AFL Round 20 (to COB Sunday); AFL Round 21 tips

Three matches today, comments on two of them, both as close as you can get; the third as lop-sided as yesterday's.


Brisbane's Lions reached 100 points within 15min of the last. The urban-myth is that first to 100 wins the match. But not today! And weren't Crows' fans ecstatic! That has new / caretaker Mark Bickley batting 1.000 for his coaching career!
Brisbane 5.1 11.6 14.7 16.9 (105)
Adelaide 6.3 9.5 10.11 16.14 (110)
Brisbane
Cornelius 4.2; McGrath 3.0; Karnezis, Clark 2.0; Rockliff, Polkinghorn 1.1; Leuenberger, Banfield, Hanley 1.0; Dyson 0.2; Redden, Raines, rushed 0.1
356 Possessions: Rockliff 34; Black 26; Raines 23; Redden 22
79 Tackles: Stiller 8; Redden, Buchanan, McGrath, Leuenberger 7; Black 6
45 Hitouts: Leuenberger 31
12 Frees: McGrath, Leuenberger 2
Adelaide
Walker 4.1; Gunston 3.3; Wright, van Berlo, Johncock 2.0; Jacobs 1.1; Riley, Henderson 1.0; rushed 0.3; Petrenko, Reilly, Dangerfield, Sloane, Thompson, Vince 0.1

76 Tackles:  van Berlo 8; Thompson 7; Reilly, Wright, Riley 5

43 Hitouts: Jacobs 30; Maric 13 

26 Frees: Jacobs, Thompson 3; van Berlo, Wright, Talia 2

Full ¼-by-¼ stats at http://j.mp/p3EgZg

Hawthorn and North went toe-to-toe at Launnie this arv with an unexpected result. OK, it was expected that Hawthorn would win, being a top-4 side against a bottom-8 side, but not the way it went! North were actually leading with not-very-long to go: Matt Campbell booted 5 (4 in the last quarter) and had the Roos' noses just ahead. But with just seconds to go, bang bang - one from Smith and one from Buddy sealed the Roos' fate and the four points for Hawthorn. 

Hawthorn 2.1 6.6 9.8 15.13 (103)

North 3.7 5.7 9.7 13.8 (86)

Hawthorn

Franklin 3.2; Smith 3.1; Breust 2.0; Rioli 1.2; Hale, Ladson 1.1; Whitecross, Lewis, Sewel, Burgoyne 1.0; rushed 0.3; Hodge, Suckling, Shiels 0.1  

340 Possessions: Mitchell 31; Suckling 26; Sewell 25; Hodge 24 

76 Tackles: Shiels 10; Mitchell, Breust 7; Guerra, Whitecross, Ladson 6; Franklin 5

62 Hitouts: Bailey 26; Birchall 23

26 Frees: Lewis 4; Sewell, Birchall 3 

North

Campbell 5.1; Petrie 2.0; Petersen, Harvey 1.1; Goldstein, Ziebel, Wells, Richardson 1.0; rushed 0.3; Harper, Garlett 0.1  

301 Possessions: McMahon 29; Ziebell 27; Harvey 26  

78 Tackles: McMahon, Garlett, Petrie, Thomas 6; Ziebell, Rawlings, Goldstein, Swallow 5

48 Hitouts: Goldstein 37

27 Frees: McMahon 5; Goldstein 4; Petrie 3 

Full ¼-by-¼ stats at http://j.mp/pcm6Z7

So, in a nutshell

• St Kilda def Fremantle 113-72
• Geelong def Gold Coast 188-38
• Carlton def Melbourne 134-58
• Essendon def Sydney 100-99 (Actually, it was Adam Goodes who lost the game for the Swans with the very last kick)
• Port def by Collingwood 21-159
• Brisbane def by Adelaide 105-110
• Hawthorn def North 103-86
• Eagles def Richmond 147-90

Ladder is at http://www.afl.com.au/ladder/tabid/74/default.aspx although there is a round-by-round ladder somewhere else...


Next week we have (my tips):

#AFLSaintsPies

#AFLHawksPort

#AFLFreoBlues

#AFLDogsDons - tough call 

#AFLLionsSuns - I called it the other way around last time ... won't happen again

#AFLDeesEagles

#AFLTigersSwans

#AFLCrowsCats

#AFLNorthBye

Buenos noches

#AFLDogsCrows Results and Report

The home-side went into this match as clear-cut favourites, with betting as far down as $1.33 and the visitors out to $3.90. But the Crows were determined not to be the whipees tonight as they soon got that live betting-odds worm facing the other way with goals to Tippett (2), McKernan, Vince, and Wright, and one to Rory Sloan in the last 8sec of the opening stanza. The score at the first break

Western Bulldogs 2.4 16 [goals to Griffen and Murphy] (betting out to $2.24)
Adelaide 6.2 38 (betting into $1.67)

