Gigs’ Stats: Tigers, you can still make the eight; Seven, you can jump in the lake

Andrew Gigacz’s Round 18 Stat. Declaration

STATITORIAL – SEVEN PLUS TEN EQUALS A PRIME TIME NUMBER

How do I hate thee, Channel Seven? Let me count the ways. Too many ways to count probably, but 10 seems like a good starting number. Presented with their second opportunity of the season to show a game live from 10 past 3, did Channel Seven grasp it? Not quite. Could they have? Of course. But they didn’t. And possibly not everyone was even aware of the fact. You see, they delayed it by a mere ten minutes. Ten minutes? Why? Well you can be sure that if the question was put to them, the Seven spin-doctors would give you a plausible-sounding reason. But most of us know what that reason is. It was to ensure the game ended as close to 6pm as possible so that we would all stay on and watch Seven’s six o’clock news.

As luck almost had it, the move nearly backfired on them, with a marathon 37-minute second quarter putting the network under the squeeze. Observant viewers would have picked up that the three-quarter time break in that match was just a little shorter than normal. Without that minor adjustment, the game would have run overtime into the news. And as far as I’m concerned, given the disdain with which they treat their footy fans, it would have served them right.

THREE DOWN, FIVE TO GO

After Melbourne became the first team for which it is impossible to make the eight last week, Fremantle and North Melbourne suffered the same fate in round 18. Tiger fans, you may not believe it but you can still make the eight.

DOUBLE TRIPLE-TREAT

As reported here last week, Round 17 gave our first round in over three years to have three games decided by a goal or less. As so often seems to be the case, the breaking of the drought might lead to a flood as we had three more such results this week, with St Kilda keeping the perfection dream alive by 1 point over Sydney, Geelong falling in by 2 points against Adelaide and Richmond’s Jordan McMahon joining the “winning goal after the siren” club in their 4 point win over Melbourne.

NERVOUS NINETIES CLUSTER

Two of the three cliffhangers ended up with both teams having final scores in the 90s. 93 provided both euphoria and despair, being Geelong’s winning score against Adelaide’s 91 and Sydney’s heartbreaking losing score against St Kilda’s 94.

94 also bobbed up on Friday night for Carlton in their ten-point win over North. And 95 made two appearances as a winning score for Collingwood over Brisbane and West Coast over the Bombers. 96 missed out on the 90s party and is the least recorded score in the nineties this season, having been registered just once. To make 96 feel a little better, Marcus North contrived to have himself dismissed on exactly that number on the last day of the third Test at Edgbaston.

SCORE WARS

The St Kilda-Carlton winning double enabled 94 to move into equal second place with 90, both currently on 11, three adrift of 85.

HARMS’ WAY

I’ve been accused of going postal on occasion but Almanac CHH* John Harms last week accused me of being just a little too modal. Rather than just learning about the most commonly achieved score (the mode), he wants to know what the average (mean) score and margin are, and what the mid-point (median) of all those are too. But Harms will not even stop at that; he even wants the standard deviation!

So, as someone who is happy to give Harms his way, here is the inaugural Harms Index Report:

The average score so far for 2009 is 91 (as is the median), up three points on last week’s close. The average margin closed slightly lower on 32 and the median margin dropped two points to 27. The average winning score is 107 and the average losing score 75. And just for you, John, the score standard deviation currently stands at 25. (If the rest of you really want to know, it means that 68% of all scores are within 25 points of the average score of 91.)

*CHH = Co-Head-Honcho

BAD KICKING IS GOOD OMEN

One of the 95s scored on the weekend was Collingwood’s 12.23. It was only the second instance of that score occurring in the last twenty years. The only other one was also generated by the Pies, in their Anzac Day win over Essendon in 2007. And while it can’t be said that 12.23 is good kicking, it can be argued that it’s a pretty good omen for the Magpies. Of the ten other occasions in history that 12.23 has been a winning score, nine of the teams to score it have gone on to finish in the top four that season, with three going all the way to a flag, including Collingwood in 1958.

GOOD OMEN OF THE WEEK

The St Kilda steam-train hurtles on and the odds of a Saints flag shorten each week. Tigers and Blues fans can actually take some heart from this because St Kilda’s ’66 flag was followed by a drought-breaking Richmond premiership in 1967 and a similar drought-breaker by Carlton in 1968. Both teams would go on to dominate the next decade and a half.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

What else could it be but 342? Congratulations to Brad Johnson.

