The 2015 ‘Mopsy’ Fraser Cup – Round Thirteen

Greetings Tipsters

 

As the equinox has passed, so has the midway of the season. For some, the war is over, though harassment and undermining of the lordly of the league remain to buck up their spirits. For the rest, the pathway to unconditional victory is long and fraught with danger.

 

Our brilliant work experience kid, Vanessa Huynh, was supposed to crunch vast reams of data and come up with a near unimpeachable prediction, we’ve been talking about applying chaos theory to the chances of injury, f’rinstance, but she’s in Boston delivering a lecture to some cutting-edge thinktank. Being 15, her mum went with her, so I’ve been hanging out with Van, her dad, at the restaurant, eating delicacies, drinking snake whiskey and talking sport. Soccer’s more his thing, I went over there early Sunday morning to watch the Matildas with him.

 

Being a kicking game, there’s a lot of patterns and style of ball movement common to both Association Football and Australian Football. I rib Van with ideas like extending the uprights so it’s one point for an over and ten points for the net, he ribs me with ideas like banning tackling. We’ve watched a few NEAFL games on NITV, he can relate to that more than the ‘elite’ and I enjoy it more with each viewing. 30 tackles is a high stat, compared to, say, the 90 that Collingwood laid on Friday night.

 

Denied Vanessa’s advanced mathematics , like sport, a field where youth have the advantage, I had to use pen and paper to work out some ideas. We’ve got the Eight and three other teams with a chance of making it, how’s the draw pan out for them?

 

Herewith, the Eleven, with current wins, games remaining against others in the Eight, against the Next Three, against the ‘War is Over’ Others:

 

Wins     Eight   Three Other

Fremantle      11      3        2        5

West Coast    9        7        1        2

Sydney            9        4        2        4

Hawthorn       8        5        1        4

Collingwood     8        5        1        4

Richmond       7        4        2        4

Adelaide         7        4        2        4

Footscray      7        2        2        6

Monaros        7        3        1        6

Geelong         6        6        2        2

North            6        3        1        6

 

Rough as rocks as it is, a few things leap out. The Wiggles have seven of ten against other Eights; including two against the Camrys, who also have two matches vs the Pivotonians.

 

Yep, of ten matches, Adelaide have four against two teams. Gillo, enough of this malarkey, just have everyone play everyone then repeat the first five.

 

Freo, they of the fireworks and phallic inflatables, may have a dream run home, Hawthorn and Richmond in Melbourne are the obvious dangers but with a two win break on the rest they’re odds-on for the McClelland. Their crosstown traffic, so hard to get through to you, I’m trying to get to the other side of town, rivals have a tough draw that will result in them dropping outa the Four.

 

The next five have equivalentish draws, the real interest is the team FKA Footscray. Seven wins, an ever-increasing capacity to win matches, a good chance to win seven of the next ten, home final a goal. North’d want a few big wins to pump up the percentage, may well take Adelaide’s spot in the Eight, but that’s the only likely change. Monaros look to have a good run, but should’ve forfeited that Collingwood match. Injuries have cruelled their chances, Cats too.

 

4&20s are the best placed to take Wiggles’ place in the Four. Freo, Hawthorn, Sydney Collingwood would be our guess for the first week in September.

 

The Wharfies have been flagging a bit lately and may be a tad camera-shy, not an attribute you want to take into the finals. Sydney are stolid and inflexible and with those forwards, should be kicking a lot more goals. Maybe the suspensions will work in their favour by forcing them to be more creative, because a team with the most yet-to-debut players on the list can easily become too predictable.

 

Reports, at first sight, Franklin for three, Tippett for two, but thinking will the AFL make an example of them thumping the head or will the drawing power win out? Yep, drawing power wins the day. Had a Schoolie done it, he’d be out for three, tho perhaps Gillo was stricken by guilt over the latest arbritary restriction on Sydney’s trading, that they can’t recruit a player worth more then $300K, even if they trade Kurt and his $800K salary.

 

Swans are in such a list-management turmoil, they re-signed Grundy for three years. Alex Johnson might have stepped up to one of the Top Two Backmen if his knee didn’t keep falling off his leg, Sam Reid has all the attributes to be a centre half-back, just like Adam Goodes who was never much good in a key position. Like Hawthorn, they’re an aging team, but not as good or as deep. Two young ruckmen on the list who’ve never played an AFL match, struth!

 

Not to say that Sydney can’t win the flag, but they won’t if they play Hawthorn in the Prelim or Grand.

 

The Golden Brown have most professional pundits convinced but they still aint beat a contender and they aint without problems. First being their propensity to get suspended for idiocy. Sam ‘Elbows’ Mitchell played it like Segovia, making the junkie joke and, at the first opportunity, telling everyone how sorry he was for an unthinking reaction.

 

Yeah, right. Every teev pundit accepted that at face value. The ‘bump’ that allegedly provoked it was equivalent to me bumping into Perky Girl in the kitchen while cooking dinner and buggerall compared to what Sam dishes out on a weekly basis. ‘Unsociable’ (who the heck made that word up?) football they call it and I don’t have a problem with the way they play but with the silly excuses they make for it.

 

Hawthorn’s greatest enemy is themselves and footspeed. Port ran them damn fine in the ’14 Prelim, Monaros exposed ‘em this year, the Mayblooms can be made to look slow and near incompetent by a young, fast team. We’ll all look forward to seeing how they handle the 4&20s this week, Wiggles in Round Nineteen… hey, they’ve two matches against the nought-to-lose Blues.

 

The preceding few paragraphs may have you thinking that this pundit (who knows how to wear a tailor-made suit, unlike most of those on teev) rates only Hogs and Swogs and Droogs for the flag, but no team has leapt out and made a statement this season. Not yet, anyway. The Premiership Team is not the best team of the year, it’s the best team on Grand Final day. 2015 could be the year for a bolter from back in the pack.

 

Cheers, Tipsters

 

P&C, a Stop Privatisation Of Footy Production, a division of Trans-Dementia Inc.

Brought to you with the assistance of Timi Yuro’s ‘The Lost Voice Of Soul.’