Almanac Satire – A modern statistician’s guide to Round 17

 

As round seventeen draws to a close, its fast becoming apparent who the true contenders are for this year’s September Finals series.

 

 

Geelong have made their finals hopes all the more precarious, following an airtight defeat by the Crows, 112-97, who accrued an impressive 28 stoppage clearances, 93 marks, eight score involvements, 32 touches with a thumb, 78 touches with a forefinger, sixteen semi-contested disposals, and 12 minutes in possession. The Cats, in turn, were left licking their wounds after another disappointing performance of just 56 tackles, 74 intercept possessions, eleven teeth chipped, 23 Bruce Macavaney impersonations, five golden rings, and a mere two acres on the heatmap.

 

 

The next evening, St Kilda eviscerated an already ailing Carlton, blowing the Blues away with their nine uncontested marks, 145 midfield deliveries, 67 underarm handballs and a forward pressure of 31 PSI. This now gives St Kilda an astonishing 1,176 kicks over the past fourteen matches – a telling fact, when compared to Cartlon’s 981 handballs over the same period. This match also saw the eating of pies rise by 71%, while the consumption of sausage rolls dropped by 22.4%. The consumption of stadium-brand souvlakis remained at its rate of zero.

 

 

In somewhat of an upset, Brisbane brought down the Hawks on the Apple Isle, 60 inside intercept possessions to 58, although the man of the match was undoubtedly Hawthorn’s Jaeger O’Meara, with four goals, 27 disposals, six score involvements, nine high tackles, 133 frowns, 19 arm wrestles, 41 flies swatted, sixteen nose hairs pulled, four inoffensive sledges, (three offensive ones) eight touchers, one one-percenter, and 410 metres gained. Tensions were high in this Tasmanian Derby, with the Optus™ SledgeCam recording five “Do you want to start me!?”s, ten “That’s not what your mum said”s and two “Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend”s.

 

 

Moving through Saturday, Melbourne silenced the Western Bulldogs at home,3.1, 5.6, 8.12, 12.14, 86, to 0.5, 2.6, 4.6, 7.8, 50; and the Suns were initially thought to have defeated Essendon 108-60, but a post-match score review revealed that the Dons had in fact won, 95-51. Meanwhile, in Sydney, GWS pipped the travelling Tigers at the post, 79-77; special mention must go to Giant’s star Jeremy Cameron, with an impressive performance of two tickets, five tweets, 410 metres gained walking around the ground, two Great Northern Pale Ales consumed, 32 yawns, and five times mistaken for Canadian comedian, Daniel Levy.

 

 

Moving on to Sunday, and West Coast thrashed Collingwood in a shocking 35 point win in Melbourne. Interestingly, West Coast had just 21 stoppage clearances out of their 38% time on in possession during the second quarter by a midfielder while Venus was in retrograde – the first time this has happened since 1994.

 

 

A tight, bitterly fought match at Etihad between Sydney and North Melbourne was eventually outwon by the former, 104-98, with an Average Disposal Rate of 378 and a Really Quite Good Disposal Rate of 401. Ziebell scored a hat-trick in the opening quarter, but it was quickly answered by two three-pointers from Ronke, and a golden duck from Lloyd. Franklin was awarded a penalty shot late in the game, in which he scored a match-winning try.

 

 

The round finished somewhat anticlimactically in a deflated showdown between Fremantle and Port Adelaide, in which the home team prevailed by nine points. This now brings the Docker’s predicted 22 rate up from 4,466 before the match, to 5,001; the previous six matches being 4,581, 4,802, 4,723, 4,934, 3,954, 4,353, stacked against the Power’s predicted 22 best, now leaving them on 4,533; and their best predicted 5,323 was 22. In a match that was won or lost on clean ball play, Fremantle was always going to prevail; according to the AFL Match Centre, they scored a contested possession count of 284, compared to Port Adelaide’s contested possession count of Telstra’s Could Not Load Subscription at this Time.

 

 

And that concludes our wrap-up of Round 16. In a season as unpredictable and fluid as this, it can often be difficult to tell the contenders from the pretenders. However, if you study the facts and observe the statistics, you can easily make sense of the chaos – as found in 108% of cases.

 

Comments

  1. Damned Lies Andrew, all of them. And Fake Lies to boot!

Leave a Comment

*