ST KILDA PREMIERSHIP INDICATOR No.571

After Round 18, let’s see how the Blues, Swans and Demons are travelling, in terms of wins, losses and percentage:

Carlton 10-8, 108.5%
Swans 7-11, 91.6%
Melbourne 3-15, 74.0%.

Now let’s time travel back to 1966 and see how those teams shaped up after the same round in that year.

Carlton 10-8, 107.9%
Swans 7-11, 98.7%
Melbourne 3-15, 78.2%

Three more spooky nails in every non-St Kilda supporter’s coffin.

MESSING WITH ADRIAN ANDERSON’S MIND

As the AFL’s football operations manager, Adrian Anderson has a lot on his plate. Between trying to keep players and fans happy and fine-tuning interchange laws, he has to try and make sure the AFL covers every possible contingency. This is why we have multiple medals struck for each year’s Brownlow and complicated formulae for every kind of reportable offence.

Not many people may know this but the AFL even has a plan to deal with the unlikely event of two sides finishing eighth and ninth, having the same win-loss record and an identical percentage. In such a situation, the rules call for the team with the better record in home and away games between the two sides to go through to the finals. But what if the sides met only once and the result is a draw? This is not a problem for Adrian and his team. The deadlock is resolved by a simple toss of the coin. (No, I’m not making this up.)

Pretty impressive to be prepared for something like that. But here at GigStats, we’d like to know how the AFL would deal with the situation if the following results played out over the next four weeks:

Round 19: Syd 71 d Rich 60, WB 150 d WCo 50, Melb 120 d NM 119, Frem 117 d Port 45
Round 20: Coll 70 d Rich 60, WCo 80 draw NM 80, Melb 81 d Frem 80
Round 21: Haw 70 d Rich 60, Adel 141 d WCo 51, StK 118 d NM 100, Frem 110 d Ess 49, Melb 140 d Carl 40
Round 22: Rich 60 draw WCo 60, NM 100 d Port 88, Geel 72 d Frem 70, StK 54 d Melb 53.

Now you could write your own ticket on that sequence of events unfolding but the fact is, if it does, Richmond, West Coast, North Melbourne, Fremantle and Melbourne will all finish on 24 points, with a “points for” score of 1749 and a “points against” score of 2124. Which means they will all have an identical percentage of 82.3446327683616.

Tell us, Adrian, how will the AFL determine the order of the draft in that situation? Perhaps you’ll use the lottery system so many have called for?

POSTCODE OF THE WEEK

As the Crows watched Paul Chapman sink his sixth goal in the final quarter at Kardinia Park, they also had visions of their top four chances possibly sinking down the drain. How appropriate then, that their quarter-by-quarter goal tally, 3154, just happens to be the postcode of …  The Basin.

1 v 100

The competition that lay dormant for the first fourteen weeks of the year is now the comp that just keeps on giving. For the third time in four rounds, we got a one-point result. This gives 1 a three-games-to-one lead over 100-plus.

THIS WEEK’S RIDICULOUS FOOTY ANAGRAM

Whether it really goes on or not, we all know why a team would tank, if they did. It’s all about getting a better list of players together. How incredibly ironic that it is the team that will not lie down, even when a loss doesn’t matter, which has provided us with the hidden clue as to why any team would tank, if they actually did, which I’m not saying they do, but if they did…

ST KILDA SAINTS = TANK AIDS LISTS

About Andrew Gigacz

Well, here we are. The Bulldogs have won a flag. What do I do now?

Comments

  1. Gigs,
    i don’t know how you do it!
    You see, i have no mathematical intelligence whatsoever.
    Im so bad at math that I’ve dropped it from my subjects.
    I’ll leave all the mathematical mumbo-jumbo to you! :)

  2. Danielle. I don’t believe that at all. The mathematical intelligence is in there; it just needs to be unlocked. But you might prefer it to stay locked away anyway!