The Crows led for the whole of the second quarter but we started seeing more from the Dogs than we had for the rest of the year! By the main break the Sons of the West were into $1.35 while the Pride of SA were out to $3.50 and the scores were

Western Bulldogs 6.9 45
Adelaide 7.5 47

Goals in the first half came from Giansiracusa (2), Sherman, Barlow, Griffen, and Murphy for the Dogs, and Tippett (2), McKernan, Sloane, Knights, Vince, and Wright for the Crows.  Major home-team ball-winners were Griffen, Ward  (17), Cross  (16), Murphy (13), Gia, and Boyd (12), and Henderson  (17), Thompson (16), Otten (13) and Symes (12) for the out-of-towners.

The Dogs took the lead after the twenty-minute mark of the third quarter, coming to within a point, and not looking like getting ahead, in the first ten minutes. The bookies had this turn-over on the cards, with the betting never being less than $1.40 for the home side once they were favoured, and comments on Twitter like, “The Crows are playing so shit they are making the Dogs look good” giving a dandy description of what the bookies saw coming! By the last break, the Dogs were into $1.18 but the Crows were out to $6 with a score-line of

Western Bulldogs 10.12 72 [Gia now has 4 and Sherman 2]
Adelaide 9.7 61  [goals to Schmidt and Otten]

Ten minutes into the last the Dogs were ahead 80-62, with the smart money getting short returns ($1.03 vs $20). Adelaide had a few quick stabs at getting back into the game (and the books) landing their tenth goal just inside the last seconds of the match. In the end, though, pride in the home-state just wasn’t enough. 

Final Scores

Western Bulldogs 2.4 6.9 10.12 14.16 (100)
Adelaide 6.2 7.5 9.7 10.10 (70)

Scorers

Western Bulldogs – Giansiracusa 4.1; Sherman 3.2; Griffen 2.0; Barlow 1.3; Minson, Wood, Dalhaus 1.1; Murphy 1.0; Jones, rushed 0.3; Djerrkura, Ward 0.1       

Adelaide – Tippett 3.2; McKernan 1.2; Sloane 1.1; Knights, Vince, Schmidt, Otten, Wright 1.0; rushed 0.2; Dangerfield, Henderson, Gunston 0.1

Key stats

Possessions 366:331 – C Ward, S Thompson 29

Tackles 68:56 – S Thompson 7; J Sherman, P Dangerfield 6

Hit-outs 25:34 – S Jacobs 23; W Minson, B Hudson 12

Frees 29:18

#AFLCrowsEagles - Results and Report

As requested, rather than make this a larger tweet with a deck.ly compressed post, I thought I’d make this report a blog entry. But I’m going to make some comment about it; that I wouldn’t have done on Twitter.

Final results from this afternoon’s clash of the birds are not a surprise, but if you had taken the final result from the opening quarter, maybe they are. 6th played 14th at AAMI Stadium on a cool and cloudy afternoon; the punters were backing the Crows fairly publicly, with one punter’s $10K bet on them within the last half-hour before play, but the market said otherwise at the outset, with Betfair offering $2.26 for the Crows to win here.

Starting strongly, probably urged by that large bet, the score at the break was Adelaide 3.1 (19), West Coast 1.3 (9), with majors to Wright (2.1), Gunston (1.0) [Adelaide], and  Lecras (1.0).

But that was it for the Crows for that half: the Weagles jumped out of the gates for the second stanza with five unanswered goals to two points. At the main break, the visitors had a commanding lead: Adelaide 3.3 (21), West Coast 8.7 (55).

And the shoe was firmly on the other foot for the third quarter, with the visitors stepping up to the plate for the last in this see-saw event. At ¾-time the locals had scored 5.2 to 1.3, but the visitors increased their lead with another 6.6 to 2.2 by the final siren.

Scores

Adelaide Crows       3.1   3.3   8.5   10.7  (67)

West Coast Eagles  1.3   8.7   9.10   15.16  (106)

Scorers for the locals

Richard Douglas & Matthew Wright, 2.1

Rory Sloane & Jack Gunston, 2.0

Bernie Vince & Patrick Dangerfield, 1.0

Chris Knights, 0.3

Nathan Van Berlo, 0.1

Scorers for the visitors

Mark Lecras, 5.2

Mark Nicoski, 3.1

Matthew Rosa, 2.1

Joshua Kennedy, 1.2

Nicholas Naitanui, 1.1

Luke Shuey, Matthew Priddis, & Dean Cox, 1.0

Quinten Lynch, 0.2

Scott Selwood & Brad Ebert, 0.1

Next week, Adelaide (now 14th) have the Bulldogs at Etihad on Friday night #AFLDogsCrows, and the Eagles (now 5th) have another gimme: this one at home with the so-called Power on Sunday arv #AFLEaglesPower.