Round 3 Rewound

Rico’s Roughnecks (1806) vs Puttanesca Chiefs (1727)

This was billed as game of the round. Two unbeaten heavy-weights going at it. A preliminary final rematch. Adam had the edge from about the time the umpire blew his whistle for the Port-Brisbane game. That edge is well-encapsulated by this table that compares the two ruckmen.

	Kicks	Handballs	Marks	Hit-Outs	Tackles	Frees For	Frees Against	Overall Score
Stef Martin	16	14	7	49	7	6	1	177
Brodie Grundy	11	14	6	32	8	4	2	141

Grundy had a huge day in the ruck with 25 possessions and 32 hit-outs en route to 141. But Stef was even better with 30 possessions and 49 hit-outs in a scarcely believable 177. Wowee! Lachie Hunter decided to have a great day to deny Grundy even the two votes. Talk about rubbing it in.

“How come Adam didn’t win by more?” you may ask. Two 140s is massive. Yes, dear reader. But George Hewett played 93% game-time for 19 points. Talk about positively pedestrian. Assuming the game went for 120 minutes (a standard length), that’s 0.17 points per minute.

Needless to say, there are still concerns at Roughnecks HQ. The Burton bubble has burst, the Ablett hamstring has pinged and the Taranto rampage was exaggerated. If Nathan is the best 0-3 team in recent memory, then dare I say Adam is the least impressive 3-0 team in recent memory. However, at 3-0, he’s getting the job done and having beaten the premiers, I’m sure the cordial tastes good in the changerooms.

Not too much to worry about for the Chiefs, although it was really annoying for Hodge to lose against his old side. Hodge has been traded at the end of every season and so might want to put a request in to his preferred destination now.

The Love Sparkles (1755) vs Solomon’s Soldiers (1406)

For the first time in three years, the Love Sparkles have had a win. The rebranding hasn’t brought much success yet, but a win on the board is precious. Especially when the Adelaide based coach and the Te Puke based coach were together in Perth over the weekend.

Good news for the Sparkles with Murphy (139), Ward (108), Robinson (110) and Hogan (104) all tonning up. However, the were a few oddities in the line-up

Jeremy McGovern only took two marks
Rhys Mathieson didn’t take any
Todd Goldstein only had 15 hit-outs
Jamie Cripps kicked 0 goals

But the win is a good one for the Love Sparkles, simply because it was a win. They will also take the 3, 2, 1 in the Dangergawn because Alex’s team didn’t have a single ton. Ouch! Lachie Neale was in the 70s at half-time and still couldn’t ton up. Some weeks are promising for Solomon’s Soldiers, but this was one of those terrible, terrible incidents. The average player score was 64. Ugh!

The top five vote getters in the Solomon’s Soldiers vote count were

Christian Petracca 98
Lachie Neale 93
Patrick Cripps 89
Jack Martin 84
Riley Bonner 83

When your fifth highest score is 83, you are in trouble.

Defenestrators (1926) vs The Bailout Plan (1801)

Some things never change (like the Defenestrators awesome regular season success). Some things do (like the Bailout Plan fielding a whole squad and actually achieving something decent).

Paul’s team is just brutal. There were seven centurions, which caused lots of pain. But the number one causer of pain (for opposition) is Tom Mitchell, who has backed up his 156 with 137 and 148. It is hard to look at those numbers and then say “Paul is not invincible”. Both Nat Fyfe (144) and Seb Ross (132) played really well for the opposition, but still were denied the three votes from Tom Mitchell.

Paul’s team is so good that he still managed 1900 even when Aaron Hall scored 14 from 78% game time. That’s 0.14 points per minute – even worse than George Hewett. And yet the Defenestrators continue to inflict pain on the competition. Will they finally lose against the other undefeated team the Roughnecks? I highly doubt it, but I suppose you never know.

Luke should be proud of his team. Half of the coaches couldn’t get to 1800, so he is actually unlucky to walk away with the L. But having 22 in the team certainly helped, as did numerous tons – there were 5 representatives from his team in Team of the Week. And others are building into the season nicely, like Will Hoskin-Elliot, Richie Douglas and Callum Sinclair (surprisingly astute drafting Luke, kudos). There is certainly enough hope for a win or two this season and the possibility of avoiding the spoon is not just a pipe dream. Sheesh, I would’ve hated to verse Luke this week.

Shire Scourers (1879) vs Such is ‘Fyfe’ (1784)

A solid win for the Shire Scourers, but it did not always seem that way. There was a stage where Nathan’s team had three hundreds from three games and was projected to triumph. But in the end, Nelson’s eight hundreds was too much.

Having played Nelson last week, I certainly saw improvement in some of his players. You could say major improvement. How about…

Player	Last Week	This Week
Ed Langdon	62	111
Sam Menegola	50	120
Lachie Weller	36	79

Things are going pretty well for the green-and-gold kiwis. Their percentage is the best in the league, they have multiple guns, they had 5 reps in the Team of the Week this week. Even an early injury to Marchbank and Yeo playing as a key defender for most of the game didn’t hurt too much (in the end – I’m sure it hurt at the time).

Nathan is trekking along ok. He wasn’t embarrassed, but he just pulled up too short. The bottom end of the forwards and backs just scored too low to help. You feel like a win is just around the corner…although the author hopes it’s not just around the next corner.

MaherShalalHashBaz (1556) vs Redshins (1806)

Hmmmm. About that…

So Chris did pretty well. He would’ve beaten half the comp had he played them this week (and would’ve tied with Adam).

Chris had four centuries and three nineties. Nothing to knock. I am glad I talked him up last week – hopefully it reduces the shame of losing to him. Just like the “Disinterested” with whom Chris identifies, it looks like the Redshins are on track to make (and win) finals.

Now for the positives and negatives of my team:

Positives:

Bryce Gibbs was utterly amazing with 129 and 3 overdue Dangergawn votes. He leads the B&F and is a star
Max Gawn scored 114 despite getting no love from the umps (4 frees against)
Jack Steven scored 99 which is pretty good

Negatives

Jack Steven scored 99 – one more handball could’ve got me to three hundreds
Aaron Mullett has played for me twice and scored 49 and 31. He made a hundred when dropped. Arrgh!
Dylan Roberton (65) who has decided to stop competing (like St Kilda I seems)
Steven Motlop (62) who handballs more than kicks even though he is a good kick
Zach Merrett (60) who is averaging less than half of his 2017 average. I mean come on! I have a statue of Zach outside our training ground. And he gives me this!
Dayne Zorko (terrible) who like Zach has won a club B&F and been All Australian twice, but has decided to imitate a potato this year.
Dayne Beams who was a late out (like I needed that)
Wayne Milera (41) who played badly as a late in. Seriously kid, you had a chance to impress and you go out and do that!
Darcy MacPherson (61) who was on 23 at quarter time and then decided to call it a day. I know there are lots of fantastic things to see and do in Perth, but couldn’t you wait til the end of the game?
Dom Sheed (119) who I dropped and didn’t make midfield reserve. Why now?!? I guess it falls on my head, but that hurts.
Levi Casboult (90) would’ve been my best forward. That’s where my forwards are at
Farmers Union said they are reconsidering their sponsorship of the team as they only want to be associated with quality
This is my lowest ever score (byes excluded – although it is lower than two of my bye scores last year)
This is my fewest ever tons in a game – just two

Suffice to say, I am hurting. The team is copping punishment this week. With the exception of Bryce Gibbs and Max Gawn all of my players are going to be blind-folded and forced to listen to Brian Taylor and Kelli Underwood commentate the St Kilda vs North game from last week.