    But the first, most important fundamental change you have to make is to call it MATHS, not math. Unless you are from the US. :)

  3. Sorry Gigs but im afraid its worse than you think so ive given up on myself!

    well, you see my friends and i are trying to be more American. I’ve always wanted to go to the US.
    We are calling rubbish- trash and i also agree with spelling centre the American way. it looks better AND American accents are so cute!..well any sort of accent is cute! :)

  4. Steve Healy says

    I’ve got a bad omen for St.Kilda this week.

    Their score 13.16 94 was their losing score in the 1997 Grand Final. Max Hudghton would be the only current St.Kilda player with the memory of that loss. Another thing is, the last time the Saints kicked that score, it was against Geelong in Round 4 2008. That could be a bad sign come september.

    In the last few minutes of Melbourne V Richmond it all turned around quickly for the Dees. It turned around for the Tigers too, in another sense. Their total possession count was 360, and more amazingly kicks and handballs were 180 each. Joran McMahon had one eigth of this pleasure with his goal to win the game. He kicked his 45th goal for the Tigers. It is the second time the “even spread” this has happened in 3 week, with the Dees having 173 and 173 against Geelong at Skilled Stadium in Round 16.

  5. Josh Barnstable says

    Did you ever get beaten up in High School for being a maths nerd Gigs? Haha. Keep up the good work!

  6. Ha-ha Josh!
    i doubt that Gigs was a nerd, he was probably the leader of the cool pack.
    i get girls coming up to me for maths help because they assume that i do advanced maths. Its happened more than once. Im thinking of wearing a badge:
    I DONT DO MATHS!!

    :)

  7. Josh, never got beaten up – not if those guys wanted help with their homework! But sorry Danielle, I WAS a nerd. I was a nerd LEADER, but a nerd just the same. Luckily I was pretty good at ball sports, so that kind of off-set the nerdiness.

    But it’s all OK now because, as everyone knows, nerd (or geek) is the new black.

  8. Josh Barnstable says

    Well wanna do my maths homework for me Gigs?

  9. Steve Healy says

    I’m not good at maths I’m just incredibly talented at remembering and finding footy scores

  10. Josh Barnstable says

    Haha exactly the same as me Steve!

  11. BTW, hope you high school guys are still playing pranks on the teachers. We used to really give it to our geography teacher, Mr Lang. He was pretty deaf (and not the brightest man I ever met) and sometimes before he arrived, Vincent A’hern would hide in the cupboard next to the door to the corridor. After “Langer” had arrived and the class was fairly quiet, Vince would knock on the cupboard door from the inside. Mr Lang would always think it was someone knocking at the classroom door and be confused when he opened it and found an empty corridor. This would happen a few times before Vince’s next challenge was to make it out of the cupboard and back to his desk without Mr Lang noticing.

    Another time we all turned our single desks 90 degrees so he had to teach us from the side of the classroom.

    AND MY FAVOURITE: We had a kid our class called John Peterson. Someone came up with the idea of creating an extra, fictional student named Peter Johnson. For an entire term we rotated amongst the “smarter” kids to submit an extra copy of every piece of work we did (including tests) with Peter Johnson’s name on it. Each time Mr Lang returned our work and he called out “Peter Johnson”, one of us would say, “he’s away today sir – I’ll take it for him”. Mr Lang ended up adding Peter Johnson’s name into his mark book and by the end of that term he had come top of the class in Geography. Not bad for someone who didn’t actually exist…

  12. My brother teaches Year 12 maths. Want me to give you his number? :)

  13. Nah.. Those pranks don’t really happen in all girl schools. However in year nine one of the girls pulled a similar cupboard stunt and by the third time the teacher would come in and say.
    “Okay so who is hiding in the cupboard this time?”
    It was funny stuff.

  14. Josh Barnstable says

    Haha those pranks are gold Gigs! And i’d like that number haha today we started learning about physics in Maths…i’m not even going to bother

  15. Dont worry Josh. my subjects for next year (year 12) will look like this:
    English, Religion, Media, History, Business management, literature.

    See no maths or science!!

    :)

  16. Josh Barnstable says

    Yeah i’m doing all my maths and science now so i get them out of the way early haha

  17. Josh, there are about two things I remember from Physics, and they are both quotes from our teacher, Bill Lucas, that still have me scratching my head today, 27 years down the track:

    1. “I don’t mean ‘can you remember it’, I mean ‘can you recall it’.”

    2. “What happens is nothing happens.”

