Hawthorn game would be a virtual tie but flipped the coin and it landed Cats.
Officially, then, the computer went 3-6 but felt like Carlton after Round 1 – a moral victory that feels good and means nothing.
In Round 3 we agree with the oddsmakers giving Collingwood a two-goal margin over Carlton on Friday night. Saturday afternoon, we like Port to win but Brisbane to cover, and Melbourne to win but North to cover, mostly because of history.
In the twilight game, we’re taking Gold Coast to go 3-0 in their west coast home debut.
On Saturday evening, ELO-FF likes the favourites, Sydney and Adelaide, to win and cover, as do I. In the early game Sunday, I’m going to disagree with the computer: it sees Richmond winning by 25, while I think Hawthorn pulls the upset here.
We both like Essendon over the Bulldogs (me more than the computer, because it can’t see the blood in the water), and we both think West Coast will upset the Cats on Sunday afternoon (West Coast has raised its rating five points already this season, and the Cats have lowered its rating both weeks this season).
Records: 11-8 overall (for both the human and the ELO-FF).
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