  18. Steve Healy says

    Hahah nice pranks Gigs I love that turning the desk trick hahah.

  19. Danielle, my recommendation is to ditch Business Management and do Biology, Art, Latin, anything else!

    My one memory from Year 12 Religion. Our teacher (Paul Kelly, but not the Swans player, or the singer, or the journalist), asked for a written answer to the question “where do you pray?” My answer was “on the toilet because it’s the only place in my house that’s quiet enough to think”. He wasn’t impressed.

    These days the only time I pray is when Brad Johnson has the ball after the final siren. And those prayers are never answered…

  20. Gigs, i cant!
    i can’t cope with anything science related,its too late to pick up a language and i cant draw to save my life.
    im doing accounting this year and im dying so im dropping it next year and taking up business management because my friends know me really well and know that i will enjoy it.

  21. Steve Healy says

    I wanna do accounting- following the foot steps of Jack Watts!

  22. As for the religion comments..hahahha
    im a year 11 student studying year 12 religion by choice. its so complex!
    so far i have written essays on core beliefs, the development of the Eucharist and ive got my next SAC on Monday about science vs the church.
    i cant imagine my R.E teachers reaction to your answer about the toilet!
    Lucky for me, my religion teacher is my FAVOURITE TEACHER! :)

  23. STEVE, did you know that as i was doing my Accounting exam, jack Watts was doing his at the exact same time!! :)

  24. Steve Healy says

    Yea, because I remember you mentioned it in your Melbourne V Collingwood match report. Someone on the internet made a Melbourne banner as a joke that said: Jack, these are your results for your accounting exam: 1(a), 2(d), 3(b) and so on hahaha.

  25. Yeah, you better not follow my advice, Danielle. Otherwise your parents might get mad and track me down and I’ll get beaten up, just like I wasn’t for being a maths nerd in school.

  26. Haha Nah, its okay.
    you see they wanted me to keep accounting..but im just scrapping a pass.
    so they understand its not working and in order to get a high ENTER i need to do stuff that im good at.
    my first career objective was to be a solictor…Legal Studies class.. not going so well HAHA.
    ohh well journalism here i come. :)

  27. Steve Healy says

    Danielle, maybe your problem with accounting is you hand your work in late, or you pretend the due date is different, no wonder your name is an anagram of: “Deadline lie”

  28. Very nice Steve!

  29. lmaoo Steve!!
    no i really do the work on time!
    Infact in all my years at high school only once have i received a work dead line. Even in that case i had dont the work but left it at home!
    Tomorrow is the subject info night at my school…ohh god how BORING!!

  30. Steve Healy says

    Sorry Danielle I wasn’t suggesting that you don’t do the work on time I was just building up to the anagram. I had a subject info night last night but I “Couldn’t make it”.
    You get in less trouble if you leave the work at home opposed to not doing it.

    I handed an assignment in yesterday that was due on Friday and my exuse was “I was sick” but I learnt that I lose 10% a day on my assignment. And it had to be submitted by email as well.

  31. p.s- I just went on the Collingwood site and DIED when i saw the pic of Jack Anthony taking a grab against Adelaide!!
    “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppppppppppppp!!!!” :)

  32. Steve Healy says

    Did you see Alan Toovey with a microphone next to it?

  33. ….yes….
    but my attention was all on SUPERMAN!!
    OMG HES SO AMAZINGLY GORGEOUS!!!
    JACK ANTHONY, I LOVE YOU!!! :)

  34. Steve Healy says

    Did you think he was gorgeous when he was bald in Round 16 last year?

    Sorry to say this Danielle but I think Nathan Brown and Alan Toovey look quite similiar

  35. First: i agree he looks better WITH hair.

    second..
    ARE YOU BLIND??
    THE MEZMORIZING GOD LIKE NATHAN BROWN..CANNOT BE COMPARED TO TOOVEY!!
    i cannot..i cant..are you KIDDING ME!!
    trust me on this..the hotness levels are so different its not funny. im the girl i would know!! :)

  36. Peter Schumacher says

    Meanwhile, back to Gig’s stuff. Entertaining read as usual but no mention of Brisbane. He will rue this omission when they spring to life from 6th position and clean up all of youse.

  37. Gigs,
    The solution is a lightning premiership at The Lake on the Tuesday night.

  38. Like that idea, Crio. Imagine the crowd they’d get!

    Obviously the highest pick would have to go to the winner. Otherwise we’d have lightning tanking!

    Peter, I acknowledge your comment. I’ll try and find something interesting about the Lions this week!

  39. The great dream, of course, is for a shotgun start to the final round. Not enough grounds and lack of television imagination means it will never happen, but the EPL does it so well and very dramatically…gripping radio.

  40. Crio, you’re right about TV never embracing it but there are enough grounds. Consider the following scenario:

    WCo v Adel Subiaco
    Port v Frem Footy Park
    Geel v Melb Kardina Park
    WB v StK Docklands
    Haw v NM York Park
    Bris v Carl Gabba
    Syd v Coll SCG/ANZ Stadium
    Ess v Rich MCG

  41. The scenario above requires Geelong, Brisbane and Sydney to always have home games in R22, but it’s not as if the draw isn’t already compromised!

  42. Too much travel (+ not for Essendon!).

  43. Too much travel? This year in R22, Richmond go to Perth, Adelaide come to Melbourne, North go to Adelaide, Freo goes to Geelong (does their plane take them to Avalaon?) and Brisbane goes to Sydney. It goes on anyway.

    And I can swap Essendon with Carlton if you like!

  44. John Sandy says

    Great work Gigs!

  45. Hi Gigs
    Do you really have a brother in yr 12 who teaches maths? methods? further? specialist?

  46. Hi Jess.

    Yes, I do have a brother who teaches Yr 12 maths. Not sure but I’d say probably Further and Specialist.

  47. Cool. His name doesn’t happen to be James by any chance does it? :D

  48. He’s the man Jess! Are you are student of his?

  49. lmaooo Yes! this is so funny!

  50. I always see this “Imaooo”! What does it mean?

    If you ever see the name Gigacz, it’s our family. We are the only ones in Aus. Me and James and four other siblings. How did you get to this page?

    You want me to give you some “dirt” on Mr G or whatever you call him? :-)

  51. Ah! lmao = laughing my arse off. I might be old, but I can work these things out eventually. Younger than Jamie though!

  52. it means, ‘laughing my ass off’ (excuse the language)

    Yes I guess that’s true. I was just randomly searching something and saw this channel 7 footy page and your last name and just clicked it :D

    That would be awesome. We call him Mr Gig sometimes but otherwise Mr Gigacz. lol. he’s pretty funny!

  53. haha yes. Mr Gigacz has never mentioned you though

  54. He’s probably too embarrassed by me.

    Start calling him “Checko”. See what reaction that gets.

  55. I doubt it.

    lol…why? what does that mean?

  56. It was his nickname when he played cricket – comes from the fact that our Dad’s from Czechoslovakia.

  57. He’s played basically every sport!
    That is so cool. Once I asked him what nationality his last name is, he said “I cant remember” and left me standing there like an idiot
    Is everyone in your family mathematical and sporty? that’s really cool.

  58. Yeah, we’re pretty much all number nerds. All of us (except me) were good swimmers. Jamie and I were the only ones to play competition cricket.

    Puzzles, cryptic crosswords, all that stuff too.

  59. That’s great. You won’t tell Mr Gigacz about this will you??

  60. No way! Have a bit of fun!

  61. lol…do you teach maths as well?

  62. Nah. I’m a software tester.

  63. Cool.

  64. How come you didnt don the Bulldogs jumper last night Gigs??

  65. Josh. I forgot it! I came to the launch from work and forgot to put it in my backpack. Will definitely have it on next year!

    Hope you had a good night. It was great that you and your family could get there, along with the others.

  66. Yeah i had a great night, was good to put some faces to names and meet Danni, Michael, Damo and Steve. Michael lost my footy when we were having a kick outside though haha. Anson Cameron: funniest bloke i’ve ever met

  67. lol i didnt even recognise you Gigs, well until you told me who you where.
    i think we all had a good time despite my early departure.
    one othe person i didnt recognise at all was Paul Daffey, i think hed have longer hair like in the photo, he looks much younger with shorter hair.

  68. Lol yeah i thought you were bald Gigs!

    Oh and i found two mistakes in the book (i’ve read up to Round 5), as well as the mistake where someone got David Zaharakis’ name wrong, hmmm who was that?? haha :)

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